Launch p4: Being Unreasonable
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
In the wild, survival isn't just about strength; it's about adaptability. Some environments may seem stable but, depending on what time frame you use, no environment is permanent. Sometimes you have to adapt in order to survive a changing landscape. Other times a favorable mutation might be just what you need to disrupt a stagnant environment. In the corporate jungle, the same principles apply. We often preach innovation, but how often do we truly embrace the radical – the counterintuitive? For many reasons (e.g., group think, innovator’s dilemma, risk aversion, etc), corporate innovation often follows a gradual, or routine, evolution but what if there’s a need for a proper revolution? The reasonable mind will find ways to justify playing within the rules. You can’t blame him – that’s where things are safest – but he’s not the one who’ll be throwing tea in the harbor (apologies - I live in Boston!). Let’s explore how the "survival of the fittest" framework can illuminate the path to genuine innovation, and why being "unreasonable" is your best weapon against corporate extinction.
Beyond Linear Improvement
The classic interpretation of "survival of the fittest" often leads us to incremental improvements – building "faster horses" rather than envisioning automobiles. But real evolutionary leaps come from challenging the very definition of "fitness."
Beyond Local Minima: Standard thinking traps us in local minima – solutions that appear optimal, but are actually suboptimal in the presence of more data. These are patches that cover up the underlying problem. To be fair, not all problems need solving, and sometimes truly “solving” a problem might be impractical. But if there is a strategic business opportunity in solving a customer’s problem (as opposed to approximating a solution) then we need to break out of a local optimization. To break free, we must unlock our thinking.
Lateral Thinking: Instead of asking, "How can we make this horse faster?" ask, "How can we transport people from points A→B faster?" This involves:
Redefine the problem: Reducing the matter to first principles is clarifying. Something as simple as the Five Whys technique can get you going in the right direction.
Challenging Assumptions: Questioning everything, including prevailing theories and expectations.
Connecting Disparate Ideas: Drawing analogies from seemingly unrelated fields.
Provocation: Deliberately introducing disruptive ideas to stimulate new perspectives.
"10x Thinking": Encourage teams to aim for tenfold improvements rather than incremental gains.
Build Momentum: Get everybody on the same page during ideation. Consider using exercises such as the Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats mentioned in my post 1.1.1 Systematized Innovation to get people rowing in the same direction.
"What If?" Exercises: Regularly engage in thought experiments that challenge fundamental assumptions. Five Whys (see above) can help here as well. The point is to challenge reality, and the assumptions that come with it.
Prototype and Iterate Rapidly: Build and test ideas quickly to learn from failures and refine concepts. Don’t spend too much time on the theoretical. Do your homework, but start building quickly!
Cross-Pollination of Ideas: Facilitate interactions between different departments and industries to spark new connections.
Dedicated "Innovation Labs": Create spaces for experimentation and exploration, free from the constraints of day-to-day operations.
Cultivating Evolutionary Diversity: In a team setting, groupthink can stifle innovation, leading to homogenous solutions.
Promote Cognitive Diversity: Seek out individuals with diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and expertise.
Encourage Dissent: Create a safe space for challenging ideas and voicing dissenting opinions.
Devil's Advocate: Assign someone the role of deliberately challenging the prevailing viewpoint.
Anonymous Idea Generation: Allow team members to submit ideas anonymously to minimize social pressure.
Anticipating the Evolutionary Leap
How do we spot the "mutations" that will reshape the corporate landscape?
Emerging Trends as Evolutionary Pressures: Look for trends that create significant selective pressures. These could be technological, societal, economical or environmental.
Example: The rise of remote work has created a demand for seamless virtual collaboration tools, not just improved video conferencing.
Subsequent Example: Since most societal movements swing on a pendulum, and since remote work comes with inefficiencies both in productivity and in human dynamics, can we anticipate a future when workforces return to downsized offices? What problems and opportunities would this create?
Anticipating Future Needs: Don't just solve today's problems; envision the needs of tomorrow.
Zoom +/-: One of the skills that has helped me tremendously is the ability to alter the perspective from which I view a problem. Companies don’t operate in a vacuum, and we can often anticipate a favorable path for a company by zooming out far enough to see the direction of the industry, the needs of its customers, or the trends in science and technology. At some point you’ll need to deal with the details, but when painting a broad picture it’s sometimes useful starting with broad strokes.
Scenario Planning: Develop multiple future scenarios to stress-test your assumptions.
Deep Customer Empathy: Understand not just what customers say they want, but what they truly need.
Conclusion
Survival of the fittest in the corporate world isn't just about building better versions of the past; it's about embracing the "unreasonable" and evolving beyond conventional thinking. There is plenty of need for routine innovation — it’s how you cultivate a client base and entrench yourself in a market. But don’t forget the 3 other innovation strategies. They will stretch you beyond your comfort zone, but that’s OK — it’ll stretch your competitors too! Whatever strategies you employ, think of the whole package, from the tinniest feature to your GTM to your bird’s eye-view from the troposphere. At each layer take your time to question assumptions and challenge prevailing practices. You never know when you’ll ask the right question at the right time and expose a eureka moment that will alter our sense of reality. By challenging assumptions, anticipating future needs, and fostering cognitive diversity, we can unlock the potential for truly transformative innovation.
As Bernard Shaw said above, “progress depends on the unreasonable”, and I believe that innovators must be unreasonable to succeed. Whether you’re an intrapreneur or an entrepreneur, there is a fundamental rejection of the status quo and an unreasonable belief that reality should bend to your ideas. It did for Ghandi. It did for John Lennon. It did for Steve Jobs. Why shouldn’t it for You? To all soldiers that belong to that unreasonable army, I salute you. My advice would be to be systematic about it. Recognize your actions in the pages of evolutionary history and learn from the eons of natural selection that paved the way for your undertaking. Be smarter. Be fitter. Survive and thrive.
