Connecting Dots 15 ◎⁃◎ Courageous Confusion

Welcome to Connecting Dots where we explore the psychodynamics of digital innovation leadership. Published by behavioural economist Brett Macfarlane. Subscribe.

Tolerating Uncertainty

I’m confused. By confused I mean uncertain about what is happening. We all want answers, five-point plans, geometric charts and inspirational aphorisms. However, these anxiety coping mechanisms deny us the opportunity to courageously acknowledge, work with and work through the confusion. This impulse to deny uncertainty is at the heart of why many who want to innovate or change fail to do so.

To help people better contain productivity through uncertainty I’ve been delving into the similarities between the domains of high-performance sport and corporate innovation. In both domains practitioners succeed not for better talent, resources or strategy, as they are relatively equal at the top, but for a better mental game. Both domains reward risk-taking while the consequences of failure are severe, fatal even.

Constraining Norms

Top performers aren’t just creative thinkers and ingenious problem solvers. They are willing and able to push the limits of “how it’s done.”  Going beyond norms means it might not work, which paralyzes most people as following the norms for how it’s done are necessary for safety and sanity. For pushing the limits is uncomfortable posing a risk to reputation, acceptance and self-image. 

These norms give us grounding and structure to give a sense of control in unpredictable worlds. Norms allow progress with certainty. Going beyond norms means going beyond precedents and into uncertainty. The zone of innovation. Where the map hasn’t been drawn yet. It’s the experience of being lost in an uncharted mountain rather than lost with a map in the Center of Paris.

Even if one has the capability to be a pioneer they aren’t always willing. Going beyond norms mostly gets fuzzier before it gets clearer. Exhilarating to start, yet once in the wilderness, past the point of no return it can become darkly terrifying. When progressing forward seemingly only gets you more lost. 

Negative Capability

This phenomenon of things getting more confusing with progress was well defined by romantic poet John Keats as Negative Capability. It describes the capacity of great writers to pursue a vision of artistic beauty even when it triggers intellectual confusion or uncertainty. It accepts philosophical certainty is a phantasy and is a trap that blocks progress. 

Digital innovation, because it follows the laws of bits and bits not physics, is a deep pit of negative capability. Every parcel of clarity helps peel another layer of the onion revealing more complexity and confusion. It’s hard going and why so many don’t make it past the first workshop or sprint. 

Leading Through the Void

One of my fondest memories coping with my own negative capability was a collaboration I led between Jaguar Land Rover and Apple.  Our goal was to have the first-ever watch that could control a car, science fiction till then. We the JLR team were an Apple launch partner working in parallel to Apple’s team developing Edition 1 of the Apple Watch. 

To get a watch to talk to a phone to talk to multiple servers to talk to a satellite to talk to a car’s onboard CPU to talk to the engine to fire up safely is rather complex. Especially when Apple, true to their reputation for secrecy, couldn’t provide access to the watch, tell us the specification nor provide an emulator until the eve of the launch. 

Normally this would end any project in a “get it right the first time” environment of an auto manufacturer. A wise approach as accidentally running someone over even once is a bad outcome. However, this approach typically kills any initiative when trying to develop an unprecedented piece of technology. 

The single most important thing the CIO and I did was accept the void we needed to walk into to progress. We held our leadership impulse to act and fix by identifying and naming the risks we faced. It was okay not to feel okay, for the team to surface why. By creating this holding environment we took accountability so that the group could feel safe venturing into the unknown so ideas and solutions could flourish.

We contained our anxiety and theirs to practice our negative capability. In this space the team built our own emulator and took informed bets based on teaser films and informed assumptions. Cavalier under business as usual conditions, pioneering when trying to do something novel for the first time. “What if we’re right” became more powerful than “what if we’re wrong.”

We maintained contact with reality so we could pursue the beauty of our vision. Which on one grey day in London’s Shoreditch our developer pressed his watch and seconds later the ice white Jaguar F-Type roared.

Courageous Confusion

We are all presently living in our own negative space. While planning helps and is necessary, it’s also a fiction. Comfort with ambiguity is a recognized capability of innovators. However, it’s not like a tool one merely picks up when needed. It’s a skill that needs practice and maintenance to stay sharp. Hence my connection between elite sport and innovation. A connection that first came to me thanks to working with sports psychologist Saul Miller when I was an athlete.

My hope is that as we continue to live in a state of high uncertainty we develop our collective negative capability. To grow our effectiveness to accept uncertainty, and grow the applied innovation capacity of leaders.

“I could no longer see anything. Certainly. Farther away, perhaps… They said on the wirelesss… But my on-board lamp had become weak, and I couldn’t see my hands any more. I wanted to put on my location light, so that I could see the wing at least. I couldn’t see a thing. It felt like I was at the bottom of a big hole, which it was difficult to get out of. Then my engine started vibrating.”

