An article in the McKinsey Quarterly describes the practice of ‘Knowledge brokering[i],’ wherein organizations gain product and process ideas from other organizations outside their competitive space. It seems this ‘open source’ (why obfuscate this term?) approach must meet certain parameters to be effective:

• Define the issue or problem at an appropriate level. If the challenge is too complex, outside sources will not have the context or experience to solve it. One of the methods to accomplish this task is to break the issue down into separate, discrete parts.
• Evaluate potential brokers. Concentrate on industries where the context free issue is prevalent and success depends on successfully dealing with it. The example given is where a bank suffering long customer lines approach a Disney theme park manager, a grocer, and a traffic expert.
• Engage the whole team to listen to the broker’s story, inspiring questions, new contexts, and breakthroughs.
• Develop a plan of action.

This consulting trend is at least partly inspired by another trend named ‘design thinking[ii],’ popularized by the folks at IDEO, another consultancy firm.

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

The folks at McKinsey have done a good deal of work on the concept. After all, why re-invent the wheel? This article suggests that knowledge brokering, far from being an innovation strategy, is just good organizational structure.

On the contrary, the concept is more fundamentally understood if we view it as a systemic organizational approach rather than a new process to plaster over existing functions. And integrating key external relationships into team organization charts produces additional benefits than solving the latest challenge. It benefits from organizational support, and if one takes the proper stance, the relationships produce synergistic and emergent properties.

Begin with Actualization and Belonging

Maslow taught us the ingredients of an actualized individual. His Hierarchy of Needs is one of the most recognized psychological constructs outside the discipline. Any team or organization hoping to function at optimum levels must address that hierarchy or remain deficient in some aspect. Therefore all organization structures must actively design those components into their structures, or forever fight the deficiencies that ensue.

One of the pillars of actualization is ‘Belonging,’ which implies close ties to family and friends. In the organization’s case, those ties would be team members and intra-departmental contacts.

But belonging is much more than that.  Actualized individuals gain contacts and respect from a wide variety of constituents outside their immediate field of influence or expertise. Their contacts provide them with affirmation, ideas, direction and access. Sound familiar?

Implications for Brokering

Maslow’s definition of Belonging is the underlying premise of brokering in organizations. It implies that external connections are more fruitful if at least some of them are deep and lasting.

We all understand the importance of a wide swath of social networks in the development of our own personalities and careers. They not only provide us with self-interested access to opportunities, they provide us with balance, and hopefully mentors from a variety of life experiences and approaches. They imply the rich and fruitful product of diversity. They imply a symbiotic and synergistic relationship that is beneficial to all involved.

On a related note, some companies encourage a percentage of ‘personal’ or ‘undirected’ time to innovate and experiment and explore. We speculate that this practice is often just another aspect of encouraging a connection of non-work relationships and thoughts; another form of belonging at work. An issue does not have to be pressing or urgent for solutions to arise.

Like individuals, all teams and organizations (any group with a purpose) benefit from a well developed sense of belonging in a very broad range. It is an integral component of their structure just as it is integral to any individual’s actualization. And like any organizational component or functional expertise, it benefits from formal development and nurture by team and hierarchical support, viewed as an organizational extension of the team itself.

The Complexity Approach

Key components of scale free networks are connections to other nodes.

Likewise, complexity theory[iii] supportively stipulates that emergence or adaptability in any organism or system must by its nature include external nodes or vertices. It is this property that nurtures new associations and connections.

These connections often threaten the concept of context. Emergence is very often the product of tenuous and often previously unconnected strands of information. Therefore the ant many times forages in what seems to be unfruitful ground. And yet its exploration is directed. It stays out of the water. It returns to established, previously covered ground as well as venturing into new territory. And like any actualized individual, it communicates its discoveries and stories with its comrades, their collective information forming a cohesive whole which eventually bears fruit. This is assuredly the same ‘aha!’ moment for them as it is for extending teams.

