How to beat Learned Helplessness in corporate innovation

"We need smart people who can create the company's cash cow of the future", the exasperated middle manager told me.

"But, you won't find that kind of talent here."

?? Huh?

Three things bothered me about this flippant claim:

1. How insulting towards each of his colleagues
2. That's quite a generalisation. How could he have enough information to claim which talents do and don't exist throughout a large company?
3. Why the need to be so negative?

Needless to say, this guy –let's call him Glen McGloom– wasn't particularly endearing.

I'm sure however that any rudeness on Glen's behalf was outweighed by his sense of helplessness when it came to innovation.

And he was far from alone. Based on conversations with other Glens throughout this and other organisations, many companies have clearly developed a form of learned helplessness around their ability to innovate.

In other words, they doubt that they will ever develop the capability to consistently create new forms of business value.

?? It makes me think of a majestic bird (like an eagle), with all its strengths, constrained by the belief that it will never succeed in escaping a cage – even with the door wide open.

Exploring and building new businesses organically is difficult enough. But if throughout the company there is widespread belief –particularly among management circles– that trying to innovate is a hopeless endeavour, then what hope remains?

• Well, let’s take a look at these limiting beliefs first of all (I).
• But in reality, there are far more pressing issues (II) that stifle innovation.
• Of course, no article of Culture for Lunch would be complete without some concrete advice (III) on how to begin fixing such situations of helplessness.

1. Limiting beliefs

I’ve seen traditional companies often fall into the trap of allowing two big misconceptions to perpetually stifle innovation:

“There’s a Lack of Talent”

Many companies have a fatalistic belief that they lack the necessary innate skills and talent to innovate. (Which presumably extends to their ability to attract new talent, too.)

This seems to be correlated with the belief that innovation is a form of magic, or at least more art than science.

But this is fundamentally wrong.

Innovation is a profession, which like all professions requires building expertise through learning, practice, trial-and-error.

Like wealth management or meteorology, there is a lot of uncertainty in innovation, but there are structures and techniques that allow professionals to thrive under uncertainty. [Check out the Innovation Mandate, for example.]

There is no shame in there being a shortage of innovation expertise: Anyone can learn and develop their skills with the right support.

But when you start from a point where managers believe that they and their employees lack the raw talent to produce meaningful innovation, you immediately limit what the company can achieve.

This misconception is a root cause of companies underinvesting in employee development and feeling reluctant to pursue new ventures.

The result is this state of learned helplessness, where employees and managers feel powerless to change their situation.

“There’s a Shortage of Good Ideas"

There’s often this assumption that the best ideas are passing the company by, for a variety of (all incorrect) reasons:

• The good ideas have already been taken
• “Our people aren’t innovative enough” (see above)
• They just need one “Big Idea” but haven’t found it yet
• Their industry doesn’t lend itself to groundbreaking innovation
• Their region / country isn’t associated with innovation

It doesn’t take much for this belief in the scarcity of ideas to translate into an institutional inferiority complex, where the company feels it has no hope of competing with more innovative firms.

It soon leads to complacency and defeatism, which makes it even harder to explore new possibilities.

And when “good ideas” fail to emerge, the vicious circle is complete.

These two beliefs –“There’s a Lack of Talent” and “There’s a Shortage of Good Ideas”– create a culture of risk aversion and stagnation, where employees are discouraged from proposing bold ideas or exploring new opportunities.

They’re harmful for the company’s innovation culture, but they largely miss the point of why the organisation might be struggling to innovate.

2. The more pressing Issues

Although these limiting beliefs are a big problem, the root causes of innovation struggles and a weak culture of innovation usually lie deeper within the structure of the organisation. The key underlying issues include:

Short-termism

If there is an issue that appears to be getting even worse currently, it’s the fact that so many traditional companies focus heavily on short-term financial performance at the expense of long-term innovation.

Short-termism leads to underinvestment in exploration and a fundamental unwillingness to pursue projects that don’t promise immediate returns.

