Time of the Gamechanger – Intro
Reading time: approx. 20 min.Time of the GamechangerCreative thinkers have never been more important than today.
More streamlined structures, tried-and-tested routines, established processes: Many companies have invested heavily in improving efficiency over the past few years. Organizations have been designed to run smoothly and eliminate all disruptive factors. While these approaches have enabled them to make huge gains in efficiency, these organizations have inevitably lost something extremely valuable along the way: the space for experimentation and the thrill that comes from trying new things. This loss was already reflected in figures well before #covid19. According to a survey conducted by the KfW SME Panel, many German SMEs are becoming more cautious: Between 2004 and 2006, 43 per cent of 15,000 companies surveyed by KfW launched new products and services. Ten years later, this percentage dropped dramatically to 22 per cent. The Corona crisis could now offer an opportunity to kick-start a long overdue renewal for some organizations.
“At many companies, efforts to increase efficiency have resulted in overstructuring and structural fatigue,” says Barbara Heitger, a systemic management consultant who works with various SMEs of different sizes. “In perfectly structured organizations, there’s little room for the duplication of work and breathing space that innovation needs to flourish.” Many organizations are now trying to create “third spaces” again, albeit temporarily, where experimentation is encouraged and familiar patterns are disrupted to inspire change. Let’s take a closer look at some of these disruptors and attempt to answer the question: What qualities do they need to have to really make a difference at a company?
Disruptor Model 1 – Spark an Interest in Experimentation
Disruptor Model 1 – Spark an Interest in Experimentation
“A person with a new idea is a crankuntil the idea succeeds.” – Mark Twain
“Fab labs” (short for fabrication laboratories) or “maker spaces” are workshops that encourage free experimentation. The aim is for employees to not only come up with ideas for new products, but also to discover their creative skills and try out new ways of working together.
“Fab labs” (short for fabrication laboratories) or “maker spaces” are workshops that encourage free experimentation. The aim is for employees to not only come up with ideas for new products, but also to discover their creative skills and try out new ways of working together.
Who uses it?Devised in 2002 at the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the fab lab movement has since become a global campaign that aims to change the way people work together and help them generate completely new ideas in the process. Today there are several hundred fab labs and maker spaces around the world, most of which are publicly owned. They are equipped with tools and 3D printers to enable users to try out new ideas for products and make prototypes. Siemens donated equipment to the FabLab Nürnberg, while prosthetics manufacturer Otto Bock has helped out with a similar operation in Berlin. The Hager Group, an electrical engineering company, has even installed a fully equipped fab lab called “Garden” at its French headquarters to enable collaboration between colleagues from a range of different departments who would not normally work together. The “Garden” provides them with expert support plus everything they need to generate, produce and present product concepts and solutions – from a 3D printer to a small painting booth and a photo studio.
The effect:“The company is teeming with creativity,” says Johann Michel, who manages the fab lab. “The Garden creates the perfect conditions for creativity to blossom. Staff learn how to develop their ideas through to the prototype stage and how to pitch them too.” However, it is difficult to measure how successful this approach really is.
Disruptor Model 2 – Inspire the Imagination
Disruptor Model 2 – Inspire the Imagination
“Out there in some garage is an entrepreneur who’s forging a bullet with your company’s name on it. You’ve got one option now – to shoot first. You’ve got to out innovate the innovators.” – Gary Hamel, innovation expert
The approach: Think outside the box! Philosophers use “strategy fiction” to elaborate corporate strategies. “Strategy fiction” is a kind of theoretical experimental laboratory in which companies simulate hypothetical strategies beyond the immediately obvious outcomes.
The approach: Think outside the box! Philosophers use “strategy fiction” to elaborate corporate strategies. “Strategy fiction” is a kind of theoretical experimental laboratory in which companies simulate hypothetical strategies beyond the immediately obvious outcomes.
Who uses it?Christopher Topp, a philosopher and strategist at Berlin-based strategy consultancy diffferent GmbH, works as a thought leader for clients such as German luxury car manufacturers and the local Wikimedia. “We explore the blank spaces on companies’ maps, the no-man’s land that corporate executives don’t normally have on their radar,” he says. “A lot of ideas seem absurd at first, but the realm of absurdity is exactly where the opportunities and potential lie to really make ourselves stand out from the competition. Almost anything that is conceivable is also feasible. And we reflect on feasibility using logical reasoning.” A “thought experiment” is usually set up in a small meeting with managers and then worked through over several weeks. For example, Topp’s work for the German Wikimedia board spanned half a dozen meetings over eight weeks, with each meeting lasting several hours. Topp maintains that, as a 2,500-year-old universal toolset, philosophy offers far more comprehensive insights and understanding than conventional scenario-based tools can.