As another example, the Internet is a scale free network (a complex system’s structure) of web pages, linked tenuously at best through links and semantically associated tags. Any dedicated web surfer knows that following those links is a major source of inspiration and therefore innovation. A website aptly named Stumbleupon gains its popularity based on this emergent phenomenon.

Implications for Brokering

Optimal organizational structures that exhibit emergent properties are cascading scale free networks that conform to power laws. It is mathematically impossible to develop an effective, emergent complex system within the confines of one’s own organization; the network nodes are already too closely connected.

The properties of emergence demand all teams and organizations formally cultivate external clusters of networked connections in order to facilitate emergent exchanges of ideas, culture, spirit, approaches and ‘breakthroughs.’

The implication is also that the connections are more persistent and involved than the Knowledge brokering article implies. This thought makes much intuitive sense but is also proved in available research.

Additional observations

Knowledge brokering highlights the synchronous similarity of both complexity and psychology to predict effective organizational structures.

The disciplines also imply that external relationships for teams and organizations have a broader benefit than meeting particular business challenges, although that is certainly one product of the connection. But seeing the relationship through this lens arguably limits the full advantage of the construct as more intimately defined elsewhere.  The full range of benefit of networked connections is only gained when context is challenged and the seeker takes on an exploratory stance.

This article implies a much deeper inspection of what those implications are and how to implement them. For more information, contact Jim Leis.

End Notes

[i] Corey Billington and Rhoda Davidson, “Using Knowledge Brokering to Improve Business Processes,” Consulting, McKinsey Quarterly, January 2010, https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Strategy/Innovation/Using_knowledge_brokering_to_improve_business_processes_2512?gp=1.

[ii] Andrew Hargadon and Robert Sutton, “Building an Innovation Factory – Harvard Business Review,” Harvard Business Review 78, no. 3 (n.d.): 157-66, http://hbr.org/2000/05/building-an-innovation-factory/ar/1.

[iii] Jim Leis, “Complexity,” Leis Network, July 19, 2010, http://www.leisnetwork.com/science/complex-systems/complexity.

Individuality and Team Dynamics to Innovate

Creativity is not born in a boardroom or a meeting. Brainstorming is vastly over rated. There is nothing quite so laborious and ineffective as ten people sitting in front of a blank page, even if they have a goal in mind. When it comes to first ideas, it is more productive to allow one or at most two people to first produce a straw model. They are encouraged to obtain as much input as they wish, with the caveat that ownership of the kernel of the idea always remains theirs to develop. A straw model has at least fleshed out major headings, and preferably more than that.

The strength of a well informed, collaborative group comes after the straw model stage, where different viewpoints in a collaborative setting can innovate and critique a defined idea. As with all group and meeting activities, facilitation ensures the group remains controlled and focused. Especially in incubation periods, groups are susceptible to scope creep.

How does the Lightbulb go on?

Emotional Investment and Avoidance on Change

The human mind is extremely powerful and emotionally preservative. Only a very small minority of management groups acting alone and of their own volition change course during turbulent times, even when they’re on the verge of bankruptcy. This is a normal human response. Like the seven stages of grief, the first and most enduring emotions are shock and denial. Especially in emotional situations, it is inspiring, logical and helpful to seek specialized consultation. There is nothing wrong or embarrassing about it. It is actually the appropriate response given what we know about the human condition.

In an example closer to home, it is interesting to note average golfers’ reasons for not taking lessons. They also mirror the seven stages of grief, with embarrassment an additional factor. Virtually all of them are in contrast to the fact that professional golfers rely on trainers and coaches throughout their career. We are reminded of the male stereotype that refuses to ask for direction, preferring to drive around lost.

It is difficult to over-emphasize the value of emotionally detached feedback. Seeking advice or consultation does not mean you are mediocre or untrained or uncreative. It means you are intelligent enough to realize how emotionally difficult it is to critique yourself and be creative in situations where you are attached. Psychologists have psychologists, and PR firms often hire PR firms. It is an essential foundation of the idea of mentors.

