The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
-George Bernard Shaw
Distracted by the rapid impact of a streamlined innovation strategy, the Air Force and DoD still leave the most critical aspect, culture, unaddressed. Though we will see solutions developed at dazzling speeds, our forces may be less innovative than ever.
In his delightfully whimsical book Orbiting the Giant Hairball, the late Hallmark visionary Gordon MacKenzie described the tangled mass of bureaucratic processes and rules that naturally coalesce in large organizations as a “giant hairball”. As MacKenzie put it, a strand of hair is added every time we respond to a situation or current conditions with a new rule or process, and even though conditions will change, that strand remains, already stubbornly knotted into place. In due course, through this process repeated countless times, the entire institution will eventually be comprised of this knotted mass of norms, procedures, policies, and rules that were applicable at one time, but may no longer be relevant or helpful. This tangled, wispy behemoth exerts a strong gravitational pull on the organization’s inhabitants, or in MacKenzie’s words, “an inexorable pull into mediocrity”, and those who seek to express their innate creativity are endlessly stymied, held down, administratively restricted and psychologically constricted. Mostly, what Orbiting is about is how to surmount, survive, and thrive as a creative-minded disruptive type despite the many obstacles that naturally take root within large bureaucracies.
I am with MacKenzie’s logic much of the way through this lovely, silly book. I relate to the frustration he describes, being a naturally divergent thinker asked to constantly repress something that makes me (and everybody else, really) a unique and uniquely valuable contributor. I have always seen and felt the effect that normalizing, safety-seeking, norm-enforcing cultural values can have on the freedom we have to express ourselves honestly and creatively, on our desire and will to do so, and eventually on our ability to, as being bound too tightly within the confines of corporate normality can lead to inspirational atrophy, making our inner children grow lethargic and taciturn. I appreciate his take on the plight of the creative-minded, the naturally divergent and occasionally disruptive — those of us who might reflexively push back before remembering we should sometimes consider conforming, because we are embedded in social and corporate cultures that consider conformity a virtue and norms to be essential ethical guardrails.
The solution MacKenzie presents in Orbiting is that in order to exercise creativity and be innovative in these hyper-regulated environments, the disruptor’s best hope is to rise above and just beyond the reach of the spidery arms of the bureaucracy — the “Giant Hairball” — elevating and ultimately orbiting around its gravitational pull, at an elevation where creative expression and experimentation are possible, yet still remaining tethered by gravity to the mission of the institution. This fantastical analogy denoting a tactic I would call “rogue innovation” evokes feelings of being set free and set apart, getting away with achievements as though they were crimes, and providing value in a way the organization wasn’t able to accommodate when you were firmly embraced in its cold, unfeeling clutches. MacKenzie is adamant about one point especially: that the hairball serves an important function. Rules, guidelines, and restrictive strictures keep an organization grounded, coherent, and aligned. The hairball’s gravity is what keeps those taking flight from spiraling into empty, unstructured space.
Recently, I have seen MacKenzie’s suggestion that we “orbit the hairball” invoked to describe a model of facilitating organizational innovation in places like the Department of Defense and the Air Force. I have seen similar theories serving as the basis for institutional initiatives — officially condoned exploratory expeditions into the outer atmosphere. Resources are now being poured into creating special avenues for selected individuals to “launch into orbit”, so that they can safely question convention, experiment, and develop creative solutions at the behest of the institution itself. From here on the ground, we can see them slingshot past, far overhead like shooting stars, as they send back down, one after the other, rapidly crafted advancements, to us the backwards masses, so we can benefit from their unleashed potential. See them innovate- those lucky, impactful few. Those creative cosmonauts will send down their brilliant solutions to all our problems so that we might be better and do better. This is what many in the DoD have come to believe is the best way to become more innovative.
This is where I start to have a problem with “orbiting the hairball”.
Learned Helplessness
I’m calling this model “Innovation by Exception”, in which the organization itself sets apart space and resources for dedicated innovative efforts within secure, protected channels. The innovation is itself exception to convention, facilitated via tunneled-out exceptions to policy, employing exclusively those exceptional few accepted to excel. We see this model in the creation of innovation labs, accelerators, and incubators — shelters from the bureaucracy which chokes out creativity and stymies disruption. The logic is straightforward, because for those gardeners of progress, the rules and norms that govern make our air too toxic and our soil too dry to sprout seedlings. Innovation by exception works very well when what you want is effective, singular sources of innovations.
