Players in Open Innovation

There are many variants of Open Innovation diagrams on the net, typically originating/offshooting from Henry Chesbrough original work i.e. porous funnel rotated 90 degrees showcasing internal & external players in the game and the permeable boundaries of the new age firms. I thought of seeing it differently and hence came up with the schema below.

If Qualification Would Make A Field Mature Then There Should Have Been Colonies On The Moon By Now

I read the preliminary results from KMO and this is how they conclude in the end “The KMO survey reports that 65 percent of active knowledge managers do not hold a qualification related to KM. Of that 65 percent, only 18 percent claimed to be working towards a KM-related qualification. And of that 18 percent, 69 percent are working towards a postgraduate academic qualification, and 17 percent are working towards a KM accreditation certificate. These findings perhaps indicate continuing immaturity in the KM field”.

While I am eager to read the complete report which they plan to release in early 2012, I feel the immaturity of the KM field is not directly related to ‘KM qualified’ of ‘KM Certified’ professionals. My hypotheses are as follows:

KM by Choice or Chance? 
The parts of the preliminary results may be true but I think the bigger problem is that KM practitioners today, in quite some cases, are into KM not by choice but by chance.  As this aspect has a direct impact on any profession – if you have chosen a field of interest or forced to choose an area – KM most likely is not where it should have been today. 

Evolutionary & Voluntary Nature of KM Engagements 
In addition, IMHO, the immaturity is also because of 2 other dynamic factors in which KM is: (1) the evolutionary nature of the KM field (2) the voluntary nature of KM engagements in most of the organizations. While both are directly and primarily linked to ‘people’ this field continues to evolve (& mature) with time at its own pace, as KM practitioners continue to discover how people (or what makes them) innovate or what makes them share what they know etc. And it is a proven fact that humans love to share not by force but when they feel like sharing, when are motivated, when they are passionate about something and when they have the sense of self-satisfaction to give that anything else in the world. 

Lack of Executive Buy-in 
Next comes lack of buy-in from the executives, which is also linked to maturity of KM. It is important to note that most of the KM conferences today are still around theories of KM. There is very little talk about ‘how’ they have applied KM philosophies & ‘what’ made the turn around – improved productivity, greater quality, shorter learning curve etc. Aren’t business leaders looking for such outcomes? Why should they adopt KM into their strategic functions unless they have seen their KM function directly impacting their bottom-line? If KM community doesn’t show the value who else will? And how can the value be shown if we continue to talk largely about theories? 


As for the caption, it is true that we have come far in terms of what we know, similarly it is also true that humans are still discovering and wondering how much they don’t know (about S&T) as they tread deeper. The more they have explored science, no matter how much qualified they are (docs, postdocs, noble laureates etc.); multiply by 100s of them, the more humans have felt their ignorance towards how much is yet to be discovered – so can we call other fields of study mature despite having qualified professional in each field of study?

You get back to that goddamn cubicle & start thinking outside the box

Let’s face it raw - how many times do we empower (or let) our team to think creatively? Or do they get an environment at all that energizes them to think outside-the-box? When the project is in a firefighting state and firefighters are all around do we do enough to step back for a while & think afresh?  

 

Image Source: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2005/10/CartoonCreativity

There was this manager in a company who was do-as-I-say types. He used to confront people, show them down & drive them up the wall with even the basic things that did not required deliberation. While he had smart chaps working under him they were all confined, to a box. Little did the manager realize that while his product was doing fairly good in the market, the team could have done far better by simply unleashing his team's potential by empowering them with the width the team needed. That would have kept the competition far behind & spiked the company’s profitability 3-fold. As was his typical nature, the me-myself-I attitude of this manager kept the team at their very best low.  While the team was satisfied with the pay they got at the end of the day they were absolutely not contended with the spirit the team was into & more so the freedom they were deprived of, in the social age.

Few months later this manager went elsewhere. Another gentleman who took over this team quickly realized the morale & social-state in which the team was. While he saw the potential of the team during first few informal conversations he had with each of them, he also found out the rigidity of the environment (call it process) & the way this team was nurtured in the past did more damage than any good. The manager slept over this and later thought, “Hey, why not consult the guru?”

After a deep & profound conversation he was told to take his team offsite and break the ice. And it couldn’t have been better ever since then. The team found a renewed spirit and the necessary vigor in whatever they did – right from conceptualizing the go-to-market plan to interactions with customers to giving the feedback to the design/production team. The reach of their product magnified and so was the customer’s goodwill. Unlike the previous manager, this manager here intervened only when strategic visioning was required whereas he left all the tactical decisions for the team to take. He in fact even tweaked his office ergonomically and also demolished those cuboids giving a feeling of openness & transparency to his team. This changed the team morale dramatically and that led to become one of the most vibrant & go-getter team the company had ever seen.