If your organization does not employ consultation on a number of levels, it would be at least a helpful exercise to understand why you do not. You may well find your reasons are predominantly rationalizations of Shock (paralysis), Denial (Avoidance), Anger (Emote), Bargaining (way out), or Depression (realization of the issue but feeling alone or unique). Getting to Testing (beginning to seek) or Acceptance (finally finding the way out) with consultants jump starts the creative process and speeds up progression through the other stages(Kubler-Ross, 1997).

Tension between New vs Existent Products

The examples above also give us some idea of the psychological hill to be climbed when it comes to developing creative atmospheres in organizations that are already thriving. Even in failure, or abstract mediocrity, the human mind tends to balk. And original thinking both to create and re-engineer is first and foremost an act of destruction, with all the emotional and psychological inertia that implies.

Creative destruction has implications on existent programs, along with its attendant failures in their attempts. Occupationally, creativity must find safe harbor. It is illogical to ask Associates invested in current products or programs to create their own demise. It would be like giving tax dollars to oil companies in an effort to invent alternate fuel sources. There is a foundational and psychological reason Microsoft is not the driving innovator of web technology. Their priority and strength lies in preserving and optimizing existing annuities.

Existing product managers may be expected to actively participate in model revisions or re-engineering efforts rather than eclipses. Besides, in an era of change optimizing current revenue streams will occupy all of a product managers’ time, and define the organizational corporate culture. That is entirely appropriate, and a worthy occupation.

True creation is effectively accomplished in separate multidisciplinary project groups dedicated to the task. Notice we are explicitly describing a network architecture of specialized participants; not a silo approach with administrative and technical support ‘on loan’ or ‘on call’ from various departments. That traditional organizational structure inevitably leads to bottle necks and inordinate management intervention.

Separating new and existing functions has many benefits outlined below, not least of which is avoiding the cognitive dissonance and emotionality of destruction. If performed in organizations of considerable existent annuities, it may be necessary to occupy separate building and hierarchical space in an effort to divorce cultures and provide safe quarter. Reporting directly to the President is also a practical alternative.

10 Benefits of Creative Segregation

The benefits of separate and distinct development or ‘creation’ groups are immense. Notice that if separate accommodation is not arranged, and adequate resources allocated, the costs to the organization are the mirror of the benefits itemized below:

1. Nurtures the learning curve and specialization required for creativity and re-engineering, as well as the process of doing so. Separation means speed, production, and excellence. It also means less cost.
2. Measurements of current product management and creative investment is more accurate.
3. Encourages consistency and timeliness of deliverable.
4. Acknowledges workloads and priorities. While very small projects in maintenance positions may work, the emotional preference for the present over the future relegates even high priority projects down the list as the work day progresses.
5. Acknowledges the psychological difference between process requirements and projects.
6. Reinforces different talents necessary for detailed, repetitive work vs. project and creative work.
7. Allows different incentives between line and project work.
8. Creates safe psychological and cultural harbor by separation from existent product management hierarchy. Notice that reporting to the President or a suitable Senior Executive may be necessary if the organization is consumed with current annuities.
9. Allows a convenient and appropriate discussion for adoption or denial of ideas by the organization. Failure to approve does not mean failure of the work.
10. Provides a welcome berth and process for new ideas to aggregate.

Organizational structure or best practice is characterized by dedicated teams formed of varying number and disciplines depending on need supplemented from various organizational positions for exposure and training purposes. Detach the hierarchy from existent product management. Depending on the size of the organization, separate roving groups by specialization; re-engineering, product development, market enhancements, strategy development, etc.

Other Articles in this Series

Creativity

Practical Implications of the Biology of Creativity

7 Ways to Stifle Creativity and Innovation

My Personal Discoveries Exploring Creativity