Looking to Kill Innovation?

Killing innovation is easy. Paradoxically, many R&D organizations are really good at it.

It was 1976.

A difficult year for me. The year my dreams of becoming a marine biologist were well and truly scuppered. On my first trip out to the Marine Research Station, I learned that I get horribly sea-sick at the mere sight of a boat. Totally incapacitated. My great plans had evaporated upon first contact with the enemy - The Cruel Sea. I would not be spending the rest of my life wrestling great white shark on the Florida Keys.

It was a devastating blow.

I tried to keep my options open. Maybe land-based marine biology options? Rockpools? I tried to imagine a glittering career studying limpets? Or periwinkles? It was at this point that I met my old professor, Bill McGrew.

Bill was an interesting character. He came to Stirling from Oxford, but he was not exactly your typical Rhodes scholar. He looked like he'd stepped straight out of central casting as a cool, hip, Californian surfing dude. Which is odd because he was born and raised in the mid-west about as far from the sea as you can get. In Oxford he was once the dinner guest of JRR Tolkien. But 'The Hobbit' and 'Lord of the Rings' were not exactly on Bill's reading list. I can't help thinking it must have been refreshing for Tolkien to finally meet someone who'd never heard of him - an opportunity to skip the usual polite small-talk and head off to his local, The Eagle and Child, to enjoy a robust discussion about the chances of Oxford Athletic FC escaping relegation that year?

At the time, Bill was busy setting up the Stirling African Primate Project in Senegal. He would go on to have a glittering career as the founder of cultural primatology. More recently, Bill's testimony was instrumental as a witness in the Non-Human Rights Project making the case for the extension of rights to primates. You can read more about his adventures in Chasing after Chimpanzees.

Focal-animal sampling is a method of observing animal behaviour that involves focusing on a single animal or group of animals for a set period of time, and recording their behaviour.

Anyways, it was Bill who first introduced me to 'focal-animal' sampling. It was a pivotal moment for me. He ushered myself and other students into an observation room at the children's nursery in Stirling University. For the next two hours we, sat behind an observation 'mirror', recording the behaviour of each of our assigned focal 'animals' - in this case three-year-old children. By granting permission for the children to be observed the parents had access to discounted childcare in the university nursery. This probably wouldn't be permitted these days, safeguarding and what-not. But if you want to give focal-animal sampling a try, without ending up on a register, then go to the live webcams at Edinburgh Zoo where you can download worksheets and check out the penguins or the giraffes. Not the lions - they just sleep all day.

Fast-forward twenty years.

I'm presenting recommendations from a task force on promoting innovation and creativity in R&D. The senior management team at the company are beginning to glaze over, when I go off-piste and tell them Bill's account of the story of 'Imo'.

The story of 'Imo' is now well known. Mythologized, variously, as an example of innovation, creativity, intelligence, problem-solving and cultural transmission. The story was also hijacked by the alternative, more-things-in-heaven-and-earth movement and given the 'Supernature' treatment during the 70s and 80s.

[Look, just don't get me going - I'll get all ranty again.]

Anyways.

Imo (taken from the Japanese 'satsuma-imo' meaning 'sweet potato') was a young Japanese macaque (snow monkey) living on the island of Koshima in 1952. The researchers at the Koshima Research Station provided Imo and the other monkeys with sweet potatoes. These were often dropped in the sand and became gritty. In 1953, Imo was observed performing a novel behaviour: washing the sandy, sweet potatoes in a stream before eating them. The other young macaques began to copy Imo, washing their potatoes in the stream or later in the sea water. This behaviour spread, initially through the younger monkeys, until it became common practice. However, the alpha-male and other older males in the troop were slower to adopt the new behaviour. Cultural transmission in primates often spreads more rapidly among the younger members of a troop, who are more open to learning new behaviours, and among females, who spend more time in closer proximity to the younger members. Older and more dominant males stick to established routines and are less likely to change their behaviours based on new practices introduced by younger and lower-ranking individuals.

At this point, Bob, the President of the organization, interrupted.

With a wry grin, he asked in his thick American drawl:

'So, tell me Dennis. Who am I in this story? Am I 'Imo'? Or am I the alpha-male?'

'You are whoever you choose to be, Bob. The choice is yours.'

Bob chose to champion the Imos in the organization.

Promoting bottom-up innovation means building a culture where it is safe for the Imos to innovate. We build that culture with our actions, not with words. My old friend, Marty Klein, used to say 'an idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it'. You get brilliant ideas coming from some unlikely sources - the quiet voices.

As a Gorilla-in-a-Suit our job is to make sure those voices are heard.

“Innovation is the ability to see change as an opportunity – not a threat.”– Steve Jobs