I was pleased to get this response to a piece I wrote:

“Really interesting what you’ve sent through, thanks for this – certainly agree and all chimes with my experience. I love your framing of this – curiosity, ignorance, incrementalism and rapid iteration all key, and they need to be deep cultural norms (and reinforced structurally etc as you say). Would be great to talk more on this.”

And what was it in response to – this piece, post a conversation, and pre-twitter…

“This model  is one I use to guide me…you might recall it.

I believe, health services round the world need to move from cultural norms that prize the west and north (to south and east) of this sort of compass.

A few things make innovation a prize over copying, still:

1) Personality – I don’t know anywhere that seeks to recruit people with a strength of curiosity (‘Input’ in the Gallup strengths framework if you know it)

2) Training – rarely are new recruits taught the most important three words – IDK (I don’t know)…even now, in the knowledge era. It might get said in passing, but not really modelled and lived by their teachers (ie at level 4 in our values framework www.idenk.co.uk/values )

3) Culture – I think awards ceremonies set the wrong example with none or few prizes for copying and applying; there is the ‘tall poppy syndrome’ (seen in its most extreme form re the treatment of whistle-blowers)…even progressive journals and publishing can prize the new and novel a bit too much too.

4) Incentives – real testing, experimentation and piloting is still not popular enough…rapid implementation is the order of the day (often without the time for learning and synthesising – the transformative not syntactical learning Senge et al have talked of )

So action is needed at the level of Structure, Process and Pattern to rectify this.

Btw, sadly I still think many at top of orgs who call for spread (repeatedly) don’t model 1) and do things against 2-4 on a daily basis”

Tags: innovation