— Night Flight - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Movements

As the world opens up I’m trying to stay focused down on my research. Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be narrowing the boundaries of my inquiry into the emotions of multi-time innovation leaders. Next week I’ll elaborate for you my topic and why it interests me.

Thank you for your continued feedback. I appreciate hearing how you are getting on. I’m getting quite a bit of feedback on how therapeutic people find exploring the lived experience of innovation in these newsletters. If there is anything you wish the world understood better about innovation please let me know. Maybe we can do something about it to help unlock potential.

Stay curious,

- Brett

PS Please share this newsletter with one acquaintance or on LinkedIn to help grow the Connecting Dots community.

Connecting Dots 14 ◎⁃◎ Behavioural Innovation

Welcome to Connecting Dots where we explore the psychodynamics of digital innovation leadership. Published by innovation leader, educator, investor and scholar Brett Macfarlane. Subscribe.

The Innovator’s Toil

It’s Sunday morning. I’ve been cycling and suffering with hundreds of club mates in a virtual race up L’Alpe du Huez. It’s amazing how something innovative like the virtual cycling world Zwift quickly goes from being remarkable to just part of every day. What’s also strikes me as remarkable this morning is that business schools still don’t teach you what it feels like to climb the innovation mountain by taking an invention or idea to market.

In preparing for my research this summer I’ve been sharing a hypothetical abstract to hone my research question. Universally when people hear innovation is the topic they get excited. They speak as confidence experts, which they are, on their favourite theories, models or leaders of innovation. Which is great. Until I ask if these models and theories are so good why are only 6% of executives happy with their innovation efforts?

At this point, they become sad, maybe even a little mad. These are all successful innovation leaders, they know success and also pain. Yet they are strongly in the cult of rationality which is the foundation of business school logic. So before they hang up on me, I ask what it feels like along the innovation journey and suddenly an entire world opens up to them.

Predictably Irrational

We know from behavioural economics that people behave irrationally in predictable ways. We fall back on cognitive traps and shortcuts when faced with decisions. Especially fuzzy decisions, as innovation decisions are. Most business logic though is based on classical rationality and “expected utility” logically driving decisions. Hence why most organizations rationally score and plan roadmaps for potential innovation candidates. What we don’t understand very well is how our judgement gets distorted along the way and whether that’s why In the West we are suffering a decline in innovation.

My hope in the coming months is that the current awareness and willingness to address the emotional toll of events continues into all areas of work. Not just awareness but my wish is that in addition to helpful models and theory, business schools also teach emotional self-awareness and regulation. Especially in innovation where emotions are especially high given uncertainty, ambiguity and risk are high. The objective isn’t to fix or remove emotion from the boardroom. The goal is to be able to identify them and regulate it as part of the judgement process.

Going Negative

One thing that can help isn’t just to ask “how are we feeling” about something but to also acknowledge at times one needs to accept they are practicing what Keats coined “negative capability”. It is the ability to tolerate the pain and confusion of not knowing, rather than imposing ready-made or omnipotent certainties on an ambiguous situation or emotional challenge. It’s okay to feel not okay.

Next week I will elaborate on Negative capability and share an anecdote from a collaborative initiative I led with Jaguar Land Rover and Apple. I’m going to do a flurry of weekly newsletters for the next three weeks. to coincide with our experience emerging from the economic coma.

“The highest reward for a monk’s toil is not what he gets for it but what he becomes by it.”

— John Ruskin

Movements

In Zoomtopia, where work happens these days, I’ve teamed up with an old colleague Gillian to experiment with a new model remote of executive peer mentoring. As the trauma and burnout intensify we are trying to create an outlet to remotely share, reflect and learn amongst a group of executives leading through transition. You’ll hear more in a few months once we have some evidence on how it goes🎤. Likewise the Digital Product Innovation course I’m filming this week for the D&AD 🎬.

Most of my time is focused on designing my INSEAD research model to understand the productive zone of intra-psychic emotional conflict through innovation journeys🧐. In Connecting Dots 16 later this month I’ll provide a more in-depth preview👨‍🔬. Till then here’s a little teaser.

Thank you for your continued feedback. I appreciate hearing how you are getting on and any innovation paradoxes or questions on your mind.

Stay safe,

- Brett

PS Please share this newsletter with one acquaintance or on LinkedIn to help grow the Connecting Dots community.

Source Material:

• McKinsey Innovation satisfaction - https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/how-we-help-clients/growth-and-innovation

• Keats - Negative Capability

• Predicably irrational - Prospect Theory

Connecting Dots 13 ◎⁃◎ Ending Change to Start Transition

Welcome to Connecting Dots where we explore the psychodynamics of digital innovation leadership to bridge academic research and real-world practice. Published by innovation leader, educator, investor and researcher @INSEAD Brett Macfarlane. Subscribe.

