The new power of participation — what 2020 has taught us about how to innovate

2020: The good, the bad and the ugly

2020. What a year. And it’s only August. Whilst in some ways 2020 may go down in history as the year the world came to a standstill, in many other ways, it has been a year of beginnings. It’s marked the beginning of a short-lived national tradition of clapping on our doorsteps at 8pm every Thursday evening. It’s been the beginning of the rainbow extending its relevance as a symbol of hope and support during a pandemic. And it’s been the start of the Black Lives Matter movement shifting well and truly into the mainstream, as a catalyst for global debate and generating the widespread action it deserves.

What all these things have in common is that they emerged from the ground-up. They’re all prime examples of how in today’s society, power dynamics are shifting. Top down, centralised power is no longer the only — or the most successful — mechanism for making things happen, for driving change, or for uniting people around a vision for a better tomorrow.

In a world where social media has given everyone a voice, where ‘influence’ is a driving force and where crowd-led initiatives thrive, the status quo is being challenged, and rightly so. We’re in an era of movements. Movements that have been kickstarted and mobilised by the people who matter — those who are close enough to the problems to really understand what it means for people’s lives, who have the best ideas for what to do about it, and who are able to get the tone right in how you galvanise people around the cause.

More traditional examples of ‘top down’ power have recently gone down like a lead balloon. Let’s all cast our minds back to that god awful rendition of John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’, created by a hopefully well-meaning, but undoubtedly misled bunch of high profile, ‘powerful’ celebrities. Let’s try our best to recall the government’s often confused and contradictory narratives and directives over the past few months. And I’m cringing at some of the tokenistic responses big brands have put out in reference to Black Lives Matter, in particular those that seem to have leveraged it as a key marketing touchpoint, with no intention of actually doing anything about it.

Shifting dynamics of power in innovation

I recently read a book I can’t stop thinking about — ‘New Power: Why outsiders are winning, institutions are failing, and how the rest of us can keep up in the age of mass participation’ by Henry Timms & Jeremy Heimans. It’s made me think a lot about how organisations need to react to, and embrace, new power structures — to make the most of the tide of ‘bottom up influence’ that is sweeping across all areas of life, and to empower people to be a part of driving genuine change.

In the book, the authors outline a clear distinction between what they call ‘old power’, and the emerging, more participatory ‘new power’:

“Old power works like a currency. It is held by few. Once gained, it is jealously guarded, and the powerful have a substantial store of it to spend. It is closed, inaccessible, and leader-driven. It downloads, and it captures. New power operates differently, like a current. It is made by many. It is open, participatory, and peer-driven. It uploads, and it distributes. Like water or electricity, it’s most forceful when it surges. The goal with new power is not to hoard it but to channel it.”

We can learn a lot from the participatory ‘new power’ dynamics of 2020 so far when it comes to creating more inclusive and effective systems for innovation, across all types of organisation. Whilst top-down direction and guidance on strategic priorities will always be valuable in innovation, it’s only one part of the system. Bottom-up, employee-led innovation — where the people who know your customers & their problems best, who are faced with the inefficiencies in how you work everyday, and who generally, really give a damn about doing things better — is the key to unlocking the biggest opportunities for your organisation.

There are three core elements of an innovation system that champions ‘new power’:

01. Open innovation challenges that enable anyone to put forward ideas to address the problems that matter. Open innovation challenges are a key example of a ‘new power model’ that, as Timms & Heiman outline, “reinforce the human instinct to cooperate (rather than compete) by rewarding those who share their own assets or ideas, spread those of others, or build on existing ideas to make them better.” By turning innovation into an organisation-wide activity, and taking ideas seriously, wherever they come from, you can change the perception of innovation from a ‘spark of genius’ that happens only to people who have ‘innovation’ in their job title, to something that everyone can take part in.

02. Support & training that empowers idea owners to bring their ideas to life — turning initial ideas into successful ventures. Throughout any support and training, it’s vital to treat idea owners as ‘founders’, giving them what Timms & Heiman have coined ‘the Founder feeling’, which is ultimately ‘the increased sense of agency, control, and ownership employees seek, as if they were start-up founders’. By enabling the people at the heart of problems to be at the heart of solving them — as their own venture — innovation will be regarded as something that people can own and drive, rather than as something that is done to them.

03. A culture that celebrates and recognises participation, where anyone and everyone sees themselves as an innovator. This doesn’t mean giving everyone a medal just for putting forward an idea, as if it’s a primary school sports day. It means recognising that some people in certain parts of your organisation are rarely asked for their opinion, or for their ideas, and that there’s lots of groundwork to be done in making people feel comfortable putting themselves out there. It means fostering a culture where ‘failure’ is seen as a springboard for change, and where identifying something that could be done better is seen as constructive, not disruptive. All participation in an innovation system needs to be recognised, with support, feedback and encouragement to continue taking part, even if a particular idea isn’t ‘winning’.

Democratising innovation through new power

Embracing ‘new power’ is how leaders are going to get us through the rest of 2020, and it’s how leaders are going to unlock the full potential of innovation. Critically, it’s how leaders are going to hear from the more diverse voices and perspectives that haven’t traditionally had enough presence in the boardrooms and political arenas of ‘old power’.

To champion this type of bottom up innovation, we all need to embrace a new model of power, and become leaders who empower and equip others, who challenge norms, and who put the people who matter at the heart of driving change.

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What kind of ‘new power’ leader are you? Take the quiz here https://quiz.thisisnewpower.com/