There’s quite a bit of fear in the economy today. But that can be seen either as an advantage or a disadvantage for innovation. In some ways, it’s both.
Fear pushes companies to try new ideas and new approaches. As one leader of a small business recently told me, “We would be out of business three years ago if we hadn’t innovated.” Most innovators I talk with list fear as a source of strength. If you are losing customers, if money is scarce, and there is no other choice; you have to innovate.
At the same time, more than lack of capital, lack of good ideas, or lack of economic imperative; fear of change can be the most stubborn impediment to innovation.
According to David Johnson, CIO of Jones Lang LaSalle, “Middle managers think Innovation is such a big word. Innovation is too scary.” Employees have their fill of change right now, and innovation is just one more demand for change.
And fear can cripple innovation. Different people react differently to an environment that challenges their existence, and many will deny a new reality, resist change, and sometimes become paralyzed. As Tony Reynes, partner in a recruiting firm that is re-writing their entire business model, put it, “Some people just freeze up but I think a successful innovator says, “Okay, I’ve got to do something different.” Everyone is facing the same fear and everyone has the same opportunities. The innovators act on the new environment.”
Tracy Williams, a leader in agricultural ventures and former military officer, pointed out that the responsibility of a leader is to create a feeling of safety, to help those who are paralyzed take action. As he put it, “Look, part of my job is keeping my people safe from the people on top. Go make a mistake. As long as you haven’t done anything illegal, as long as it makes business sense, as long as you tell me when things go wrong, I can get you out of anything you get into. So let’s go do something.”
Another, more Machiavellian approach may be to avoid telling everyone that they are innovating. With some projects, it is possible 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 to avoid unduly frightening the people whose work lives will change some innovators will use a Trojan Horse approach.
The Trojan Horse approach presents something new as if it were merely a slightly modified version of something old. The iPod, for example, was really just a digital version of a Walkman. A personal computer could be seen as just a typewriter with a screen. A car as a horseless carriage. Televisions, at first, were perceived as radios with pictures. Look at most successful innovations, and likely you will also find an analogue to an older technology or process 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. Few people buying a computer in 1990 were 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 David Johnson, “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.”
Jonathan Rutman of CB Richard Ellis uses a three ring binder to make fear of innovation less of an issue, “Every step of the process will go into this binder, every study, every point of data, and every decision we make will be captured on paper and put into your binder. Fear can be managed if you package it.”
But if you don’t use a Trojan Horse, it is important to acknowledge fear upfront, to be honest about what the real dangers, the real risks of any new project might be. Instead of pretending that there is no danger, there is a real need for innovators and leaders to be able to say, “This is difficult. It could fail. Let’s see what we can do to make it succeed.”
Brian Marshall, a consultant on innovative sales strategies, offered a different way to think about fear that could help explain why some are able to innovate now and others cannot. “Fear is nothing more than pain that hasn’t happened yet…the most compelling emotional motivator is pain – more so than fear.” The immediate pain of changing something right now will always trump the fear of something that might happen.
An example Brian used was the US auto industry, “The unions are now suddenly the most innovative group of people you will ever meet – but it may be too late. They are now able to make substantial change because they are in tremendous pain. The fear they felt two years ago was not enough to overcome the immediate pain of change.”
“What is innovation? It is a direct threat to the status quo. So those who are a part of that status quo will kill innovation if they see it threatening how they do things now. When they start to feel real pain, then they become the champions of change and innovation.”
Brian continued, “Great leaders and drivers of change are those that can take the fear of the future and bring it into the pain of the present before it’s too late.”
Fear is a powerful motivator for innovation, but it must be controlled, acknowledged, and worked with to overcome the natural resistance to change.