Acting to Avoid Reflecting

Staring at the sky it still doesn’t make sense. I’m in my North London backyard soaking up the privilege of outdoor space and sunshine. I’m eagerly trying not to start anything new. My typical response to a crisis is to start something. Just what is less important than the act doing something new, it helps me feel like I’m initiating the change rather than change happening to me. The action also helps me avoid reflecting on the deeper meaning and implications of the crisis itself.

Action and busyness are typical coping mechanisms when we don’t feel in control. It speaks to our deep ability to handle change. The core task of leadership, whether running a company or attempting innovation, is change. Yet change rarely goes beyond incremental improvements or keeping business as usual turning over. Change operates within the existing paradigm of a company, industry or society. The components of change are events, situations, results-orientated and relatively fast. The change paradigm ironically is why radical innovation typically fails, it’s too painful to go through the transition required. Currently, change is all around us, but something deeper is happening.

“Change is disturbing when it is done to us, exhilarating when it is done by us”

— Rosabeth M. Kanter

When Change Becomes Transition

What most of us are living through is transition and we are just starting to address it. Transition is radically different from change, beyond actions it’s an internal psychological reorientation as we adapt to external changes. Its components are experiential, psychological, procedural and relatively slow. To begin transition one counterintuitively starts with ending. One must let go of the old world before the new world is in sight. Moving into a neutral zone where you figure out just what is the new paradigm, product, organization, system, identity, etc.. The greatest challenge isn’t to progress forward, it’s to let go by putting your present in the past.

A courageous question for a leader to allow into the agenda is whether they are entering change or transition, both as an individual and as an organization. The mistake is to underthink and wait till we go back to normal. As is the delusion of overthinking that everything, literally everything, is different or unprecedented. Both extremes deny the reality at hand and the opportunity for a deeper reorientation. Transition is an emergent challenge and containing the anxiety of not knowing is an ongoing wrestling match. What can help to lead through the neutral zone of transition is to surface how deep is your organization’s tolerance for transition in the months ahead.

The Great Reawakening

We are in a sort of induced economic coma, functioning but impaired. When we reawaken, it will be an opportunity to revitalize innovation efforts to renew your staff around how you serve your customers. Beyond its tangible outputs, the transitional role of an innovation effort is to surface, recognize and metabolize the anxieties of grief, hope, disappointment or euphoria that sit under the surface of your colleagues. For some organizations with a high tolerance for evolution, this may be a radical moon shot. For those of lower tolerance, it’s simply addressing overdue but neglected iterative improvements. The mistake waiting to be made is denying the emotions and suppressing them by staying in the change paradigm of routine actions.

My hope is the great reawakening will lead to a more thoughtful approach to innovation. To inject oxygen into the 94% of executives who are dissatisfied with their innovation efforts. While also adding more holistic accountability to the innovations that do succeed to regain trust, integrity, sustainability and accessibility to the influential (mostly digital) product innovations of our time.

It can be a therapeutic and galvanizing experience to allow the unsaid to be said, to shed the less good parts of a business’ practices and elevate the better parts. Innovation initiatives can be a safe container to grieve for the old world that has left, so we can let go, while in parallel renewing optimism, enthusiasm and commitment through drafting the new reality for yourself and your organization.

Movements

I’m safely in London and well on my own path of transition. This topic is very personal at the moment. I have the privilege of choosing from many paths and have recently come through my neutral zone that lasted two years. I’ve begun a semi-sabbatical to focus my INSEAD research over the next six months. While taking on select innovation-related leadership and organization development initiatives. If I can help, as a program designer or facilitator, please do get in touch.

Thank you for your continued feedback and please share with me any innovation paradoxes or questions on your mind.

Stay safe,

- Brett

PS Please share this newsletter with one acquaintance or on LinkedIn to help grow the Connecting Dots community.

Source Material:

• McKinsey Innovation satisfaction - https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/how-we-help-clients/growth-and-innovation

• Bridges, W. (1986). Organizational Dynamics, 15(1), 24–33.

• Bridges, W. (1991). Managing Transitions

• Hirschhorn L., The Primary Risk. Human Relations, Vol 52(1), 1999

• 3rd ed., rev.; DSM–III–R; American Psychiatric Association, 1987 (logic distortions)

Connecting Dots 12 ◎⁃◎ Holding On to Reality

Welcome to Connecting Dots where interdisciplinary learning helps leaders innovate for the digital era. I’m Brett Macfarlane and this newsletter is a testbed for my INSEAD research into the behavioural and psychodynamic factors behind today’s innovation crisis and the coming revival.

Holding On to Reality - Leading Through Uncertainty

Leading in a crisis shares many similarities with leading innovation. In particular, acting with a large number of unknowns and unknowables in the face of emerging events and realities. It is why I study innovation leadership because it is the F1 of all leadership. Where envelopes are pushed and stakes are high. Leading innovation is a crucible for the highest tests of leadership.

