But there’s a problem with this view. Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption…”

The author explores several examples of solitary creativity and contrasts them with examples of dysfunctional team behavior common in today’s organizations. However, she doesn’t completely dismiss teamwork. Rather, she suggests a hybrid approach in her conclusion:

“To harness the energy that fuels both these drives, we need to move beyond the New Groupthink and embrace a more nuanced approach to creativity and learning. Our offices should encourage casual, cafe-style interactions, but allow people to disappear into personalized, private spaces when they want to be alone. Our schools should teach children to work with others, but also to work on their own for sustained periods of time. And we must recognize that introverts like Steve Wozniak need extra quiet and privacy to do their best work.”

It’s not that teamwork is bad for creatives but rather the right style of teamwork needs to be applied to the right situation.

I certainly can relate to the article – my best work is almost always done in lengthy, solitary bursts. However dismissing teamwork offhand is like saying “diets” are all a waste because most people who diet fail. However, some diets are very effective – e.g. balanced diets that match your calorie and nutrient intake to your consumption. And for people who have specific issues (e.g. gluten intolerance) a diet can be a life saver. But the average person has a wild misconception about what diets can and can’t do and how to use them. Such as it is with teamwork and managers who lack the training to apply teamwork effectively.

For example, brainstorming isn’t actually all that bad if used in a structured way in the right context. Our FASTRACK ideation sessions are usually pretty decent; not necessarily for generating killer ideas but for tilling the mind so that when the participants go online later and collaborate virtually they’re “warmed up” and have some context for the problem domain.

I think the key thing is that nobody really teaches how to work in a team. There are many teamwork approaches, and different approaches are likely to be optimal for various situations. e.g. depending on team composition, task complexity, task duration, etc. At best, teamwork training puts people in teams and gives them a real-world problem to sort out. But these exercises don’t really train them on how to identify which teamwork style is best given a particular situation and how to cope with the various failure modes when the wrong style has been employed.

There was one comment in the “discussion” section of the article that I loved – it was someone who felt it necessary to put their PhD and all their academic qualifications and professional qualifications up front. They then proceeded to attempt to shred the article in a lengthy comment quoting the opening paragraph, apparently without reading any further because their rant presumed that the article was WILDLY IN FAVOR of teamwork!

Which goes to show that solitude can be great for great people, but for idiots it just lets them become more idiotic.

We’ve covered the earth with it, but we had no idea how it worked… until now…
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/cement-0909.html?tr=y&auid=5356791

“Powerful” ideas:
http://web.mit.edu/mitei/news/spotlights/engine-innovation.html?tr=y&auid=5628667

Seriously, games are in my blood:
http://sliceofmit.wordpress.com/2009/07/15/mit-developed-video-games/
http://sliceofmit.wordpress.com/2009/07/30/mit-developed-video-games-redux/

For mummies who want to raise young innovators:
http://sliceofmit.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/pop-up-book/?tr=y&auid=5628968

And some other cool ideas:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4332914.html?tr=y&auid=5628693

The Problem with Problems (Einstein)

All good ideas solve at least one good problem

• It’s much easier to have a good idea if you have a good problem

Relativity applies to problems – there are different solutions for different frames of reference

• An outsider will see different solutions to an insider

• There can be many “layers” of outsiders and insiders. The directly affected, the participants, the observers within the company, the external consultants paid to observe, people looking through the window, etc. (diagram this)

A solution based solely on outside observations will often be less valuable, or unworkable, when applied to, or by, an insider (and vice-versa)

• The solution you sell must be relevant and workable to the frame of reference of the buyer

• Insider experience + outsider perspective = successful & innovative solution

Guaranteed System Failure (Gödel)

There are many “systems” for capturing and developing innovations…

…Gödel inadvertently proved these systems are bound to fail

Given: Innovations are exceptions

• Something that is innovative is new and different, thus the exception to the established rule

Given: Gödel proved that no consistent system can be complete, and vice-versa.

• “This statement is unprovable”
• In a complete system of logic the above statement is possible, but yields inconsistent results when analysed
• A consistent logic system would have to discard the above, and therefore it would not be complete.

Given: Innovation systems are designed to capture identifiable ideas – but you can only identify based on what you know, or what can be defined within the rules

Thus: Innovation systems will miss all the exceptions to the rules, which means they will miss all the innovations.

