Sick Sigma?

A must read is Business Week from June 11, 2007. It's all about the adverse impact of Six Sigma on the renowned innovative culture at 3M. In a nutshell, when measurement and metrics are paramount, they begin to drive behavior focused not on innovation, but that which best optimizes what is being measured. It is an example of "the scientific effect" gone Frankenstein.

Find a copy and read it. Some gems:

"[4 1/2 years after GE & Six Sigma trained James McNerney departs] abruptly ... his successors face the challenging question: whether the relentless emphasis on efficiency had made 3M a less creative company."

"When these types of initiatives become ingrained in a company's culture, as they did at 3M, creativity can easily get squelched. After all, a breakthrough innovation is something that challenges existing procedures and norms."

"Invention is by its very nature a disorderly process." [says current CEO George Buckley] who has dialed back many of [his predecessor's initiatives]. "You can't put a Six Sigma process into that area and say, well, I'm getting behind on invention, so I'm going to schedule myself for three good ideas on Wednesday and two on Friday. That's NOT how creativity works."

" ... Once bloated U.S. manufacturers have shaped up and become profitable global competitors ... [so now] the onus shifts to growth and innovation, especially in today's idea-based, design-obsessed economy. While process excellence demands precision, consistency, and repetition, innovation calls for variation, failure, and serendipity."

"Six Sigma is plainly a euphemism for cost cutting."

Of Bob Nardelli of Home Depot, "Facts are friendly was a favorite mantra of his ... The bottom line of Nardelli's tenure: Profitability soared, but worker morale drooped, as so did consumer sentiment. Home Depot dropped from first to worst."

"The term [Six Sigma] gives me an allergic reaction."

Art Fry -- developer of Post-It Notes: " Innovation is a numbers game . You have to go through 5,000-6,000 raw ideas to find one successful business." -- "Six Sigma would ask -- why not eliminate all that waste and just come up with the right idea the first time?" [I think some consultants like 'DH' might like this attitude -- or pander to this C-Level bias to sell his pricey ideation services, but I think this sucks.]

Okay, I'm finished. Please read the article and share it with your clients, colleagues and bosses. It's a must.

Doug Stevenson

The Innovise Guys

One the Road ... Again ...

On the way home from my recent road trip to the region of the Black Hills in South Dakota, one of our last stops was Iowa City, home of the prestigious Iowa Writers' Workshop and to Prairie Lights bookstore -- a favorite. There on a display of refrigerator magnets I found this quote from Jack Kerouac:

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars ..."

I thought this was fitting, as Gregg and I are headed out on yet another road trip to mingle with mad radiant people of this ilk at the 2007 CPSI Conference -- "The Nature of Innovation" at Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Georgia - June 24-29. Besides, we're both big Kerouac fans. And the road -- the one "less traveled" -- calls again.

Doug Stevenson

The Innovise Guys

Buffalo Roaming

Where have we been? Roaming, of course. Truthfully, we've been gone too long. (Yes, a rare "judgment statement" from The Innovise Guys.)

Okay, so the bison shot here is not only symbolic of our "shuffling" off to Buffalo recently for the E2E Conference at Buffalo State, sponsored by the International Center for Studies in Creativity -- and traveling across "The Pond" to the CREA Conference in Sestri Levante, Italy and to Creativity & Innovation in Dublin (both in April) ... and before that, to the American Creativity Conference in Austin (late March) -- It is also about giving a "GET WELL Shout-Out" to our friend, mentor and teacher Mary Murdock -- who once dubbed my distance Master's cohort "The Wild Things" (fierce bison among them). Hi Mary!

Where was I? Oh, yes ... it's about what really had us away ... (and we could claim "busy") But the truth is, the culprit is an "old friend" -- namely, "Procrastination". This guy normally travels with a henchman known as "Perfectionism". While some people proudly proclaim their perfectionism, those of us who have studied creativity know it as a scantily cloaked version of judgment that has a way of sabotaging creative productivity. (Witness a three month void of blog entries here!)

It might be a good time to remember the importance of deferral of judgment and Linus Pauling's admonition that "In order of have a lot of GOOD ideas, we must first have a LOT of Ideas." (quality notwithstanding) It is also important to note, that no matter how far behind our old, self-sabotaging behaviors may seem, nor how well-trained we are in creative process, we need to be mindful. One selective-perception-based blind spot creativity practitioners may indeed have is that we believe we are "so creative" we are "cured". Not so, at least for this buckaroo.

Okay, so we promise to be here more often with even small pearls, some diamonds in the rough, and from time to time, some lumps of coal or piles of bat guano -- We'll try not to judge.

One last insight that came in Jonathon Vehar's session at E2E -- in which Jonathon was facilitating a discussion on the definition of innovation. I had an insight: We were agreeing that often seemingly small, incremental improvements upon existing ideas or product platforms may create sweeping and enduring change ... In other words, a novel idea "that sticks" -- which is, for many, what qualifies as a true innovation. My inference? ... That a lot of "innovation" comes from "uhu moments" rather than the legendary, watershed "Aha! moments" so often referred to in creativity lore.

Expect to see a lot more "uhu moments" here from now on. If we do that, the "Ahas!" will take care of themselves.

I am off (literally) to "where the Buffalo roam" -- the great state of South Dakota, Mount Rushmore, Custer National Monument, Deadwood and Flinstones Bedrock City -- and we'll probably stop at the iconic pop tourist destination, Wall Drugs -- along the way. We'll gratefully except the "uhu's" along with "Ahas!"

Bye for now, but not for long.


Doug Stevenson for
The Innovise Guys