Whether leading an organization, team, family or yourself everyone at the moment is outside their comfort zone. The typical playbooks have been deployed. We’re in uncharted territory. This is why for leaders amidst uncertainty information elaboration and group reflexivity aren’t just essential but in fact vital. The daily reassessment cycle of new knowns and new unknowns is exceptionally challenging when trying to maintain a firm grasp on reality.

Beyond Change - This is Transition

We can reasonably expect, based on the evidence from past quarantine situations, that day 10 will be especially hard for you and your team. It will be when one realizes this situation isn’t just change and is in fact a transition. The effects associated with trauma will be the strongest emotion. Leaders may start to sympathize with BP’s CEO Tony Hayward when he said “I’d like my life back” in the middle of the Deep Water crisis as the oil platform burned with no end in sight.

The point of information elaboration (adding to the group new knowledge) and group reflexivity (considering how this knowledge changes goals and tasks) is to maintain contact with reality. To minimize the inevitable creep of logic distortion such as denial, intellectualization and distancing. To decide what to do , when and to contain restless anxiety to “just do something.” This is a test of EQ over IQ.

EQ Superheros

It can be helpful in a crisis to look at the EQ (Emotional Quotient) factors associated with professionals in vital life and death functions. The evidence tells us the most important and significant EQ factors of Physicians/Surgeons, as well as other health care professionals, are Independence, Stress Tolerance, Empathy, Impulse Control and Flexibility.

It often won’t feel good and there is no shame to acknowledge it doesn’t. That containment of reality helps to metabolize the strong and conflicting emotions that the situational stress may trigger in your teams. While acknowledging and listening to the feelings as they might provide important signals to inform your decisions or regulate your decision quality over time. Trust your training, listen to your intuition and you can minimize being blinded by emotion.

Movements

In the coming months, I’ll continue to publish Connecting Dots. However, we can expect the tone and content to evolve with the context of how the crisis emerges. While there are already signals of changes in the innovation landscape it’s important we stay in the here and now.

I will also increase referencing of source material so you are reassured I am sharing perspective born from documented and researched evidence. If you have questions or doubts please don’t hesitate to write. Likewise, any leadership or innovation challenges you’re facing. I’m available to help.

Thank you for your feedback and please share with two leaders you think would appreciate this newsletter.

Stay safe,

- Brett

Source Material:

• The psychological impact of quarantine and how to reduce it: rapid review of the evidence Samantha K Brooks, Rebecca K Webster, Louise E Smith, Lisa Woodland, Simon Wessely, Neil Greenberg, Gideon James Rubin

• Team reflexivity, development of shared task representations, and the use of distributed information in group decision making. van Ginkel, W., Tindale, R. S., & van Knippenberg, D. (2009). Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 13(4), 265–280

• The EQ Edge, Emotional Intelligence and Your Success Steven J. Stien, PH.D and Howard E. Book, M.D.

• 3rd ed., rev.; DSM–III–R; American Psychiatric Association, 1987 (logic distortions)

Connecting Dots 11 ◎⁃◎ Stop, Elaborate and Listen

Welcome to Connecting Dots where interdisciplinary learning helps leaders innovate for the digital era. I’m Brett Macfarlane and this newsletter is a testbed for my INSEAD research into the behavioural and psychodynamic factors behind today’s innovation crisis and the coming revival. Feedback welcome and please forward to two peers, it makes a big difference, thank you. 👍🏻

ANDERMATT CH At 2,961 m / 9,714 ft on a sunny day overlooking skiers trekking across the expanse of the Gotthard Pass, nothing seems insurmountable. I’m enjoying a quick alpine weekend in Andermatt before meetings in Zug/Zürich. 

Last week my colleagues kindly asked me to co-present with our Executive Director of Technology, Stuart George, at Method’s Design Meetup. The topic was organizational design where we revealed some of the “behind the scenes” play-by-play analysis of innovation units we’ve set-up and run in recent years. 

For me, it was an opportunity less to talk of past glories and more to trial a clinical and open discussion on the more human factors behind innovation. By clinical I mean treating each situation as unique because, in fact, each situation where innovation might happen is unique. Only those people, at that time, under those circumstances, might create that thing, in that way. 

Most innovation research and literature falls under the great man or the magic principles genres. Both are phantasies. Not because they are deceitful. Rather because they are trying to comfort themselves by believing something is repeatable and optimizable like an invoice processing system, a motor or a dairy milking parlour. Systems that eliminate uncertainty and unknowns. Yet innovation by definition must seek uncertainty and unknowns to expand the domain of what is known. 

What the documentation does tell us is that while the process does matter, it’s not the point. Following a process doesn’t guarantee you anything. Just as Roger Federer has to figure out how to hit that shot, at that time, against that opponent, under those court conditions, when he feels as he does that day, so to must a team aspiring to create new value for their customers and themselves based on their unique real-world situation.

