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Skunks and Outsiders
Preliminary questions on the theme of innovation.

In: Technisches Museum Wien (Hg.): Phantasie und Industrie
Ausstellungskatalog (deutsch/englisch)
Wien 1989

Essay on Management-Theory and Structures for Innovations.

Presentation of 30 projects by artists, realized in cooperation with companies: Alfons Schilling, Helmuth Gsöllpointner, Peter Pongratz, Carl Auböck, Tino Erben, Oswald Oberhuber,Atelier 6B, Christian Ludwig Attersee, Gunter Damisch et al.
Texts by Christian Reder, Atelier 6B, Anton Knoll, Oswald Oberhuber, Norbert Zimmermann, Peter Rebernik

 


'The excellent companies are learning olganisations', whose most innovative units function on the principle of 'structureci chaos'. Thus reads one of the most illuminating axioms of a management bestseller of the eighties: .'In Search of Excellence' by Peters and Waterman. Key terms in the book include 'simple, flexible organisational structure', 'temporary project-teams', i.e. small, interdisciplinary groups oriented towards concrete problem-solving and implementation tasks, 'experiments and laboratories' even in areas where they were not previously thought relevant, 'regular reorganisation' and, where task areas have been redefined, the 'adaptation of company systems'.

In the sequel, 'A Passion for Excellence' by Peters/Austin, even stronger emphasis is placed upon the 'chaotic' side of innovation, in contrast to the well-organised strategies and the 'myth' of rational innovation planning. The motto of the book is: 'lf, when confronted with failure, you say: 'The next time we must simply improve our organisation,' you are already sowing the seeds for the next disaster.'
The sudden appetite for disorganisation seems to fly in the face of all principles of thoroughness and caution. Interest now centres on unorthodox phenomena, exceptions, paradoxes, unpredictability, wholly in line with the (long-spurned) mathematical theories of B.B. Mandelbrot. The goal of rational systematisation - the world as a fully organised enterprise - seemed to be approaching when the metaphorical emergency brake was pulled and a certain type of chaos was suddenly accepted. Analyses of why certain U.S. companies were especially successful have clearly shown that the model of the innovation process suggested by management experts should be based on the 'chaotic universe' whose laws are unknown. Companies have a better chance of success if they practise new forms of idea-production through a consciously promoted atmosphere of innovation and flexibility and small, more or less autonomous development groups. In a network of laboratories 'feverish inventors and dauntless entrepreneurs should let their imagination fly in all directions.' Experimentation and rapid progress are, as a rule, more
important than systematic planning. Tolerance has to be shown when these teams ruthlessly disregard official channels and even initially make mistakes. lf the original mode of thinking was creative and one can learn from it, then the activity itself is meaningful. Fault-finding is taboo. It is important that all participants are put under pressure: deadlines must be kept to, even if they are unrealistic. The reasoning behind these 'Stakhanovite' systems is that most new ideas still come to the 'wrong person' in 'the wrong place' in the 'wrong line of business' at the 'wrong time' and with the 'wrong consumers' as the target group. There is another undeniable danger, as Peters says: 'Show us a company without a good fact base, a good quantitive picture of its customers, markets and competitors and we will show you that there priorities are set with the most byzantine of political maneuring."

Examples and anecdotes are used to underline this theory. The original Levi-Strauss jeans, for example, had little to do with the firm they made famous (the company bought the rights for the first riveted jeans from a customer, one Jacob Youphes from Nevada). Similarly, they got the idea of bleaching from one of their main customers, Bloomingdales of New York. Atari and Hewlett-Packard ignored initiatives from just those employees who went on to found the Apple company together. And the idea for those small yellow post-it pads, which have in the meantime brought 3 M a turnover of more than 200 million dollars, was alleged to have occurred to an employee of the company during choir practice, because he needed bookmarks that wouldn't fall out. And the tortuous paths by which the electric incandescent lamp (which had originally been developed for use on ships) eventually came to be generally adopted and replace the more dangerous gas lamp, or frozen foods, only came to marketed forty years after the process had first been invented, both underline how little these ideas had to do with strategic planning. The authors cite a study which established that 80 % of all the 20th century inventions it examined came from either independent individuals or small businesses, from individuals in an 'outsidergroup' in larger firms, or from large firms in the 'wrong' line of business.