The effect:“I’m familiar with a wide range of strategy development methods but I’ve never experienced anything as illuminating as this before,” says Abraham Taherivand, Executive Director at Wikimedia Deutschland. “Strategy fiction is a thought experiment that helps us think through seemingly unthinkable things in a structured way and also reach the distant, apparently inaccessible horizons of our field of business. Strategy fiction has enabled us at Wikimedia to access completely new spheres of thinking. And the crazy thing is, I’ve always come out of four-hour strategy fiction workshops with more energy than when I went in!”
Disruptor Model 3 – Revive the Entrepreneurial Spirit
Disruptor Model 3 – Revive the Entrepreneurial Spirit
“You need time and space to be creative. You have to work inefficiently. Efficiency kills creativity.” – Kevin Kelly, philosopher of technology
The approach: Established companies are using internal start-ups to retrieve some of the founding spirit that large organizations have often lost, in the hope that these “intrapreneurs” will also help transform the parent company to a certain extent in the process.
The approach: Established companies are using internal start-ups to retrieve some of the founding spirit that large organizations have often lost, in the hope that these “intrapreneurs” will also help transform the parent company to a certain extent in the process.
Who uses it?Lots of companies have corporate start-ups, especially larger ones – from specialty chemicals manufacturer Evonik to the Wagner Group (the market leader for surface coating technology) in the Swabian town of Markdorf. Seven years ago, the latter came up with the idea for a new kind of hand-held cosmetic spray device that can be used to ensure even application of products like suntan lotion. As a medium-sized company that otherwise works with customers in trade and industry, this market segment was completely unknown to the Wagner Group at the time. Instead of outsourcing its innovation, the company decided to launch it through its own start-up. IONIQ Skincare GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Wagner Group, has since been developing the technology and brand strategy for the new product itself. The office for IONIQ’s current team of 14 is deliberately located in the middle of the Wagner Group’s headquarters rather than the approach favored by companies to date of setting up an external corporate incubator. This makes it easier for those working on the technology project to collaborate with Wagner product developers, the Human Resources department and other Wagner departments that support the start-up; the company’s primary goal, however, is for the start-up to have a positive knock-on effect on the vast expanse that constitutes the “rest” of the company via these interactions.
The effect:“IONIQ is the best example of the creativity that we want to harness at the Wagner Group,” says Guido Bergman, CEO of the Wagner Group, adding that the intention of the corporate venture project is to modernize the traditional company – which is 100 times larger than the start-up – from within. Although the different corporate cultures in the start-up and the parent company collide on a regular basis, he maintains that the adventure has already paid off: Taking inspiration from IONIQ, numerous Wagner employees have developed and presented their own ideas for products. And thanks to its bold in-house creation, the parent company is now acquiring talented individuals who never would have been interested in working for Wagner before. Bergman concludes: “Our internal start-up has changed our company completely.”
Disrupter Model 4 – Launch Expeditions
Disrupter Model 4 – Launch Expeditions
“Most companies ultimately fail because they do one thing very well but they don’t think of the next thing.” – Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google
The approach: Instead of bringing innovators in, the company (or parts of it) embarks on an expedition to find successful innovators and founders
The approach: Instead of bringing innovators in, the company (or parts of it) embarks on an expedition to find successful innovators and founders
Who uses it?In 2013, a highly respected expedition squad broke away from Springer Verlag, a publishing company in the west of Berlin, and set off for the West Coast of the United States. Kai Diekmann, then Editor-in-Chief of the German newspaper Bild, moved to Silicon Valley for a year with two other managers from Springer Verlag, where they lived in twin rooms and essentially went back to being interns. Their mission was to carry out a kind of research project to understand the culture of the digital start-up scene, to gather ideas for new business models and to find out what their company could learn from its US counterparts. An exemplary approach according to business consultant Barbara Heitger: “If a company’s managers really want to try something new, they should be open to giving it a go themselves. At the same time, managers who dare to do real experiments prove that ‘new’ is more than just a buzzword to them.”
The effect:Difficult to quantify. At Axel Springer, once a publishing house solely for printed media, digital business now accounts for 80 per cent of its pretax profit. The publisher’s systematic digital strategy seems to be paying off.
Epilog – What Does Systematic Different Thinking And Rethinking really Mean?
Epilog – What Does Systematic Different Thinking And Rethinking really Mean?Anyone wanting to break established routines at a company and create space for experimentation must prepare the ground thoroughly first. Without an internal sounding board, external drivers are unlikely to have any effect. Furthermore, willingness to change should ideally start at the top of the company. Otherwise there is a huge risk that the efforts of creative thinkers will remain cosmetic and changes will be merely superficial. After all, humankind’s ability to persevere is almost as pronounced as its preference for familiarity and routine. As legendary General Motors development engineer Charles Kettering once said: “People are very open-minded about new things – as long as they’re exactly like the old ones.”
