It's not just functionality it is design

Okay bare with me as I share one of my idea collisions...

Part 1: Daniel Pink said in his book A Whole New Mind that one of the new senses for the conceptual age is design. He also talks about how the conceptual age is a right brained environment more so than the left brained environment of the information age.

Part 2: I was just perusing my Fast Company Newsletter and came across an article in which Roger Martin (Dean of the Rotman School of Management) says, "enemy of innovation is the phrase 'prove it'." The interviewer (Linda Tischler) and Martin go on to talk about how design thinking is the next competitive advantage and how analysis paralysis is "thwarting" innovation.

Part 3: I have had several conversations and attended both an ASTD and an ODN meetings this month where the subject of measurement, research and "proving it" has come up. I believe I made the flippant comment, "why do we keep researching 'duh'."

Part 4: when we are under stress, human beings have the tendency to resort back to a time of less stress and take less risks.

Okay so here's my interpretation. The recession has caused us to be under a lot of stress thus we are resorting to those safe things we know have worked in the past--those left brained logical things like research and measurement. My question is, is this what is keeping us from innovating our way out of the recession? Further more, how poorly prepared for the ramp up after the recession will you be if you aren't innovating now?

Now, here is another part to my idea collision...

Part 5: Polarity Management by Barry Johnson talks about many problems are unsolvable/don't have an "answer" and are are really polarities to be managed.

So, the "answer" isn't to swing the pendulum to really wacky ideas and big risks but to create a balance between taking risks on new innovative thinking and then applying measures to it. Our challenge as OD professionals is to create ways within organizations to foster innovative thinking, innovative collaboration, and at the same time building processes that allow for the risks to be tolerable and some measures to be applied to "prove it" worked. It is not just functionality--it is design and it is not just design--it is functionality.

I would enjoy hearing of your successes in doing just that.