Status quo and innovation

One of the best management philosophies to put in place in any organization is the allowance for challenging existing business practices.  As a matter of fact, it should be incorporated into every job description.  There is a reason for doing things a certain way, but time and circumstances will change the foundation for those reasons, sometimes making them moot and irrelevant - not a very good standing for moving forward.

There's a story by Zig Ziglar that paints a caricature of status quo thinking; it's paraphrased here:

One Saturday morning a good ol' boy hunkered down in his favorite chair to spend the afternoon watching college football on TV.  His wife soon appeared and asked him if he could go to the store to pick up a ham.  "Sure, I'll go at halftime" he said, "I need some more beer anyway."  On his way out his wife reminded him, "Honey, make sure the butcher cuts off the ends of the ham."  "Yep, got it" and he was on his way.  When he got back he asked his wife, "Honey, I've always wondered, why do you have the butcher cut off the ends of the ham?"  "Because that's how my mama taught me."  He was still curious, "Well, why did your mama cut off the ends of the ham?"  "I don't know honey, but let's ask mama when she's over for dinner tonight."  That night as they finished dinner the wife asked her mother, "Mama, why did you cut off the ends of the ham?"  "Well, sugar, that's the way Nana taught me."  "Well, why did Nana do it?"  "I don't really know.  Let's give her a call and find out."  They called up Nana and asked her.  Nana replied, "Oh dear, my pan was too small for the whole ham, so I cut off the ends."

"Nana had her reason, what's yours?" 

This story is a perfect example of status quo thinking and not challenging the foundation of why something is done a particular way.  You can probably think of dozens of instances in your organization where the status quo doesn't make sense, but has never been challenged.  How do we move beyond the current state when we can't get past the status quo?

The only way to move forward is to constantly challenge the current state of affairs.  This isn't to say that we should purposely mess up a perfectly good brand or change just to change, but it is to say that we should always look for new ways of doing things.  By new, we mean effective and up to date.  

 

For example, before spreadsheets were commonplace, cost accounting was very departmentalized, done by the "green eye shade" people with calculators running overtime against pages and pages of ledgers.  Information was fed manually or through mainframe systems that produced data which couldn't be ported to any useful application.  The information was extracted manually and formulated by the cost analysts and accountants.  Spreadsheets changed everything.  Now data could be manipulated in almost any fashion so desired by the consumers of the information.  Data could be presented in ways that made sense to non-accountants and the data could be ported to and from relational databases with ease.  From this came integrated financial systems that pulled information from every quarter and worked seamlessly with other enterprise applications.  Financial data was no longer the domain of the "green eye shade" people, it belonged to everyone.  Data was at everybody's fingertips and could be used however they needed it to be used.  Spreadsheets, in essence, "democratized" data - there was no reason to stick with the old systems.

Challenging the status quo comes with its own challenges as does innovation.  People will resist innovation for a variety of reasons.  It may be that they don't understand the rationale behind the need for change, they may have a political stake that they don't want uprooted, or they are afraid of the unknown.  In order for innovation to become a norm, a culture of change must be present.  A manager must instill a mindset that innovation will be rewarded; it needs to become part of the formal goal setting and review process in addition to the compensation structure.  Individual and team goals must reflect continuous improvement through innovation and change.  If the goals reflect this, then the work itself will become a conduit for change.
                       

Risk is inherent to change and innovation.  A culture of change goes hand in hand with a culture that accepts risk.  Again, this is not a blind risk, but an environment where calculated risks are normal and will be rewarded.