However, sometimes things change in a very short time. Entrepreneurship means reacting wisely to unforeseen situations. Last but not least, #covid19 teaches us that companies can go from being an automotive supplier to a respirator manufacturer, from a cosmetics manufacturer to a disinfectant producer. The survival of companies is directly related to their innovation ability. And sometimes it even saves the lives and health of many others.
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Harald Willenbrock, a Hamburg-based copywriter and author, is a member of the brand eins editorial team, a co-founder and co-managing editor of outdoor magazine WALDEN, an author at GEO, A&W, NZZ-Folio, and others, as well as a corporate copywriter for brands such as BMW, Duravit, Porsche, and COR.
DIGRESSION 1 – How exactly do we learn?
DIGRESSION 1 – How exactly do we learn? To understand why some creative approaches prove fruitless while others get employees’ juices flowing, it is important to understand how human beings think and learn in the first place. Professor Olaf-Axel Burow, a creativity researcher and organizational consultant at the University of Kassel, is attempting to answer this very question.
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Professor Burow, you’ve spent decades not only conducting research into learning and creativity, but trying to help companies act on your findings too. Why is it so difficult to stay creative and innovative long term?
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How can this succeed?
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How can external drivers help?
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What can we do to ensure that these drivers have a lasting effect?
DIGRESSION 2 – How can we ensure that disruptive factors really do lead to sustainable change in an organization?
DIGRESSION 2 – How can we ensure that disruptive factors really do lead to sustainable change in an organization? Barbara Heitger, a Vienna-based management consultant, advises many companies on issues such as agility and innovation. “External drivers are a great strategy for renewing a business,” she says, “but only if the necessary conditions are present in the company.” Otherwise the effect is akin to injecting Botox into ageing skin, she explains: You’re doing something about an obvious problem, but at the same time you know perfectly well that it won’t really help in the long term.
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What do external drivers need to succeed in effecting change Ms. Heitger?
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What else does the driver need to be capable of so that the change it effects isn’t just cosmetic?
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From fab labs to in-house start-ups, there’s now a wide range of tools that can potentially be used to unsettle organizations in a positive sense. Which are the most effective from your point of view?
DIGRESSION 3 – Why do so many drivers have no effect?
DIGRESSION 3 – Why do so many drivers have no effect?For rebels and disruptors to actually change a company, they need a corporate culture that really welcomes people like them. This is precisely what many companies lack, says Professor Christian Scholz, an expert in personnel management and organization management at Saarland University. And his opinion is well founded: When asked about the key characteristics of the “perfect employee”, German and Austrian managers list reliability, productivity and loyalty as the top qualities they look for, i.e. “troublemakers” are not exactly in demand.
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Professor Scholz, virtually every company board is asking for “disruption” and “constant questioning” from their organization at the moment. So why is this so difficult?
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Nevertheless, coworking spaces and fab labs inevitably inspire the workforce to have opposing views and unconventional ideas, don’t they?
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What are these?
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Time of the Gamechanger
“At many companies, efforts to increase efficiency have resulted in overstructuring and structural fatigue,”
Disruptor Model 1 – Spark an Interest in Experimentation
Who uses it?
The effect:
Disruptor Model 2 – Inspire the Imagination
Who uses it?
The effect:
Disruptor Model 3 – Revive the Entrepreneurial Spirit
Who uses it?
The effect:
Disrupter Model 4 – Launch Expeditions
Who uses it?
The effect:
Epilog – What Does Systematic Different Thinking And Rethinking really Mean?
Already discovered?
DIGRESSION 1 – How exactly do we learn?
Professor Burow, you’ve spent decades not only conducting research into learning and creativity, but trying to help companies act on your findings too. Why is it so difficult to stay creative and innovative long term?
How can this succeed?
How can external drivers help?
What can we do to ensure that these drivers have a lasting effect?
DIGRESSION 2 – How can we ensure that disruptive factors really do lead to sustainable change in an organization?
What do external drivers need to succeed in effecting change Ms. Heitger?
What else does the driver need to be capable of so that the change it effects isn’t just cosmetic?
From fab labs to in-house start-ups, there’s now a wide range of tools that can potentially be used to unsettle organizations in a positive sense. Which are the most effective from your point of view?
DIGRESSION 3 – Why do so many drivers have no effect?
Professor Scholz, virtually every company board is asking for “disruption” and “constant questioning” from their organization at the moment. So why is this so difficult?
Nevertheless, coworking spaces and fab labs inevitably inspire the workforce to have opposing views and unconventional ideas, don’t they?
What are these?