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