Over at BankerVision, James Gardner weighs in on the importance of strategic innovation for financial institutions. Having worked for egg (a London based online bank), and seen some of the thinking first hand, I agree entirely with his point:
Try this experiment. Dream up some bank-important scenario. Create two stories, one in which the bank makes a decision, and the other in which it doesn’t. Present both. Watch the mind set of leadership change as they begin to rehearse the implications through for themselves. I have to tell you, having now spoken to a very large number of innovation teams for Innovation and the Future-proof Bank, that few organisations do this kind of work in a very structured way.
James is right. Very few organisations – let alone just in banking – carry out this process in any structured manner.
Bear with me while I dive into some detail and pick up on his ideas around “what if” future scenarios.
I’d suggest that the way in which you present the scenarios is critical to this process. Don’t rely on black and white A4 documents. Don’t rely on documents at all. Develop your picture of the future by using images, sounds, actors – whatever you need to bring the scenario to life.
If the scenarios challenge a critical strategy, then the way in which you present the information is critical too. Take your CEO on a journey – and make sure it’s not one that involves narcolepsy – by not just telling a story, but involving him in it.
But let’s not stop there. If we’re looking at the role of the ideal innovation team, let’s keep pushing the boundaries to see what else they could be doing.
The role of an innovation team should not be limited to future thinking and proposing ways to add value (although finding a team that does these things alone is a rarity in any organisation).
The ideal innovation team should also perform the role of the Court Jester. Consider the following extract from Wikipedia:
In societies where the Freedom of Speech was not recognized as a right, the court jester – precisely because anything he said was by definition “a jest” and “the uttering of a fool” – could speak frankly on controversial issues in a way in which anyone else would have been severely punished for, and monarchs understood the usefulness of having such a person at their side. Still, even the jester was not entirely immune from punishment, and he needed to walk a thin line and exercise careful judgment in how far he might go – which required him to be far from a “fool” in the modern sense.
When you consider some of the group think that pervades senior management structures, the role of the Court Jester becomes an important one. Who better to perform the role than the team that regularly examines the futures, deals in complexity and thrives on creativity?
This point is reinforced in a Harvard Business School publication called “Seven Ways to Fail Big.” For a summary, view the video summary, and take note of the last point. The authors talk about empowering internal devils advocates to ask the tough questions.
Sounds like a Court Jester to me.
To summarise here’s what your corporate innovation team should be doing:
- Empowering change in the organisation (a colleague of mine at AMP in Sydney has the wonderful title “Catalyst for Change”).
- Communicating a view of the future in such a way to identify risks to the organisation or spot opportunities.
- Acting as court jesters.