On the basis of these and similar arguments, one can summarise the authors' central idea (if in a rather 'Don't Worry - Be Happy' tone) as follows: in a chaotic world success comes only to those who continually experiment and are permanently active - which is why we need 'champions', or 'outriders of innovation' (skunks). And since champions are needed, we have to take into account the fact that this rare species works most efficiently in its natural habitat, i.e. in 'skunk works' or decentralised units appropriate for these creative peopie who are so essential to any organisation. To this end we have to create a favourable climate, one in which the experimenters, perfectionists and proponents of innovation are cherished, nourished and celebrated. In the first of the two books quoted in this essay, the authors talk about so-called 'genius laboratories', where groups of eight to ten 'fanatics' often achieve more than the largest development departments. The road from the geniuses to the skunks went via the Uil Abner' comic strip. The idea of using these comic skunks as a symbol for this type of outsider first came up at Lockheed. In the meantime, the expression 'skunk works' has come to mean innovative, dynamic and somewhat eccentric activities on the periphery of the business world that have the chance of a certain degree of autonomy.

Despite these insights into the inhibitory constraints of normal work situations, to put the resultant demands for change into practice is clearly not as simple as it would seem. The imagination still sometimes fails when confronted with independent ideas from outsiders. Thus 'we' are told that we 'must finally learn' to 'accept creative and nonconformist people even when their working methods seem to us unorthodox or even chaotic.' A cursory glance at this sentence reveals nothing but its intrinsic banality. Nevertheless, it is an admission that even within the entrepreneurial establishment there are at least two cultures which are continually at loggerheads. Otherwise the authors would not have made the distinction between 'us' and 'them'. 'We' (the authors and readers of books about management?) automatically belong to the conformists and unimaginative dullards; it's always the others who are creative. But this is of course characteristic of stereotyped remarks.

It would be superfluous to emphasize that it has long since become a central concern of entrepreneurial policy to find out where these 'others' are, and how best to cooperate with them without alienating independent achievement through the constraints of conformism and production. Concerns such as these are essential when one is striving for qualities such as excellence, superiority, innovation, durability or the unspectacular, anonymous power of conviction. Recipes for success, for example the unconditional idolisation of the customer (it is suggested that leading customers are far-sighted and represent the best source of information for new breakthroughs), devalue the arguments set out here for preconditions for company innovation. In order to see something new, one must create something new. Why should the customer of all people be saddled with the burden of 'imagination'? It would be more effective to make the mechanisms that hinder the development of new ideas and suggestions or even their emergence less rigid in a more comprehensive sense. The enthusiasm for 'champions' who 'win' implies the existence of 'the loser', regardless of how imaginatively he 'plays'. Perhaps the latter - to extend the metaphor - is merely in need of better training facilities.

In any case, dividing the characters on the edges of the entrepreneurial world into the admired and the ignored unmasks the limits of the openness preached in these books. It is nothing but the cult of genius on the one hand and a disregard of the (momentary) failures and the less spectacular figures on the other. Even the opportunity of discovery and experiment tends to remain unused. It is not just a matter of chance that styling or design do not rank as especially important. Possible contacts with artists have no place in these management theories. The fact that creative people are still automatically assumed to have chaotic and slovenly working methods only reveals the persistent influence of prejudices about bohemian eccentricity. There is a related tendency here suddenly to overestimate the chaotic element and adopt guerilla tactics. The crux of the matter, hidden behind these suggestions, is the heightening of deadline pressure and an acceleration and increase in 'productivity', and there is no reason why this should not have been made more explicit. Their defence of creative people and nonconformists thus goes round in circles. To break out of this offers a chance - however, only if conditions of work and communication are simultaneously influenced and it does not merely constitute a transfer of images (using famous names as window-dressing).

Relying on outsiders is in any case gradually developing into a fiction. Anybody who can be used is integrated into the system. Without accepting the rules of 'entrepreneurial culture' very little can work. The 'other' is simply not allowed to be so very different. Smooth approaches on all sides generate feelings of helplessness and general automatism. Anything that is consistently 'contrary' or 'different' goes underground. Perhaps it is normally a simple question of new forms of normality being are so attractive for the different sides that rewarding cooperation can temporarily take place. Open structures need a 'project culture' if they are to provide effective impulses. The importance that freely creative independent work is allowed to have is an essential criterion for the viability of future work relationships. At any rate, the occasional cooperation with specialists who are not normally part of the company (Iawyers, computer progammers, organisational consultants, architects) represents merely a first conventional step towards a new constellation of productive relationships.

