It's Human Nature to Resist

Sound familiar? Alas, these sources of resistance are the real "brand attributes" of an organization's innovation culture. Listen to them, learn them and respect them. They are how organizations truly define innovation. Never fool yourself into thinking you're just a good idea away from innovative success. Resistance, not ideas, is the most powerful lens for viewing innovation behaviour.

Doubt that? Most people in the Western world are significantly overweight; maybe you're one of them. Fortunately, there's a proven algorithm - a very good idea - for successfully alleviating this condition: Eat less, exercise more. Alas, only a tiny fraction of the chunky population consistently implements this very good idea on a daily basis.

But, honestly, just how good of an idea is "eat less, exercise more" if so few people actually implement it? The economic value of a good idea - if it is, indeed, a good idea - lies more in its successful implementation than its clever articulation.

Just as actions speak louder than words, implementations are more compelling than ideas. The infinite varieties of how people cheat on their diets and exercise regimes is a microcosm of the organizational frictions that innovations can generate. After all, liposuction is one of the world's fastest-growing surgical procedures for a reason. For a growing segment of the marketplace, it really is faster, cheaper, easier and more successful than "eat less, exercise more".

Consequently, the innovation challenge is the challenge of diagnosing and overcoming organizational resistance. When you hear: "We can't do that because it's too expensive", the serious innovator's obligation is to demonstrate that, in fact, the proposed innovation is cheaper. Build a demo or simulation that makes the case. A better idea isn't going to do it.

When the resistance is that the boss won't like it, the serious innovator's response is to determine if the boss's boss is a better target market for the innovation proposal. Perhaps some other constituency can make the boss see the error of his ways. (For example, one Procter & Gamble brand manager sent prototypes to his boss's wife for her advice as a target customer and turned her into the most influential internal ally the innovators could have ever hoped to have.)

Whether resistance is overcome by an act of persuasion, seduction, manipulation, intimidation or bribery, the fact is that it has to be overcome. In this context, the models, prototypes and simulations that IT builds are less mechanisms to solve problems than ways in which to surface the real reasons for resistance. Bitter experience affirms that individuals and organizations don't hesitate to offer dishonest, misleading or ignorant reasons for not wanting to implement an idea.

At one bank, online marketing absolutely refused to allow a subtle yet important interface change to be tested on its consumer site. IT convinced the firm to adopt the change by making a similar change on the bank's human resources intranet site and then quickly debugging the problems associated with the modification. Resistance was overcome by a cost-effective example.

The smartest thing innovation-savvy CIOs could do to boost their chances of success is to invest less time brainstorming and more thought targeting the sources of resistance to innovation implementation. Innovation initiatives should have explicit flowcharts and tactics explaining how internal resistance will be identified and finessed. Overcoming resistance should be the driving dynamic for implementing innovations within the enterprise.

Alas, even as I write this I can just see you muttering to yourself: "We can't do that because . . ."

Michael Schrage is codirector of the MIT Media Lab's eMarkets Initiative. He can be reached at schrage@media.mit.edu