Get over the wall: the innovator's attitude

Last week I spent a few days running a leadership course. The major focus was on paradigms people were viewing the world through. Why? Because in order to make big changes in behavior, paradigms need to be shifted. With the group, we examined participants’ lenses or attitudes and considered how they affect actions and consequently the outcomes we experience.

One of the activities in the week was to get the group over a 12-foot wall. It was fascinating to see how different people dealt with the challenge. One student held his hands like a stirrup and began tossing the students to the top of the wall. Some students were even climbing on the shoulders of their peers to get greater heights. No-one stepped in to stop them because everyone was having such fun and relishing the challenge.

In contrast, other groups I’ve worked with kept to the perceived rules, showed a much more conservative approach to the challenge and didn’t come close to achieving the great heights of this group. Some onlookers were worried about injury to body and self-respect and steered students away from attempts to solve the challenge.

I’ve worked with organizations (including schools) who have set up structures, teams, departments or processes to facilitate innovation. However, the overlooked and most potent tool is our paradigms; the ways we view the world. No time was spent shifting paradigms and thus little sustainable progress was made.

Do we view our work through a risk-averse, fear-of-mistake, I-need-to-know-the outcome mentality? Or does our attitude embrace a spirit of adventure, boldness, and daring? Here are some key understandings about innovation that I gleaned from the ‘wall challenge’.

1.     There is a boldness of spirit in leaders. This energy flows down through the organization. Their paradigm is, “I embrace challenges and see failure as a learning opportunity not a setback”. This drives the group’s behavior. They feel an energy and have a desire to succeed regardless of the risks needed to be overcome.

2.     It is difficult to be fast and flawless. The students made mistakes. They clattered against the wall, fell over and couldn’t always get over the wall. They were seldom certain of their plan would work. But they tried, experimented and took risks. They had a time limit so had to work quickly and relentlessly. The paradigm they had was, “I can persist in the face of setbacks.”

3.     Innovative organizations accept the risk and the adventure of not knowing until they give it a go. But we tend to focus on method and process to get things exactly right. Innovation requires daring. Being overly concerned with making mistakes or having everything perfect will inhibit progress. This is not about throwing caution to the wind. It’s about being brave enough to innovate when we don’t know exactly how things will turn out and then being open to feedback and agile enough to make ongoing improvements. The problem with innovation is that we don’t exactly know how it will turn out. That’s why it’s innovation. It is simply too different from anyone’s experience for them to know 100% whether a customer will appreciate it or not. The leadership paradigm is, “I’ll know when I have a go!”

Innovation is an attitude. Great leaders are willing to risk being thrown into the wall, have a scratch or bruise or maybe be a little embarrassed. Those who are not will escape the bumps and bruises as they stick to what they know works. They may not leap as far and as high though.

photo: http://munfitnessblog.com/what-workout-to-do-before-you-learn-parkour/

Breaking down barriers to change

What are the biggest barriers to change? People. As many supporters of change there are, you will find the resistors who do not want to embrace the new and unknown. They scupper any efforts to improve; sometimes unknowingly, sometimes intentionally. This risk-averse behavior is an internal threat. It puts the entire organization in a situation where change is not embraced and consequently real progress is not made. Thus the organization becomes susceptible to irrelevance.

Who are these people who keep change from happening and how can we lead them?

Fixed mindset: Carol Dweck’s research shines a light on fixed and growth mindsets. The fixed mindset person has the view that intelligence is static which leads to a desire to look smart and therefore they have the tendency to avoid challenges. But change is generally a challenge. Enter growth mindset people who believe intelligence can be developed. A new situation may be challenging but because they operate in a growth paradigm they have a desire to learn. Their tendency is to embrace rather than avoid challenge and change. They are genuinely committed to growth and are willing to put the time and effort into it. Simply by creating the awareness of the qualities of a fixed and growth mindset can cause a shift in thought towards a growth mindset. People become more aware of their thoughts, words and reactions.

Blame game: Typically linked to a fixed mindset, the people who play the ‘blame game’ can derail change. They tend to be fearful and have a limited as opposed to an abundance mentality. They avoid taking ownership and tend to blame others for poor results and failed initiatives. The blame gamers get defensive and give up quickly. It is difficult to pin them down as they push the blame off themselves on to others, the market, the students, and even the weather. We need to be alert to these people. We want to build our teams with people who look for opportunities, say “yes!” to challenges and look for feedback even if it may hurt a little. Leaders in this situation call on the team to watch each other’s language and ensure they hold each other accountable to using the words such as, “Yes and…” Simple yet powerful words that open the door to opportunity.