Excessively hierarchical decision-making

Rigid hierarchical structures significantly impede innovation.

If decision-making is concentrated at the top, including decisions at a Project level, it leaves little room for input from employees and other innovators who are closer to the operational side of innovation and who receive customer feedback.

Fear of failure & penalising mistakes

As we never cease to repeat, a culture that penalises failure is detrimental to innovation.

If you’re a would-be innovator but you’ve learnt (through experience) to fear the repercussions of making mistakes, it’s very unlikely you’ll be willing to take even small risks or experiment with new ideas.

Poor collaboration between silos

Big companies tend to operate in silos. Departments and functions work in near-isolation, hindering the flow of information and ideas.

Since innovation thrives at the intersection of different ideas, poor interaction between departments inside the company (not to mention with the outside world) deeply limits the company’s ability to innovate in any meaningful sense.

3. A few urgent solutions and Who Can Help

To overcome these challenges and build a culture of innovation, here are a few measures that big traditional companies can implement with the help of both internal specialists and external advisors:

Challenge and reframe limiting beliefs

Regularly reassess institutional assumptions, particularly around skills and expertise.

Internal specialists, such as change management experts and innovation officers, are well suited to lead these initiatives by facilitating workshops and creating forums for open dialogue.

External consultants can provide an objective perspective and introduce good practices from other industries.

Incentivise longer term thinking

Shift the focus from exclusively short-term gains to include long-term innovation.

This can be driven by internal strategy teams who align corporate goals with long-term innovation metrics, combined with some well-defined incentives for decision-makers.

External consultants meanwhile can assist in developing frameworks that incorporate long-term innovation goals and advise on resource allocation. One example of this is the Innovation Mandate – of which you can obtain a free template.

Flatten hierarchies, decentralise decision-making

Effective delegation of responsibility, budget and risk (via the Innovation Mandate for example) empowers teams and leaders at all levels to contribute ideas and make appropriate decisions.

Internal HR and org development teams can implement policies that promote inclusivity and decentralised decision-making.

Whereas external consultants can provide frameworks and methodologies to transition to a more inclusive organisational structure.

Cultivate a culture of learning

To build the company’s willingness to learn from failures, internal training and development teams can design programmes on Lean Startup and other methodologies that emphasise learning.

External consultants can offer more specialised training and facilitate learning sessions from a more neutral perspective.

Improve cross-Functional collaboration

Breaking down silos and promoting collaboration between different teams is easier said than done. But people like project managers and team leaders can create cross-functional teams to drive specific innovation projects. External consultants can bring in collaborative tools and techniques, and coach teams on modern collaboration.

Look to the past for strength

A frequently under-appreciated strength is to use the company’s long-standing industry knowledge and resources to drive innovation.

Colleagues who have been around a while are often best-placed to identify areas where historical strengths can be exploited.

Meanwhile, you can call on external consultants to provide insights into how other companies have successfully turned their legacy into a competitive advantage.

(In case you need guidance on how to find or train the internal specialists mentioned or how to find the right external consultant – you can drop me a quick message though LinkedIn ??Stephen Parkins or by email [email protected])

If you're able to address the self-undermining behaviours mentioned earlier and implement the measures above, with the assistance of both internal and external experts, then even a traditional company can break free from the open cage that’s constraining their innovation efforts.

Conclusion

As we’ve seen, creating a culture in which innovation can thrive requires not just challenging the limiting beliefs of people like Glen McGloom.

We especially need to address a whole range of underlying structural and cultural issues, if we hope to support and nurture innovation.

Only by putting in the hard work of re-evaluating and re-working the company's structures can we break way from the learned helplessness that so many organisations suffer from today.

Like the eagle that discovers it can fly freely from its open cage, traditional companies don’t need to feel helpless: It’s within their power to transform themselves into dynamic, innovative organisations ready to thrive in a business world full of much uncertainty and great opportunities.

Nothing but internal demons are holding people back. In most cases, the door is wide open.