I purposely didn’t say a team aspiring to innovate for innovation isn’t actually the point or destination. It’s a by-product. What the aforementioned documentation tells us is that what does strongly tend to increase the probability of developing something novel that gets to market is information elaboration and group reflexivity. 

Neither are processes, they are practices that are performed at both an individual and group level. Groups operate with distributed information and can make decisions only as good as the quality and breadth of information known to all. Most groups tend to keep this pool of shared information quite small. They may focus too much on actions or pragmatics starving time to allow new information to be shared. Alternatively, individuals may reject new information that is aired for a host of interpersonal reasons. 

The parallel practise to elaboration is group reflexivity. This is where based on the shared information the group individually and collectively reflects back on the understanding of the goals and tasks before them and what the new information means relative to it. They retest their own assumptions as individuals and as a group with an openness to revisiting assumptions. 

We call these parallel capabilities of elaborations and reflexivity practices because they don’t just happen once in a workgroup process project but happen along the entire journey. I’ve often seen teams be good at this when starting an initiative but fading as the novelty wears off or their resistance builds to getting too personally close or committed to the work. They hold back which is just as undermining of elaboration and reflexivity as the stereotypical Type A disruptor. 

Or they continue to retest unnecessarily validated founding assumptions which may signal a lack of commitment. Yes, assumptions should be continually reflected on but what assumptions are revisited change over time. Where a proposition was an early point of reflexivity the focus moves onto the features, the execution, the go-to market or support functions along with all the other things necessary to get an innovation to market. 

Curiously, at our meetup event, many of the well trained and experienced designers remarked privately they never were conscious of these two practices. However, in retrospect, they could see them in action when things just seemed to work. It’s quite liberating to know why. It makes anything seem surmountable.

Movements

It’s an INSEAD week in Fontainbleau, followed a week home in London before Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. March brings Salzburg and Girona with a possible New York Jaunt. Say hi for ☕️.

The following edition ⬇️of Dot Makes features Joe Macleod who champions giving endings as much attention as we do beginnings. An appropriately reflective contributor.

See you on the front lines of innovation,

- Brett

Dot Makers

Joe Macleod, ex-Nokia during the glory days and my close colleague at ustwo where he was Creative Director. These days he helps us think more about death and endings, topics most of us like to avoid. An extended interview can be found here.

What aren’t we talking about that we should be?

Endings. Groupthink about endless technology solutions has blinded us to consider longevity and responsibility at off-boarding of the consumer lifecycle.

What unexpected innovator do you admire?

Christine Fredrick, a home economist, author and, although the title wasn't available then, an interaction designer. She was credited with standardising the height of kitchen worktops in America, amongst other things. But the reason I think she was a pioneer was that she coined the phrase 'Progressive Obsolescence'.

What’s the hardest moment of your job?

Persuasion. Turning peoples world view upside down. Trying to persuade an established business culture that a good off-boarding experience for a customer is vital, profitable, and critical to the environment.

What does a break-through moment feel like to you?

After a conference talk or a training session, I can see the penny-drop in people’s minds about endings and off-boarding. After which I witness a fresh bright look in their eyes as they start to see the world upside down or at least the end from the beginning.

When it comes to digital innovation what do you wish we knew that we don't?

The consequences of having so few big players in the digital space and the emerging awareness of surveillance capitalism.

Joe Macleod on Endings

This is an extended edition of the Dot Maker interview in Connecting Dots 11 with Joe Macleod. Given the last edition of the Connecting Dots Newsletter discusses information elaboration and group reflexivity it was only right to share the thoughtful extended interview with Joe.

Dot Makers

Joe Macleod, ex-Nokia during the glory days and my close colleague at ustwo where he was Creative Director. These days he helps us think more about death and endings, topics most of us like to avoid.

What aren’t we talking about that we should be?

Endings. Groupthink about endless technology solutions has blinded us to consider longevity and responsibility at off-boarding of the consumer lifecycle. Although this started in post-industrial times, it has sociology that can be traced back to a change in religious practices from after the plague and the consequential uprising of the Protestants. These changes energised a distancing at the end of the consumer experience. Digital, although recent, is adopting similar characteristics to other past industries.

Digital innovation in many cases seems hopelessly narcissistic. Scrambling to perceived future horizons. Failing to acknowledge the consequences in the present. Or consider learnings from the past. The chemical industry boom of the last century drove forward with similar excitement and ego. Responsibility was short-lived.

What unexpected innovator do you admire?

Christine Fredrick, a home economist, author and, although the title wasn't available then, an interaction designer. She was credited with standardising the height of kitchen worktops in America, amongst other things. But the reason I think she was a pioneer was that she coined the phrase 'Progressive Obsolescence'. She then went on to encourage a change of thinking around consumerism. To purchase, because you want to, not because you need to. She has pushed consumerism more than any advertising exec or marketing guru, yet is sadly overlooked.

What’s the hardest moment of your job?

