Innovation, Intention, Planning and Execution
Blog: Form Follows Function
Convergence is an interesting thing. Greger Wiktrand and I have been trading posts back and forth on the subject of innovation for almost eighteen months now (forty posts in total). I’ve also been writing a lot on the concept of organizations as systems, (twenty-two posts over the last year, with some overlap with innovation). The need for architectural design (and make no mistake, social systems like organizations require as much architectural design over their lifetime as any software system) and the superiority, in my opinion, of intentional architecture versus accidental architecture are also themes of long standing on this site.
My last post, “Architecture Corner: Good at innovation – Seven Deadly Sins of IT”, linked to a YouTube video produced by and starring Greger and Casimir Artmann. It’s worth the watching, so I won’t give away the plot, but I will say that it demonstrates how these concepts interrelate.
Effectiveness requires reasoned intentional action. I’ve used this Tom Graves’ quote many times before, but it still applies: “things work better when they work together, on purpose”.
The word “purpose” is critical to that sentence. The difference between intentional rather than accidental activity is the difference between being goal-directed and flailing blindly (n.b. experimenting, done right, is the former, not the latter). An understanding of purpose can allow a goal to be reached, even when the initial route to that goal is closed off. Completing a required set of tasks lacks that flexibility. This appreciation of the utility of purpose-oriented direction over micro-management is an old one that the military periodically re-visits:
An understanding of the purpose aids the joint force in exercising disciplined initiative to facilitate the commander’s visualized end state. Moreover, the purpose itself not only drives why tasks must happen, but also how subordinate commanders choose to execute their assigned mission(s).
Purposes must be carefully crafted, nested, and organized not only to achieve unity of effort, but also the intended outcomes (selected tasks to execute, method of execution, and/or desired effects). They also must give subordinates the latitude to find better, innovative solutions to tactical and operational problems. Finally, the operational purpose must ultimately nest back to the strategic national interest in order to affect change in the human domain. Purposes for the subordinate operations must be well thought out, nested within the desired operational objectives, and be the correct purpose in order to achieve the desired operational end state. Therefore, it is incumbent upon commanders to develop purposes for subordinate operations first and subsequently build the tasks. The “why” trumps the “how” both in importance and in priority.
What to accomplish and why are more important than how to accomplish something. As the author of article above noted, communicating purpose “…enables subordinates to take advantage of emergent opportunities that arise by enabling shared understanding of the commander’s purpose and end state.” It should also force those providing direction to examine their rationale for what they’re asking for. “Why” is the most important question that can be asked. Activity that is not tailored to achieving a particular aim will be ineffective. This includes chasing the latest silver bullet. A recent article on International Business Times, “As a term of description, ‘digital’ is now an anachronism”, had this to say:
As a term of description, digital is an anachronism. It reflects an organisational mindset that views technological transformation itself as the aim. It’s a common mistake. At the height of the dotcom boom, suddenly everyone needed a website, but not everyone understood why.
Over the last few years, the drive to digitisation has intensified. Business models, brands, products and services, customer relationships and business processes are increasingly governed by digital elements such as data.
But much the same as building a website in 1999, it’s not a question of becoming “more digital”. It’s a question of what you want digital to do.
Confusing means and ends is both futile and expensive. No matter how many tools I buy, buying tools won’t make me a carpenter (though my bank balance will continue to shrink regardless of whether the purchase helped or not). Dropping tools and techniques into a culture that is not able or prepared to use them accomplishes nothing. Likewise, becoming more “digital” (or for that matter, more “agile”), will not help an organization if it’s heading in the wrong direction. Efficiency and effectiveness are two different things that may well not go hand in hand. Just as important to understand, efficiency must take a subordinate position to effectiveness. You cannot do the wrong thing efficiently enough to turn it into the right thing.
You need to understand what you want to do and what the constraints, if any, are. That understanding will allow you to figure out how you’re going to try to do it and determine why the tools and techniques will get you there or not. The alternative is delay (waiting for new instructions) caused by the bottleneck of over-centralized decision-making with a high probability of something getting lost in translation.
Work together purposefully so things work better.
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