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February 13, 2006
From Innovation to Excogitation
Virtually every organization prides itself on unique cultural attributes. And fortunately, they all have them.
Why then, with more than 800,000 words in modern English to choose from, do so many organizations insist on using the same small list of adjectives to describe themselves--words like "passion," "excellence," "innovation," "inspiration," and so on?
More to the point, if they are all actually different--and again, they are--what is the effect of this imprecise language?
It makes intuitive sense to imagine that hanging the organization's identity on imprecise language could be a bad thing. My own experience makes it quite clear that organizations will happily adopt more precise, relevant language when presented with it. But I've recently had the opportunity to touch this topic on a smaller, more personal scale. A client I admire for her ability to get things done within her organization recently confided to me that she wasn't being recognized for her success. I won't go in to the details here, but suffice it to say that while lack of recognition isn't an uncommon state of affairs, in this case it seemed very odd.
In my experience, she had had success in getting large projects funded and seemed quite adept at developing internal alignment up to and including her organization's top levels of executive leadership. So as far as I can tell, none of the usual red flags are at play. She has great, positive energy, thinks carefully and strategically about potential stakeholder agendas, demonstrates a strong focus on results and measurement and clearly aligns her objectives with the objectives of the business. And so on. All the right stuff, all the right behaviors, but none of the rewards.
So what's wrong?
I'm not entirely sure, but I have a theory. I think she may believe that her corporate culture supports and rewards innovation. And once upon a time, it did. But today, I no longer think it does.
Innovation is one of the defining elements of entrepreneurial environments, but as organizations age, grow and mature, the risks of innovation increase. (This makes sense with a moment's thought. When your margins are high and you can afford to have every product "hand-made by PhDs," it's not in your best interest to stifle innovation for the sake of efficiency. But when your profit margins are the product of efficiency--of everyone doing the same thing the same way--innovation becomes a risk to margins.)
So while there will always be parts of the business in which innovation adds value, an organization may move away from a culture of innovation to something else without quite knowing it or communicating it.
I believe that has happened at my client's organization. Not quite a startup in its sector, this organization experienced explosive growth during the late 90s, "did what it had to do to make things work," but spent the last few years developing the strong systems, processes, training, etc. required to deliver the same level of service at every point of service.
While the behavior being rewarded is the result of innovation, it is no longer innovation, but "post-innovation" that is rewarded. (Yes, there's a word for that. Several, in fact. More about that in a minute.)
Problem is, nobody ever sent the "we've changed" memo. And as a result, strong contributors like my client may find themselves acting in perfect alignment with the organization's vision and values, but still failing to succeed and, in some cases, succeeding at failing.
Fortunately for the organization, the remedy is simple. All it requires is keeping a finger on the pulse of the corporate culture and adjusting the words it uses to describe it as the culture changes. In the case of my client's organization, a word like excogitation, which means "thinking something out with care to arrive at a complete understanding of it" might be a more accurate description of the dominant paradigm today.
For individual contributors, however, beyond observing that "much can slip 'twixt cup and lip" (or more prosaically, there's often a gap between what's said and what's intended) the cure isn't so simple. It requires carefully watching what's said, comparing it to what's rewarded, seeing where the gaps are, and, with luck, not falling into them.
Had my client done this she wouldn't have accomplished as much as she has, but her compensation might well have been a substantial promotion, a bump in pay--and most importantly, perhaps the ability to sponsor the work she must rely on others to sponsor today.(Yes, I know. No self-respecting organization will spend time or money on corporate identity guides describing "our unique passion for excogitation." More's the pity. But that still leaves 799,999 other perfectly fine words to choose from.)
Posted by davidkippen at February 13, 2006 01:56 AM