But as I encountered this approach from more and more leaders of increasing authority, who proudly showcased the accomplishments of these incubators that defied expectation in the context of the organization — in which they are serving as leaders — I found myself wondering, “Why do none of these people think they’re in charge?”
Many of them, I assume, were rogue innovators themselves. As young leaders, they might have fought the system (and evaded it) to pursue positive change. As they rose the ranks, I imagine they protected their people from the stupid system, boosting them into orbit, and made work more meaningful for their teams, exercising their newfound power for good, condoning and providing top-cover for more rogue elements of their innovative insurgency. I admire leaders who are willing to exercise the full extent their authority and push its limits for the sake of their people. The chance and capacity to exercise that kind of immediate impact has an obvious allure. Much good has resulted from this type of leadership.
However, there is a point at which continuing to scale those guerrilla innovation tactics no longer makes sense. There is a point at which dedicated focus on only distinct innovations, on only projects and individual issues stops being rogue innovation and becomes innovation by exception — a planned initiative itself, not just a situational compensation. There is a level of authority at which your behavior and attitude plays a more significant role: It establishes, condones, and legitimizes this culture, in which the pursuit of innovation is a privilege not granted to the majority.
Though it may appear to be so, innovation by exception isn’t the same as rogue innovation. Much like sneaking out to party while your parents sleep is a far cry from sneaking out to party while your children sleep. The latter, though far easier to accomplish (and with better funding), carries with it a slew of undesirable implications and potential consequences. The difference seems subtle, but the context of roles is significant.
I suspect that what we have here is a serious case of learned helplessness. We have long been misguided, believing that the cultural norms that make the military an especially unquestioning and inflexible environment are necessary to maintain an effective fighting force. We are all convinced that government work is and always will be a bureaucratic labyrinth of progress-confounding inefficiency with no hope for anything approaching agility. Most people remain unaware that a culture can in fact facilitate questioning, challenging, and disrupting, as an inclusive, habituated, and thoughtfully integrated category of behaviors that advance the mission of the organization. Making a difference shouldn’t be the exclusive role of elite ideation strike-teams in secret space-pods hurtling far overhead.
Now, drawn in by the allure of immediate impact, we’ve placed all our hope into these small, consistently productive satellites, but neglected the environmental, cultural, habitual basis for a sustainable, continuous, and inclusive form of innovation that starts with the engagement of the customers who need it most- our Airmen, doing the work at ground-level. Innovation by Exception doesn’t just fail to make our organization more innovative. It makes us less so. By putting so much of ourselves into efforts to circumvent existing cultural and regulatory barriers to innovation, we legitimize the continued existence of those barriers, sending a clear message that they are both permanent and acceptable. This is the underlying assumption that I think may be most damaging to our innovative efforts- that MacKenzie’s “hairball” of creativity-sapping, innovation-suppressing cultural norms and bureaucratic trappings is either inevitable or necessary, that there’s no real hope for those of us stuck at ground-level, and that we just have to hope our number gets drawn for the great innovation-participation lottery.
The perception is harmful and its premise is false.
There are ways to lead, to set policy and write regulations that do not suppress innovation or creativity. Step one is believing that to be true, so that all of these leaders can put down their pet projects, their “signature accomplishments”, stop focusing on their legacy or next performance review, and start doing the hard work of making the meaning, impact, and inspiration found in active innovation accessible for all their people, not as a matter of exception, but as a rule.
It is past time we recognized the unhealthy state of our culture and started prioritizing taking action to make a change. If one knot in this hairball can be undone, then so can a million. Escaping and hovering out of reach of the system is a fine path for an individual who lacks authority and seeks results; but leaders need to maintain focus on the bigger picture and get everybody’s hands on the boulder.
See the second part of this series:
Innovative Out of Orbit, Part 2
The views expressed here are my own and do not reflect the views of the US Air Force, Department of Defense, or any other entity.