The Hindu Business Line : The Egg of Columbus

LEGEND has it that Columbus was at a dinner in which some jealous peers began scoffing at the admiral's success in finding the new world. The basis of their scorn: that anybody could sail across the ocean, and anybody could coast along the islands - it was the simplest thing in the world!

In reply, Columbus took an egg from a dish and said to the company, "Who among you, gentlemen, can make this egg stand on end?" One by one those at the table tried to do this. When the egg had gone entirely around and none had succeeded, all agreed that it was impossible. Then Columbus took the egg and struck its small end gently upon the table so as to break the shell a little. After that there was no trouble in making it stand upright.

"Oh, that's so easy, anyone can do it," cried the watching crowd.

"Yes," said Columbus, "it is the simplest thing in the world. Anybody can do it — after he has been shown how."

This story may be a derivative of one based on sculptor Filippo Brunelleschi, but whoever the protagonist, there are several learnings for innovators: that mavericks will always face critical dissent, that their vision will often be rubbished as being impossible, only to later be belittled as being "so easy" after the fact.

This was brought home sharply to me at a recent meeting with a scientist who described her frustration with the innovative process in her company. Recently, her CEO had urged his team to find new opportunities for growth. "Innovation," he exhorted, "has to be the bulwark of our vision, a pillar of our competitive advantage." The team, suitably fired up, promptly set up a task force, and came back with several interesting ideas. There must've been a platter of 20-odd new products and services, some of which were truly disruptive in their market-changing potential. Starry-eyed team members looked forward to pioneering new markets in the country.

Alas! All through the presentation to the executive committee, the constant question was, "Has this been done before?" "No, this will be a pioneering effort," said the team proudly, and waited for the kudos. Instead, they got a jaundiced, "Then it is too risky for us to try."

Of course, new ideas need to be rigorously evaluated. By their very nature, they are risky, and it makes a lot of sense to either ask for a rigorous evaluation, or to do some experimentation before committing serious resources. Having said that, managers also need to accept that there is no such thing as a risk-free innovation. In this case, the message was clearly "We want to be innovative, but we just don't want to be the first"! This, to say the least, is a contradiction in terms. Potential innovators in such organisations, will, like Chris Columbus did, find it very difficult to get funding and support for their visions.

The irony is that the same organisations will leap on the idea once it has been tried out by their rivals. As soon as one of the more risk-taking companies tries out an idea, it will begin to gain respectability and popularity. "That's a good plot," the erstwhile critics now say, "it seems easy."

Innovation is about finding the sweet spot in apparent contradictions. An anomaly-finding exercise, if you will, when you challenge hidden assumptions to find new opportunities. Ideas should be de-risked, to the extent possible, but the route should be through appropriate research, not the search for proof of success.

If every idea that has merit should have already "been done before," then it's not exactly innovative, is it? And if it's just a me-too, how can it possibly create explosive growth? In the risk-return trade-off, a poor stomach for risk creates a poor marriage with a huge appetite for growth. Something's got to give, and usually, this results in tiny, incremental innovations which may help to retain core consumers, but do nothing to change the topline landscape.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter puts it very well in her lectures on the change-adept organisation: The goal is not to encourage more risk-taking, but to make it less risky to create something that departs from conventions - to make it an expectation instead.

This is why a true innovation strategy needs to go beyond emphasising creativity and idea generation. Stretch goals can make innovation an explicit focus, resource allocation can signal strategic intent and an experimentative culture will encourage courage and persistence. Experiments are not punts or gambles. They are pilot efforts, which are evaluated with a spirit of scientific testing, funded according to results, with the learnings from hits - and indeed, flops - fed back iteratively into the innovation process.

The link between innovation and creativity is obvious. But to take an innovation through to disruption, you also need the courage to take on the associated risk. Are you supporting the Columbuses in your organisation?

(The author is a Chennai-based management consultant. Karate-gy is the proprietary name for strategic exercises conducted by Paradigm Management Knowhow.)

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