Principled Innovation LLC

Redesigning the other 75%

August 2nd, 2006

Right now, in the association community and perhaps in many organizations beyond it as well, the work of innovation is treated as an add-on, something else and something more to do on top of everything else that has to get done. Small wonder so many association leaders and professionals find it difficult to make innovation a priority. It’s because they haven’t yet decided that innovation is a priority.

I won’t try to make the case for innovation in this post. I’ve done it many times before and I’ll do it again in future posts. What I want to offer up for discussion tonite is my belief about how we crack the code of innovation in the association community. It is imperative we convince association leaders that all association jobs–staff and volunteer alike–be designed to allow the occupant to spend at least 25% of his/her time on the work of innovation. Once we have made that shift, the question then becomes how we redesign the other 75% of those jobs for maximum impact.

The only way to defeat the scarcity and constraint mindset of associations is to present a credible alternative for a new default position: scarcity and constraint doesn’t have to be our long-term reality, i.e., we can grow out of it, but only if pursue innovation consistently. Smart associations can and should use their lack of everything as motivation to make something out of nothing. In this way, we need to think more like successful start-up companies. No start-up with which I am familiar begins from the premise, “We’re going to have insufficient staff and resources forever.” The whole point of starting up a company is to build something great, something exciting that has an enduring impact on people, and something that can grow and become successful in a sustainable way. Innovation makes that possible, and there is absolutely nothing preventing us from pursuing that path as well, except perhaps our own timidity in the face of risk.

And on the subject of risk, let me suggest that pursuing innovation as an add-on function rather than a designed choice actually increases the risk of the endeavor. Harried, distracted and passionless staff and volunteers are bound to get more wrong than a group of motivated, focused and energetic contributors. And while making mistakes is a part of innovation, there is a critical difference between “learnful” failure and avoidable human error. We need the former, but not the latter.

There is much more to say, but it is getting late. I’ll continue posting on this topic going forward. As always, your views, both positive and negative, are deeply appreciated.

Entry Filed under: Principled Innovation Blog, What's New?, Social Media, Innovation, Associations, Extreme Makeover, The Association Innovator, Simplicity