What's Your Trojan Horse?

According to the Kauffman Foundation, 78% of Americans believe innovation is important to our economic health. Western governments are trying to figure out how to stimulate innovation. CEO's speak eloquently about innovation as they strategic advantage.

And yet...

Most companies seem to be doing anything but change. Instead, they go the standard and sometimes necessary playbook that calls for laying off workers, closing lines of business, selling assets, and praying that the economy will change before they run out of money. Changing a business model or process, creating a new product or new market is often overlooked as too expensive or risky ventures.

And yet...

According to Dane Strangler of the Kauffman Foundation, (“The Economic Future Just Happened” 6/9/09), over half of the current Fortune 500 companies began during a recession, bear market or both. If historical patterns continue, this isn’t a time to wait. New companies, new technologies, new processes and new markets are always found in times of challenge.

And yet...

According to an executive I interviewed recently, “Middle managers think Innovation is such a big word. Innovation is too scary.” Employees have their fill of change, Innovation now seems like yet another demand for change.

More than lack of capital, lack of good ideas, or lack of economic imperative; fear of change can often be the most stubborn impediment to innovation. This suggests that it would be a strategic mistake for an innovator to tell everyone that they are innovating.

A key strategic tool for innovation is to position the work in such a way that it does not seem to overtly threaten the status quo. Eventually, innovation always changes things – but it’s important that those affected by that change are not unduly concerned or frightened.

Consider using a Trojan Horse.

In Virgil's The Aeneid, the Greek armies, after 10 years of trying to defeat the city of Troy, built a huge statue of a horse out of wood. The Trojans took the seemingly harmless but massive statue into their city. At night, soldiers from the Greek army snuck out of their hiding places inside the statue in order to take over the city.

The Trojan Horse approach, then, is to present something new as if it were merely a slightly modified version of something old. The iPod is really just a digital version of a Walkman. A personal computer is really just a typewriter with a screen. A car is really just a horseless carriage. A television is really just a radio with pictures. Look at most successful innovations, and likely you will also find an analogue to an older technology that was used to get people comfortable with the idea.

At times, the Trojan Horse approach goes well beyond offering comfort. It can also cloak the true implications of an innovation - forcing us to change our lives without realizing it. No one buying a computer in 1990 was buying into the complete transformation of our work and personal lives that took place in the next 15 years. If companies knew that the Internet would force them to share more information than they had ever shared before, would they have started creating Internet sites?

According to one executive I spoke with recently, “anytime you are saying that you are innovating, you will get an initial buzz. But – as soon as everyone sees it as changing what they do, they become very opposed to it. So, when there is the slightest problem with developing a new innovation, everyone jumps to, “Aha, I told you this was never going to work! And the project gets killed.” Instead, try “…unveiling bits and pieces of it at a time. Emphasize how a certain function is made simpler, but avoid talking about any larger plans or potential for industry change.”

If you are going to innovate – and therefore subvert the existing state of things – be ready to ride inside the belly of a wooden horse.