Carlsons Law of Innovation

On recently reading Thomas Friedmans latest book “That Used to be Us” I came across an interesting take on innovation – Carlsons Law of Innovation. Now every company on this planet seems to want to innovate – so this was of interest.

Carlsons Law of Innovation states “Innovation that happens from the top down tends to be orderly but dumb. Innovation that happens from the bottom up tends to be chaotic but smart.”

Curtis Carlson is the CEO of SRI International, a company which serves as an innovation factory for organisations ranging from governements to multinational companies. His is an innovation hot house. What Carlson’s laws implies is that if you try and impose innovation on a company as the CEO or as one of the senior managers, you will be indeed receive innovation in return. However, the innovation that happens often tends to be what the CEO would like to hear and see as opposed to what the organisation actually needs.

Most commonly the innovation will be all about the short term results (such as cost cutting) and result in structured, detailed plans which end up becoming quite bureaucratic. It is almost like innovation by decree wherein the employee is told ‘You Will Innovate!’

By contrast, innovation that bubbles up from the bottom as a result of people looking at things and trying to do it better may not be as orderly but will, in the end, be much better smarter in the value it adds. This Bottom Up innovation is often a result of people viewing a problem, trend of system as not being very smart, thinking they could do it better and actually having the latitude to just explore and experiment. More often than not, this does not happen in a very orderly fashion, rather by mistake or accident. It is a result of connecting seemingly unrelated dots to muddle towards a workable solution. This kind of innovation looks chaotic but is actually an accumulation of responsively smart ideas which change the rules and bring big wins as a result.

Bottom Up innovation will never happen unless you have built a culture of innovation where people feel confident to experiment and do not feel that there is negative sanction if they make a mistake. In fact, some organisations may even reward their employees for trying to push the boundaries even if they failed whilst doing so.

My thesis is that you cannot prescribe innovation. You can only foster an environment in which innovation takes route and is allowed to thrive. It is an inside – out thing rather than an outside – in thing.

There are many ways to allow for this style of innovation to develop in your own organisation, department or team and you may even find some innovating ways of your own to expand on this further. The most basic principles of allowing for this to happen are to encourage people:

• To explore and give them time to explore, particularly whilst they are at work
• To not feel that they cannot do things because of a lack of money or because it is not their job
• To connect seemingly unrelated dots, even if it makes no sense whilst doing so
• To be open and aware to the diversity of the world around them
• To play with and wiggle things like in order to gain a better understanding of where the flexibility and rigidness lie
• To connect people from different functions and foster the ideas that come from diversity
• People to think laterally and creatively as opposed to thinking regimentally and only following orders
• Your organisation to move away from a dictatorial, top down, tightly controlled management where most things are stifled

I would love to hear your thoughts on where you think that innovation in your team, organisation or life could also be fostered via a Bottom Up approach.

Let me know in the comments section below.