In innovation, it is better to ask forgiveness rather than permission

In one of my most recent articles, The Big Elephant in the Innovation Room, I argue that despite all the corporate talk about innovation, the main obstacle to think and implement innovation is punishing people for taking risks or failing. That punishment comes in many forms: bad performance reviews, no promotions, decrease professional opportunities within the organization or even getting fired. Ultimately, that fear stiffens people’s mindsets and their ability to think and operate in this fast-paced moving world.

In The Big Elephant in the Innovation Room I explain how a large number of organizations, deliberately or not, create a culture that revolves around rules, stiff processes, guidelines and policies. Such a culture forces people to think very well in standards and efficiencies, all within the pre-established boundaries, but prevents them from thinking creatively and innovatively. And since every 5 second thousands of others are creating better products and services that compete with ours, it is necessary to transcend the “let’s be efficient” mindset and turn it into a “how do we add more value” one.

However, the story of innovation and fear for punishments doesn't need to be like I described before. I believe it could be something like the fairy tale of the dad telling her daughter “you can’t see that boy anymore”, while the daughter is getting out through the window every night to hang out with her beloved boyfriend. She challenges her dad’s authority and rules, and eventually proves him wrong about the boyfriend. It was always true love, and not a fling… How do we show true love for innovation?

In the corporate world, particularly within stiff cultures that are hard to change, the questions to address the big elephant in the innovation room become: is it possible to challenge the corporate status quo, authority and the limits of what we are allowed to do, and still think in innovation and experiment with new ideas? Is it possible to overcome (and even disregard) the fear of punishments and experiment with new ideas?

Those questions came up in a recent conversation that I had with Bill Carter, one of the most senior leaders at Ashoka, and currently the Director for Africa. Bill told me that when it comes to thinking and implementing innovation, most of the times it is better to “ask forgiveness rather than permission”. And believe me, when someone like Bill, who has been working in social development for more than 30 years, gives us this advice, we’d better think about it and try to find a way to put into practice!

“Ask for forgiveness rather than permission” doesn’t mean making light decisions about important corporate issues. Instead, it means thinking in innovation from all the possible angles, even as if we ourselves didn’t actually believe in our own idea. We need to attack our own ideas even before experimenting with them. We need to find the ways to prove them wrong, because that will become a great way to make them stronger, while increasing our capacity to move them forward.

The ability to measure risks and benefits from experimentation, testing and validation of new ideas, gives us a broader picture of possible results, minimizing larger risks and decreasing the potential for big failures. Then, it is less fearsome to challenge the status quo and move on to try our ideas.

Always, always, always, when we try something new, there is a big risk that things don’t go as expected. Actually, results of trying new ideas could be catastrophic! But the greatest innovations and discoveries in history are the results of somebody trying something new for the first time. It is true that in the short run, living within the established corporate boundaries gives us comfort. However, in the long run, the costs of doing nothing new and staying within the corporate comfort zone are always much higher than the costs of experimenting with new ideas. In this hypercompetitive environment and the struggle for corporate survival, sustainability and relevance, we are obliged to operate under the assumption and expectation that great outcomes will come from experimentation rather than from passivity and fear.

Many of the best corporate innovators in the world have eventually asked for forgiveness when things didn’t go well.  But, in the experimentation process, they created important opportunities to learn more and, ultimately, they came up with even better ideas and products than they had initially envisioned. This is only possible when people are either given the opportunity to take risks, or when they decide to overcome the fear and take those risks, despite strict corporate rules.

To think and implement innovation requires boldness. And many organizations don’t have this boldness ingrained in their culture. And, unfortunately, some of their leaders think that their job is simply to enforce expired, unnecessary and limiting rules, rather than unleash people’s creative potential. Other leaders, however, are eager to release all the energy contained in their people, supporting and challenging them to think and implement innovation. How do we partner with them?

If that is the case of your organization, what is preventing you from becoming a corporate innovator or intrapreneur? What do you need to overcome the fear of punishment and experiment with new ideas? What is keeping you off from the greatest things that lie on the other side of the big wall that separates the comfort zone from the adventurous territory of the best things in life? How are we bringing together champions and senior leaders to create a culture that really thinks and implements innovation? How are you preparing to show your true love for innovation? 

Follow me on Twitter: @erubio_p
Visit my blog: www.innovationdev.org

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About the Author: Enrique Rubio is an Electronic Engineer and a Fulbright scholar with an Executive Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Syracuse University. Enrique is passionate about leadership, business and social entrepreneurship, curiosity, creativity and innovation. He is a blogger and podcaster, and also a competitive ultrarunner. Visit the blog: Innovation for Development and Podcast. Click here to follow Enrique on Twitter. 

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