“Awesome Vessels of Power”
The role nonprofit and government leaders in sustaining organizational innovation is the topic of Chapter Five in Paul Light’s book, Sustaining Innovation. Research for his book began in 1991 with the identification of 26 Minnesota organizations as participants in the “Surviving Innovation Project” incorporated a “file interrogation instrument” focused on interviews and site visits conducted in 1994 (p. xix). The results of his work were published four years in 1998.
Review of the US and Minnesota timeline during that period may provide a useful backdrop for Light’s work. In 1991, George H.W. Bush was president and Minnesota reserve units had been mobilized as part of Operation Desert Storm. Arne Carlson became governor, the Minnesota Twins won the World Series for the second time, the Mall of American opened, and the World Wide Web was born. In 1994, Bill Clinton was president, Arne Carlson was still governor, NAFTA came into effect, Netscape Navigator 1.0 was released, Kent Hrbek retired from baseball, and Nelson Mandela was elected President of South Africa. In 1998, Clinton was impeached, but Arne Carlson was still governor -- with Reform Party candidate JesseVentura awaiting his swearing-in ceremony in January 1999. Minnesota had won a $4 billion settlement from the tobacco industry. The U.S. Justice Department filed an antitrust case against Microsoft for bundling Internet Explorer into its retail packages. The tools of business and government were changing rapidly and sustaining innovative practices was critical for survival on all fronts.
I was particularly struck by Light’s description of “rigorous optimism” (p. 134) as it seems to describe the mindset of our beloved Kouses and Posner. Light describes the leaders of the Surviving Innovation organizations as individuals who choose “to see the positive potential in each employee rather than the negative”, and lists key practices for those in leadership positions. One of those practices is “Give the Permission to Fail”. (p. 144) My personal interpretation of Light’s discussion is to give team members “mission permission” – to celebrate all attempts at innovation that are in keeping with the shared mission of the venture. Notice that I do not differentiate between successful or failed attempts. To focus on the attempt in honest pursuit of the greater good regardless of the final outcome is difficult in nonprofits and governmental agencies. The resources are limited and expectations for public service are high. But celebration of the attempt, and reinforcement of the shared mission, is precisely what I believe needs to be modeled by leaders for innovation to become part of the sustained culture of the team.
In my current position, our shared mission is clear and embraced with enthusiasm. We are told at every staff meeting that it is better to take action based on mission than to do nothing – and that it is better to ask for forgiveness than permission. That’s a bit untested in some areas, and we need to practice more celebrations of “partial success” in more public ways. But innovation is valued and we continue to work on ways to keep moving forward. -- nan
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When I read the Light article, I tried, as ususal, to draw parallels to a for profit organization because that is my current work context. The permission to fail is one such parallel. Since it implies trying to do something different or something new to accomplish a goal, I think it applies in any environment, non-profit, for profit and anything that may lie in between.
I like your term 'mission permission' for exactly the same reasons you mention. First of all, it is more positive and encompasses many different levels, from complete failure of an idea or action to a partial failure or better said, partial success, to a full success leading to implementation.
It also reminds me of a concept I learned in Fred Amram's creativity class. One of the terms we used in this class was hitchhike. It means adding on to someone else's idea, changing it a bit or a lot, to move further down the road of creativity and innovation. One of the permissions he gave us in that class was mission permission. Our mission was to create many new ideas, regardless of whether they might eventually succeed or fail. In fact, without the mission permission, I doubt that I (or many of my classmates) would have lost our inhibitions to yell out ideas, put them on the board or add on to someone else's idea, all without the judgement that so often limits innovation.
This concept of not judging an idea initially and allow the individual or the group to go on and expand on the idea or to keep amending it is a concept that, in my opinion, any organzation would be well advised to adopt.
I wonder how much of this kind of free wheeling idea generation took place in the 'Surviving Innovation' organizations that are included in the book? In the chapter we read there is quite a bit of writing about limits and a planful way to carry out innovation, but I think that in the day to day action there probably (hopefully) was a good amount of idea generating, hitchhiking and going out on a limb activity.
Claudia Beermann
Posted by: Claudia Beermann | April 6, 2008 05:36 PM