The Elephants:  These are not spoken about unless it is at the water cooler, behind closed doors in whispers or in hallways after meetings. Not addressing the elephants means that key change-blocking issues are not dealt with and remain as blockers. Even more challenging is an organization that claims to have a culture of open dialogue, however has issues that are ‘off the table’. Powerful individuals and teams who embrace change are comfortable in talking about the tricky things. They see challenging conversations as an opportunity to move forward. They take conflict as a positive step to promote true change. I know of a leader who put a box of Kleenex in the middle of the room alongside a toy pink elephant. On the elephant were sticky notes of all the topics that were unspoken issues. The Kleenex was for the tears that would come through the hard conversations to follow.

Leaders cannot ignore the blockers to change. Their organization depends on their ability to overcome these challenges so that progress can be made. And, progress is critical to survival.

Picture source: http://www.wespath.org/center-for-health/resources/overcoming-barriers-to-change/

What role does conviction play in innovation?

e What? ePap.

You find stories of innovation in the most unlikely of places.

A few years ago I was doing some consulting work for an educational institute. It looked after 60 primary schools in northern rural parts of South Africa. Travelling to several schools, I was struck by how healthy the children looked in spite of the poverty that surrounded them. My wife and I travel yearly to South Africa with the Simunye Project, a not-for-profit we founded. We take groups of young volunteers to work in underprivileged communities where children in particular are malnourished. Seeing healthier looking children in spite of the poverty surrounding them was fascinating. I was told that the children were being fed ‘e’Pap; a fortified nutrient rich food. I was sold. I contacted the makers of ‘e’Pap and had them send dozens of bags to those communities the Simunye Project supported.

A year later, when working in these communities, I was struck again by the benefits of ‘e’Pap. I heard stories of how children with HIV/Aids and TB were able to fight off opportunistic infections and absorb strong medications. Carers told me stories of young children becoming healthy literally after only a couple of months on the ‘e’Pap diet.

At a child care centre in a rural region I needed to ensure that the carers were using the food to its full benefits. Basil Kransdorff, the inventor of ‘e’Pap was happy to take the call. With the carers sitting next to me (and the African sun showing us no mercy) we worked out a clear plan to ensure maximum benefits to the children. I was inspired by his passion, his sense of purpose, and his ‘unfettered conviction’. No question was too dumb and he was intent on ensuring we knew precisely how to administer the food.

This ‘unfettered conviction’ I would argue is a mental trait that has enabled Kransdorff to have the enormous impact on the health of thousands of people across 15 countries. It allows him to continue challenging the existing conventional wisdom around nutrition and changing the realm of food production and nutrient-replete food supplements. 

Let’s throw Steve Jobs and Elon Musk into the picture. They both had the ability, like Kransdorff, to imagine a better or alternative future. They were able to form a picture of possibilities, break it down, reshuffle and then imagine an alternative. Then came the intentional act of making that dream a reality. The more challenging the problem or unlikely the possibility, the greater the level of determination is required. Chris Anderson of TED says, “Conviction comes about when the possible future that you see aligns with a deeply held view of how the world should be. The greater clarity you have of a possible future and the more passionate your view is of the desirability of that future, the greater your conviction will be.”(2)

The products these leaders have imagined have often at times been too daunting for others. However, their laser-like clarity of vision and purpose and determination to succeed meant that despite the obstacles and failed attempts, they continued.

What fuels the desire to keep going? Their core beliefs of what a better future looks like and the ability to do something they loved. Jobs saw a chance to inspire a generation of outside the box thinkers and to prove the beauty of technology. Musk is ‘certain that humanity must move to sustainable energy and that it must find a path to expand beyond Earth.’ He saw a path to get there and was willing to gamble everything on his conviction. Kransdorff says, “If there is anything I have learned to hate with a passion it is poverty and human suffering….It is a crime against humanity.” He believes he can address the critical problem of malnutrition through nutrient rich diets and a new way of seeing food production. And he is, globally!

Conviction doesn’t mean certainty but it does breed resilience or grit. Musk thought his ventures into space would most likely result in failure (but he held to his worldview that becoming a multi-planetary species is crucial to our survival and that Tesla provides a pathway to a sustainable future). Kransdorff continues to face the challenges of cultural norms, big agri-business, international pharmaceutical companies and governments who are at the whim of industrial giants who place politics and business above the well being of their people. Jobs was fired, had engineers constantly pushing back at him, record companies after his blood, and launched product failures.

The qualities these men share are similar in many ways and we have much to learn from them if we are to make a big impact:

1. Conviction (vision, purpose and determination) is a key mindset of an innovator.

2. Conviction breeds resilience.

3. Work for an idea that is bigger than you.

4.  Don’t limit yourself by what has gone before.

5. Play with radical ideas. 

6. Find something huge that you really believe in and that you love. 

7. What you do must be aligned with your life’s mission and purpose.

And, in terms of our schools, we owe it to the children to have an unwavering commitment to ensure their education is relevant to today’s world and that we have the courage to push the limits of the status quo.

By Peter Dry, 2016

1.     https://www.ashoka.org/fellow/basil-kransdorff

2.     http://money.cnn.com/2013/11/21/leadership/steve-jobs-elon-musk.pr.fortune/