Persuasion. Turning peoples world view upside down. Trying to persuade an established business culture that a good off-boarding experience for a customer is vital, profitable, and critical to the environment. I am reassured though, that once they see this, the majority are super thankful for their newfound vision.

The established mindset of business culture is a parody of Epicurus the Ancient Greek philosopher 341–270 BC, who said... "Why should I fear death?
 If I am, then death is not. 
If death is, then I am not.
 Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?"

Business thinking, and also some of the modern methods and processes we use can not tolerate the idea of being responsible and present in both places with a customer and a past-customer.

What does a break-through moment feel like to you?

After a conference talk or a training session, I can see the penny-drop in peoples minds about endings and off-boarding. They then engage in these exciting conversations about failed endings they have experienced or how they can apply it to their product development work. After which I witness a fresh bright look in their eyes as they start to see the world upside down or at least the end from the beginning.

When it comes to digital innovation what do you wish we knew that we don't?

The consequences of having so few big players in the digital space and the emerging awareness of surveillance capitalism.

Connecting Dots 10 ◎⁃◎ The Crazy Ones

Welcome to Connecting Dots where interdisciplinary learning helps leaders innovate for the digital era. I’m Brett Macfarlane and this newsletter is a testbed for my INSEAD research into the behavioural and psychodynamic factors behind today’s innovation crisis and the coming revival.

KITZBUHEL, AT The warm electric synth tones of Euro-pop and Schlager music thumps through the valley. The Super Bowl of winter sports is preparing to welcome 100,000 enthusiasts of downhill ski racing and entertaining demonstrations of precision by Red Bull, Audi and the Austrian Army. After a morning skiing the high alpine, I’m down in the stands watching the first Hahnenkamm training run while starting to sketch my INSEAD research model.

Like the ski racers careening down the mountain, my research is a chance to dive into a challenge and take some calculated risk. The rules, rigour and relentless curiosity of academic research at this level is new to me. I love how business school research acknowledges and embraces complexity to open understanding rather than converge on brutal simplicity to drive alignment as does most business logic. Systems and complexity are especially important when innovation is the field of study and arguably the highest test of change any group may face. 

The thing about change in work, life and society is when you’re in the middle of it you’re swarmed with questions and questioning of where it will end up. The discomfort of the liminal phase of having left the old state and yet to arrive at the new destination is a slow and steady swell of anxiety. Yet in that froth is where the richest learning emerges.

My training as an economist forged my interest in trying to enlighten fragments of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” that guides us forward. Amidst our paradoxes, accidents and mysteries the one unique trait of humans is innovation; the drive to initiate evolution which improves our condition, even when we recognize the consequences. 

A revelation came to me when excavating my past work comparing when things did or didn’t work no matter how badly people wanted to innovate. It’s no surprise there is no magic process or single hero in the successes. Nor did more or less raw ambition or talent determine failure. Same for time and resources. Afterall, innovation is an act, a performance sport if you will, where decisions and emotions must be effectively managed in the face of uncertainty. 

A key observation was success came with balanced risk appetite and perceived risk. I was thinking about an experience when working with a rather large brand on the eve of the Olympics. Desperate to innovate they were with huge ambition and yet they couldn’t execute on the simplest of attempts. Like a child at the end of a diving board unable to bring themselves to jump. Every day their despair grew as they saw other Olympic sponsors do the very things we unsuccessfully attempted to do months earlier. 

“Why can they but not us?” they asked.

“They did it because they did it” I replied (unhelpfully.)

I look back now and see that while they had an appetite for risk, the risk perceived in this specific initiative was wildly overestimated, irrational in fact. Their denied anxieties and fears distorted their thinking leaving them trapped in the no-man’s land between ambition and ability to perform. Truth was, they were terrified and paralysed by their own ambition. This imbalance manifest itself in the distorted risk perceptions.

The good news was we did innovate in other areas but each time is different, even with the same team. In this situation we should have addressed the ambition not the risk perception. One shouldn’t jump off a cliff if they aren’t willing to fly one might say, or maybe that’s just all the Red Bull talking.

“One of the most important gratifications of adult life in the ability to work well.”

— Isabel Menzies Lyth

Movements

It’s a week of fresh air in Kitzbuhel and Munich. Early February I’ll be in Zurich/Zug and then back to Fontainebleau to start setting up research at INSEAD. Late February I’ll be at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona so please do let me know if you’ll be there and we can try and meet up. As always feedback welcome and please do continue reading below for this edition’s Connecting Dots with Gerry.

May you thrive in 2020,

- Brett

PS Please forward this newsletter to someone you feel would be interested. Your forwards and shares go a long way and are appreciated! 🤟

Dot Makers

Gerry Haag is one of those sparks of life that helps lighten any work challenge before you. A well-travelled German based in Majorca he’s long worked at the front lines of Europe’s technology ecosystem. Most notably helping Amazon’s market entry amongst other unicorns.

What aren’t we talking about that we should be?

