The Frog In The Well: Why Your Team Can't Innovate

With apologies to Zhang Zi:

Once upon a time, there was an Executive Frog who lived at the bottom of a well. He was a contented frog as the well contained everything he needed to live. He knew that it took exactly 30 hops to circle the well, and that there were conveniently placed lily pads all along the way. He had an abundance of juicy bugs to eat, and he knew exactly when the sun would peek over the side and warm the water for his daily swim. He knew each and every creature who lived in the well with him – how they thought, how they acted, what they ate and how they lived. The well was a place of order and certainty, where everything worked. He was a happy frog.

One day, a Consultant Turtle came by and peered over the side of the well.

“Hey”, said the Consultant Turtle, “There is a great big Sea just a few hops from here. There are some other frogs to swim with, lots of new places to go and plenty of new bugs to eat.”

“Ribbit,” croaked the Executive Frog. “I know exactly how things work here in the well. It is the same day after day – nothing changes. It’s paradise in here! No thanks.”

“I don’t know”, replied the Consultant Turtle. “Some of the other frogs out here have grown a lot bigger in the Sea. Heck, some of them have discovered new ways to swim and hop. There’s even a new type of lily pad on which to rest.”

The Executive Frog grew more assertive. “Ribbit,” he said, “I grew up in this well. I designed the hopping path. I know which bugs the other creatures like and I keep any new bugs out. I know when the water will be warm and when it will be cold. It’s a perfect world and I do not need advice from a Turtle”. The Executive Frog flicked his tongue at the Turtle and hopped around the well.

“Well, ok,“ the Turtle said. “I heard some of the other Frogs talking about a big rainstorm and flood so watch out. The Sea can absorb the water but I’m not so sure about this well.” And the Consultant Turtle slowly ambled off.

“Humph, ribbit,” croaked the Frog, as he snagged another juicy bug.

Then the first raindrop fell.

The business literature is ripe with examples of organizations that were so comfortable in their way of doing things and so confident in their point of view they squandered competitive advantage by ignoring the changes going on outside their walls. Steve Sasson brought the world’s first digital camera to Kodak in 1975, but their “well” could only accommodate film. Sony’s well consisted of analog music, restrictive music formats and a “not invented here” mindset, opening the door for Apple’s iPod/iTunes system. Point-and-shoot camera makers missed the consumer shift from “let me take a picture, print it and show it to you” to “I want to share my picture now.” Retailers once believed that consumers would shop in brick-and-mortar stores and, if a product was not in stock, would patiently wait a couple of weeks for an order to arrive. Amazon, Zappos and others said “Hey, shop on-line and we will have it to you in a couple of days – and we will pay the shipping!” Designers once determined which clothes were “cool”. Now Converse says “Create your own cool sneaker and we will make it for you.”

The same “stuck-in-the-well” thinking applies to systems and processes within organizations. HR departments used to look at work histories and weed out anyone who changed jobs more than once or twice in a career. Current generations of workers can’t imagine such a limited growth path. Whereas recruiting new talent once consisted of companies screening for the best people, now, with web sites like Glass Door, people can screen companies to see if they really want to work there. Performance management systems used to be agonizing, once-a-year exercises to force a distribution of ratings and to justify salary figures approved during the budget process 12 months earlier. Deloitte and others are doing away with such demotivating processes and replacing them with on-going coaching conversations focused on improving capability.

The antidote to The Frog In The Well doesn’t have to involve a Consultant Turtle. What it does require is an organizational culture laser-focused on learning. Such organizations demonstrate:

• Leaders who are learning agile – who learn from both successes and failures and quickly apply that learning to new situations.
• A culture that incorporates systems to relentlessly pursue new thinking from both inside and outside the organization.
• Recruiting diverse talent – not just in background but in ways of thinking that challenge the status quo.
• Leaders who have the courage to ask “why do we still do it that way?” and “what could we do?”
• A commitment to doing more than meeting the needs of the client – anticipating needs clients don’t know they have and bringing extraordinary value to client solutions.
• A commitment to on-going growth and development – sometimes simply for the sake of learning to learn.

I worked with a client several years ago whose culture was so wedded to documenting everything on paper that the executives banned employees from using iPads because it “sent the wrong message”. Of course, employees were using smart phones and iPads as soon as they left work. This same client was having trouble recruiting and retaining top young talent, and couldn’t understand why.

In short, they didn’t notice that it was raining. Ribbit.