A corrective continuation of the now popular American innovation theory is therefore to be seen in the plethora of new projects - whether they concern product development or inventions, software or design, or collaboraton with artists. In areas which it is not so easy to 'package' and open up as consumer services, because suitable forms of cooperation still have to be conceived, there is certainly an inexhaustible potential which reaches far beyond the simple revaluation of more or less professional 'skunks'.

To which I would like to add a few theses concerning current practice on projects:

  • The problems involved in 'Phantasy and Industry' primarily concern new accents in the circumstances of the interchange. From the fact that businesses are being recommended - perhaps rather too superficially - to have their own idea-workshops, we can see that many companies are now beginning to take their isolation more and more seriously. The technicians design, the engineers construct, the salesmen caiculate, the managers manage and business associates debate. The thought of drawing development ideas from various departments tends to be rejected, although especially in phases of radical change the search for comprehensive new ideas is of the utmost importance. About which there is play on words: businesses are praised on account of professional management, the 'good conduct' of their affairs, but so too are prisoners. For this, it is the latter who are released earlier.
  • A strange fear of unaccustomed conflicts is manifest everywhere: a fear of design, a fear of art (unless of course 'culture' is already recognised as the image-bearer). In every case it is sure to pay off to analyse this behaviour, because just such a fear of conflict counts as a fundamental mistake in business. A first sign: the picture of business as being strongly 'motivated' by competition, together with a supposedly 'imaginative' art which delivers soothing harmony, is complete nonsense.
  • It is also nonsense to allow patronship and sponsorship to enter into development and design processes. That belongs to another level, Nothing is lost by such thinking in business processes but it is simply unprofessional to play the patron to architects, designers or scientists and it should not be otherwise in the case of artists. lt is a question of overcoming the sponsor mentallty in order to establish a normal reciprocal relationship, one feature of which is that both sides acknowledge its existence.
  • That extraordinary performance ability is everywhere demanded and valued obscures the fact that companies usually have great difficulty in coming to terms with what is really extraordinary and often cannot even recognise quality in what is ordinary and unobtrusive. The main reason for this is that proiects and assessments are usually approached in a far too conventional manner - from the imaginative structuring of the development phases to the level of knowledge. What might be possible beyond selfimposed horizons is all too often dismissed as being unrealistic; or at least for as long as it takes for another to entice the honourable customer away with surprises.
  • It is necessary to pluck up courage for unusual cooperations and projects, in which unconventional views are expressly desired and allied partners can came into contact. The search for adequate working and communication conditions must be included in the struggle to find the best solution for each case.
  • There is absolutely no reason at all why artistic and design proposals, for example, have to reach the public in a form which has been distorted almost to unrecognisability due to internal company considerations and production requirements.
  • It is also feasible to effect an improvement in the transfer between different areas of thought (and to do the corresponding translation work) by including consultants with differing points of view when establishing priorities - whether in project planning, consultancy or on the board of directors. Why do artists, architects, scientists, designers or other 'unconventional' people so seldom have the influence here that they ought to command?

Projects express the openness of business systems and the transfer of ideas and are therefore an important indication of the state of development of the companies and institutions. Only when serious mental work replaces habituated services, and conflicts about subject matter develop their own constructive moments, do effective processes arise.

A last remark: it is nevertheless easy to just talk about non-collaboration with the commonplace or about non-collaboration with automatism.

 

Skunk:
mephitis; (U.S.) management language: person who sets things in motion, an outrider, a rebel, an unconventional lateral thinker, an 'exotic' person.
Imagination:
(power of) imagination; creative ability; resourcefulness; fanciful or empty assumption.

 

 

 


Alfons Schilling: Swich-frog, 1989

Project for the ‚New Railway' Austria. ‚Railway tracks were the forerunners of steel girders in skyscareprs'

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© Christian Reder 1989/2002