How technology can assist in humans achieving the next level of consciousness

What unexpected innovator do you admire?

Ken Wilber, Vishen Lakhiani

What’s the hardest moment of your job?

Breaking up the old management patterns

What does a break-through moment feel like to you?

When everything is in the flow and just happens, stars align

When it comes to digital innovation what do you wish we knew that we don't?

The role of blockchain

Connecting Dots Redux ◎⁃◎ Look Back to Look Ahead

Welcome to Connecting Dots where interdisciplinary learning helps leaders innovate for the digital era. I’m Brett Macfarlane and this newsletter is a testbed for my INSEAD research into the behavioural and psychodynamic factors behind today’s innovation crisis and the coming revival.

BRAY, ENGLAND I’m effusive as I greet the new year by cycling through the foggy English villages of the Chilterns outside London. It’s a moment I feel grateful for you reading and joining the Connecting Dot journey. Through this newsletter, I’ve better connected with old acquaintances while making new ones. All of whom are curious about how to better unlock the mysteries and paradoxes of change and innovation in organisations and society at large. Thank you.

Hopefully, you’ve enjoyed a holiday breather, inhaled some cheer and exhaled the parts of you that can stay behind in 2019 to make way for what’s ahead in 2020. 

We appreciate that of the thousands of readers to Connecting Dots over the year, many only joined us recently. Below is a recap of the year grouped by how you might be feeling as you head back to work and start realising the opportunities ahead.

May you thrive in 2020,

- Brett

Feeling Courageous:

07 / Unrealised Potential

08 / Quantum Leadership

09 / This is Going to Hurt

Feeling Curious:

01/ Systems at Play

04 / Artificially Intelligent

06 / Innovation’s Process Paralysis

Feeling Worried:

02 / Oh Man the Future

03 / The Tyranny of Collaboration

05 / Fair Process and an Identity Crisis

PS Please forward this newsletter to someone you feel would be interested. I’d love them to subscribe and we can grow the Connecting Dots Community to learn from each other.

Connecting Dots 09 / This is Going to Hurt

Welcome to Connecting Dots where interdisciplinary learning helps leaders innovate for the digital era. I’m Brett Macfarlane and this newsletter is a testbed for my INSEAD research into behavioural and psychodynamic factors behind why we aren’t innovating more.

WHISTLER, CANADA The air is mountain fresh and the ground crunches frostily underfoot. I’m scrambling over the boulders, scree and moss of the untouched Boreal forest behind our mountain cabin. Hours before I was on Vancouver’s waterfront in a polished hotel lobby. I was discussing innovation risk with an exec at a leading global tech player. He works in one of the world’s most risk-tolerant cultures.  Yet innovation is still very hard. Painful in fact when it happens.

Back in the mountains, I’m revisiting the wilderness where as a young aspiring athlete I trained. Running, jumping and lifting in pursuit of a dream. Deep in the forest, I felt safe that nobody but bears and eagles might see me. Where I could leap, bend and move in new awkward and weird ways to acquire high-performance skills and capabilities. The new movements and physical exertion hurt but it allowed me to take risks and find out what I was capable of, and more painfully, what I wasn’t. 

What makes digital innovation so painful? Even for those with the talent, endeavour and capabilities in the safest of safe spaces with genuinely supportive colleagues? In any environment intention is easy but action at the edge of what is known to be possible is hard. Not so much for the physical exertion but the deeper personal risks of embarrassment, failure, stability, security and identity. 

Typically, innovation is a discussion of process, methodology, resources and material rewards. Very little focus is made on the acts of innovation themselves. The very moment where one bends, jumps or leaps with their thinking. The painful real work of pushing boundaries, daring to dream, taking risks, learning you were wrong, trying again, succeeding and trying again.

So how does one know if their team or they themselves are ready to do the serious work of innovation? Here are seven practices to endure innovation’s pain:

• Willingness to venture forth

• Building tolerance for discomfort

• Growing courage to exert will

• Practicing agreeableness to create a collective

• Building resilience to keep going

• Maintaining open eyes for opportunities

• Accepting limits of the controllables and knowables

All seven will rarely if ever be topped up to 100%. It’s a goal to strive for and on some days it all comes together. You throw everything into it, it’s exhausting but oh so rewarding.

Up for it? If so smile and enjoy the pain of progress. 

“A pile of rocks ceases to be a rock when somebody contemplates it with the idea of a cathedral in mind.
”

— Antoine de Saint Exupéry

Dot Makers

As I’m on the West Coast I asked entrepreneur, professor of innovation at the UBC Sauder School of Business and future of work provocateur Jonas Altman to join us in the second edition of Dot Makers.

What aren’t we talking about that we should be?

Amplifying our insecurities, neurosis, anxieties, and fuelling cultures of narcissism.

What unexpected innovator do you admire?

Margaret Mead

What’s the hardest moment of your job?

