Innovation 101 (or, "Hoping you see the irony...")

Yesterday I was flying over Greenland, as you do, thinking about how one of those teeny weeny icebergs I could see from 40,000 feet managed to sink the Titanic nearly 100 years ago. Having just finished Gordon Torr's tour de force on Managing Creativity, I started ruminating about how things that seem so far away often seen so insignificant to most people, trivial and silly, while innovators get sneered at for even considering the possibilities for disruption.

It was at that precise moment I found the anti-creativity manifesto to accompany his oeuvre perfectly. From Michael via Euan comes the manifesto (pdf) that, if applied, really will kill your organisation, starving it of any creativity, innovation or chance of survival. Worryingly, I think we've all worked for organisations where at least one of these is the norm:

1. Insist on doing everything through "channels." Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
2. Make "speeches." Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your "points" by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate "patriotic" comments.
3. When possible, refer all matters to committees, for "further study and consideration." Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five.
4. Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
5. Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.
6. Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
7. Advocate "caution." Be "reasonable" and urge your fellow-conferees to be "reasonable" and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.
8. Be worried about the propriety of any decision — raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.

Copy, paste and add your own examples in the gaps. I wouldn't blog it, though. At the same time, I wouldn't say no to hearing about it in an email ;-)

Pic: Icebergs

Comments

[stewart cutler]

Hey... I work for that organisation!!!