‘Informality, Serendipity, Rule-breaking, Deviance, and Unconventionality:

Managing the Unmanageable Ingredients of Successful Innovation’

Dr. Steve Conway

University of Bath School of Management

CONSIDERING INFORMALITY AND SERENDIPITY IN INNOVATIVENESS

“Unfortunately, most innovation management practice appears to be predicated on the implicit assumption that we can beat the sloppiness out of the process if only we’d get the plans tidier and the teams better organized. The role of experiments and skunkworks, the zeal of champions…is denigrated as an aid fit for only those who aren’t smart enough to plan wisely.” (Peters, 1988)

SUCCESSFUL INNOVATION THROUGH ‘ACCIDENT’

Daguerreotype Portrait of Louis Daguerre (1844)

SUCCESSFUL INNOVATION THROUGH ‘DEVIANCE’

APPLE MAC

APPLE LISA

Graeme Obree (‘The Flying Scotsman’),

Hamar, Norway,1993

SUCCESSFUL INNOVATION

FROM ‘OUTSIDERS’

SUCCESSFUL INNOVATION THROUGH ‘INFORMALITY’

MRC 500 Microscope

SO WHAT?

What can we learn from these stories for

managing innovation?

SUCCESSFUL INNOVATION THROUGH CAPTURED ‘ACCIDENT’

3M Post-it Note

SUCCESSFUL INNOVATION THROUGH PLANNED ‘INFORMALITY’

LOCKHEED ‘Shooting Star’

A DIFFERENT SET OF QUESTIONS ARISE FROM THESE CASES…

1. How can managers encourage incidental learning and serendipity, as well as capture their benefits and insights?

2. How can managers encourage informality without creating chaos, and direct it to organisational goals?

3. Outsiders can be very innovative because of their separation from the mainstream, but how can managers organise to embrace rather than ignore or reject their contribution?

…THE ANSWER LARGELY LIES IN ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN

1. Recognizing and embracing the role of informal networks / informal organization

2. Recognizing and mimicking informality within ‘controlled’ environments – ‘Skunkworks’

3. Recognizing and setting the pre-conditions for encouraging and benefiting from serendipity and incidental learning

PRECONDITIONS FOR SERENDIPITY

temporal – that is, the importance of being in the ‘right place at the right time’.

analytical – the importance of purposeful searching, and active learning and analysis.

relational – this refers to unexpected discoveries that emerge from social connections and interactions.

(Fine and Deegan, 1996)

ENHANCING INFORMAL LEARNING

proactivity – an individual’s preparedness to take initiative.

critical reflexivity – an individual’s willingness to surface and critique one’s own assumptions and ‘taken-for-granteds’ (i.e. ‘double-loop’ learning).

creativity – an individual’s ability and willingness to explore possibilities and to break-out of preconceived patterns of thinking and behaviour.

(Marsick and Watkins, 1997)

INFORMAL ORGANISATION

INFORMAL ORGANISATION: FUNCTIONAL OR DYSFUNCTIONAL?

Functional - informal networks are seen as central to the processes through which organisations ‘get things done’, as well as a structure for sourcing and sharing knowledge.

Dysfunctional - informal networks may seek to actively protect individual or group status and resources, through political manoeuvring and restricting the spread of information. May also aid leakage of valuable information.

CREATING THE CLIMATE FOR INNOVATION: OPEN CULTURE

Space for individuals to be creative

Supportive of new ideas

Room to make mistakes

Space for individuals to communicate openly

Open to ideas from other sources

SOME FINAL THOUGHTS

Innovation as a ‘journey’ rather than simply a set of

stages in a formal process

Innovation as the management of paradox (both/and

rather than either/or decisions), e.g.

Formal and informal

Planned and emergent

Talk based on

Chapter 9, plus

Chapters 7 and 8 from:

Conway, S. and Steward, F. (2009). Managing and Shaping Innovation.

Oxford University Press.