Q.E.D.

PS: Please note the large bump in my cheek. That’s my tongue.

Innovative Voyeurism (Heisenberg)

Heisenberg says certain pairs of physical properties, like position and momentum, cannot both be known to arbitrary precision.

• This is because the act of observing affects the measurement

Innovation seems to be rife with uncertainty: how much to invest, how long to invest for, etc.

• “Common knowledge” says: Many innovations fail because they were undercapitalised – the plug was pulled right before success (but how do we know that?)
• “Common knowledge” says: Many innovations cost far more money than they should because the innovators are incapable of letting go of their failures (but many of the successes would have never been if the innovators had let go)

The act of observing and analysing the innovation process often has an effect on the process itself

• Effects can be positive or negative, depending on the tools, methods and objectives of the observations
• Introspection is also observation – the innovators themselves are often observers

Do more observations lead to consistently better or worse outcomes, or is the sum effect neutral?

• This is a constant debate between VCs (or program managers) and innovators
• Innovators prefer less observation; however external feedback is often key to preventing long journeys down dead-ends. Of course, external feedback can also lead to short-sighted decisions that can kill an innovation

Three Steps beyond the 1st Horizon

1) Getting beyond 1st Horizon innovation requires a 3-5 year capability for investment

• Organisations managed on 6-12 month performance targets (most) don’t have KPIs that encourage long-term investment of time and capital

2) Recruit, management, and reward strategies need to match the structure that implements this capability

• 90% of ideas will fail at some stage; how do you performance manage someone who does excellent work for 6 months on a failure?
• Project KPIs should match the innovative process – # of prototype revisions, # of potential customers engaged at each round of development, project management skills, etc.

3) An innovation capability must be fed with qualified problems

• Qualified: real customers must be willing to pay real money for solutions to the problem
• Qualified: the parameters of “acceptable solution” should be fairly clear
• Problems: Do we know the current top 10 problems faced by our clients?
• Problems: Have we defined the problems well enough, or are we reverse-engineering problems from the solutions we pulled out of thin air?

On Tuesday I will be returning to MIT. Even though I graduated well over a decade ago, my feelings about the place remain complex. It has left a taste in my mouth that could be approximated by sipping on a lovely barolo right after touching a battery to your tongue. Memories of emotions from that time are a muddled mix of joy and shock – like having a bucket of cold water dumped on your head while being informed you’ve gotten a much larger than expected tax refund. IHTFP (I Hate This …cough… Fabulous …cough… Place) is the nearly-official school motto for many good reasons. Yet MIT has an incredibly strong alumni community that donates heavily. What’s the source of the love/hate? Perhaps a personal anecdote might help explain.

When I was an undergrad, I was having a lot of trouble with my second-semester physics class. As a result I spent a LOT of time getting tutored by the teaching assistant, a very patient graduate researcher named Wolfgang. God knows how often he had to explain the most basic concepts to me only to watch me drool senseless as my mind struggled pathetically. However, his persistance paid off and I aced the final exam, getting the highest grade in the class, which earned me a C for the course. That’s not a typo – at MIT, a 98% on a final can still leave you with a C overall. Refer back to IHTFP.

About seven years later an article about a recent MIT Nobel Laureate caught my eye. To my surprise, it was talking about Wolfgang! He had won a Nobel Prize for the work he did while he was my tutor (he showed the work to me at the time – I thought it was cool because it had lasers but otherwise had no idea what he was getting on about).

Wolfgang wasn’t a professor, or even anyone particularly notable at MIT – he was just one of many researchers working on an experiment and helping out with some entry level classes along the way. He could have easily brushed me off after it was clear I was a physics retard (day one, really). Instead, he devoted many hours to helping me figure out basic physics, even though I was never going to become a physicist.

My story isn’t as unique as you’d think. It’s actually very typical for MIT, and it happens because some of the smartest people in the world are there and are accessible to students. It’s painful to get through (the level of competition is often unbearable), but at the end most people have had similarly remarkable experiences that stand out above all the hardship.

All that said, I’m very happy that I’m returning as an observer and not as a inmate student.I’m really interested in seeing what cool new technologies are being developed. Who knows, I might even meet a future Nobel laureate who will probably need to explain their technology to me in much the same way Wolfgang had to explain basic physics.