Stopping

What does a break-through moment feel like to you?

Lightness - like floating on clouds (if I ever get chance to do that).

When it comes to digital innovation what do you wish we knew that we don't?

How can we find a better balance so that we become more, not less human.

Movements

After a quick stop in London I’ll be at Fontainbleau for my last road trip and INSEAD stint of 2019. Then it’s holiday time in London. Say hi for coffee.

Thank you as always for feedback and sharing Connecting Dots. You may have seen us featured in the exceptional Silicon Valley must read Exponential View newsletter. Which is amazing. Thank you Azeem Azhar and everyone else who shares Connecting Dots with their smartest friends

See you on the digital frontier,

-Brett

PS Please forward this newsletter to 2 or 3 of the smartest people you know. I’d love them to subscribe and we can grow the Connecting Dots Community.

Connecting Dots 08 / Quantum Leadership

Welcome to Connecting Dots where interdisciplinary learning helps leaders innovate for the digital era. It’s an experiment during Brett’s INSEAD journey. This edition we explore adaptive leadership and launch our interview segment with our inaugural contributor the futurist Nik Badminton.

Normandie, FR  My body is zipping along at 234kph aboard the Eurostar.  Yet my mind is deep in the Fontainebleau forest behind the leafy INSEAD campus. I’m transported atop a ridge at sunset reflecting on innovation leadership academia. One of the curious things about leadership scholarship is how little there is. Especially innovation leadership. There is much understanding of processes and market dynamics but little on the behaviours of leaders working at the edge of their domain attempting to forge into new territories through technology. 

In the corporate real world I’ve often wondered why innovation attracts much interest yet little action. Many want to “look” in the form of a workshops or throwaway comments but not “touch” by committing themselves to taking something to market despite companies desperately wishing they would. A paradox seems that the decrease in organizational hierarchy and decentralization over recent decades has unexpectedly discouraged commitment to seeing innovation through. Without a protective organisation around one chaotic group dynamics really wear you done and erodes confidence in the many micro-decisions of any innovation. 

Making it trickier is the fact digital innovation works with software. A material that is actually very abstract even for engineers.  It’s a language technically but exists only as pulses of light. You can’t hold it, feel it or smell it. Even though you use it, regularly. At best you tap keyboards, slide fingers over glass or speak to a box but one really doesn’t actually “feel” anything distinct one program to the next.  As a professional it can be really hard to commit your whole self to something so immaterial.

Thus a concept I’m exploring is an evolution of adaptive leadership. It is a build of the leader-follower relationship to understand what’s really going on in successful digital innovation leadership. In the concept of quantum leadership we recognize that anyone regardless of title at any moment has the capability to lead some aspects and follow in others. Though it’s more than a binary choice as we aren’t always ready to commit either way. Like quantum computing there is a third state beyond leader and follower in successful innovation efforts; ambivalence. 

In ambivalence you are neither leading or following, but also not actively rejecting leading or following. You are holding a position of not having a position. It’s a safe position that allows people to not feel threatened by needing to choose whether to lead or follow at a given moment.  It is an active suspension of disbelief. The team takes no judgement. You don’t feel forced to defend just wanting to see how something plays out. It is its own statement of leadership by granting trusting space to your colleagues. 🙂

Let me know if you have examples of quantum leadership and the importance of ambivalence. It might be the topic of some academic research next year. 

“Leaders who can successfully convert their negative emotions into positive energy will be less emotionally exhausted and less distressed than leaders who only engage in impression management and fake positive emotions in their outward expressions.”

— Brotheridge & Grandey

Thank You

Your sharing is appreciated as the last edition of Connecting Dots on Unrealised Potential reached over 2,000 readers. Thank you.

Dot Makers

You readers of Connecting Dots are a smart lot so let’s learn from each other. Here’s our inaugural rapid Q&A with Nik Badminton who is a futurist, presenter and host of Dark Futures in SF, Toronto and Vancouver. 

What aren’t we talking about that we should?

The climate crisis and how we can all have an impact by changing how we live, travel, play and run our companies.

What a unexpected innovator do you admire?

Thomas Heatherwicke is an incredible designer, architect, and innovator. Constantly evolving and pushing boundaries.

What’s the hardest moment of your job?

Staring people in the face and speaking the truth to those that deny obvious change, supported by market indicators and/or science.

What does a break through moment feel like to you?

8 hours of sleep

When it comes to digital innovation what do you wish we knew that we don't?

That digital is not standalone. It surrounds us. It is us. 

Movements

It’s peak strategy season as we approach the end of the year. I’ll be in Copenhagen/Lund, Zürich/Zug, Vancouver and Parisx2 before Christmas. Say hi for coffee and Christmas chocolate. 

See you on the digital frontier,

Brett

PS Please forward this newsletter to 2 or 3 of the smartest people you know. I’d love them to subscribe and we can grow the Connecting Dots Community.