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Innovation is very nice. It follows the rules. It stays within the wall. It follows a very rational stream of if-then logic that uses knowledge, data and comparison to arrive at a defensible solution. It's neat and orderly, and managers adore it. But as time goes on, it becomes harder and harder to achieve a competitive advantage within that wall. A focus on quality and efficiency can help, eeking out every advantage that exists within the wall. They may even carry you to the interior face of the wall, where the Q-tips and toothbrushes grow. But a focus on quality and efficiency can't take you over the wall, because they are tied to the core definition (called the paradigm) which sits dead center within the wall, and the tether does not stretch any farther. Consequently, most people and firms spend their time on innovation rather than on creativity. And that's a shame because creativity is where the real breakthroughs and major profit potential exist.
The really good ideas live out beyond the wall, in the endless meadow of the mind; where revelation and wonder roam free and unfettered. Creativity is the act of severing the tether and vaulting over the wall; jumping beyond the constraints imposed by the laws of nature, work rules, competitive pressures or technological ignorance. It assumes that the old way is wrong, or at least incomplete, and leaps out into the meadow where the wild things grow.
In the Wall's Defense
I'm not one of those liberated free thinkers who believes that all walls, rules and structures are bad. So don't go out and trash the wall. The fact of the matter is that the wall of rationality in any given situation makes our world predictable and fair. Take the grocery store for instance. I hate standing in line. I also weigh well over 200 pounds and once had an offer to play football for the Chicago Bears. So, there's an obvious resolution for my impatience. But I have yet to do it. Why? Because I bump into the wall of rationality. I know that the checkout line is different than the line of scrimmage. And I know that creaming the old lady in front of me won't elicit the same cheers I used to get on the gridiron, unless she's got an irksome personality. You see, I know that the rules change from one situation to the next. And I know what those different rules are. I'm civilized. Which means the old ladies of the world can relax.
So when you get right down to it, the wall of rationality addresses the long term welfare of the group, and how each of us should behave within it. And for the most part, it serves us well. Consequently, we like to spend our time inside the wall, because it feels safe and secure.
Problems with the Wall
Life within the wall is safe and secure. In addition to being one of the wall's positive points, that is also one of its negative attributes. It lulls us into lethargy. Why would anyone want to escape from comfort?
We also spend most of our time inside the wall because we're trained to. That is the role of school, and I'm seeing it first hand with my son. He takes his fan encrudded mouth to first grade each day, and brings home a constant stream of stars and awards - for standing in line, for sharing, for being quiet and obedient - for staying within the wall. And though he envies the kid who discovers that crayons are also terrific projectiles, he applauds the classroom cop who nails that hot dog.
And therein lies the difficulty. One way or another, most of us develop a liking for the current wall, which creates problems for society ... because we develop a stake in squelching creativity. The projectile-hurling first grader might just become NASA's leading scientist if we give him a star for marksmanship instead of 10 minutes in the corner. Who knows, maybe he's Orville Wright discovering the laws of aerodynamics, or Einstein having an original thought, or simply Tom Paine striking a reasoned blow for independence. Or ... maybe he's just a jerk. The problem is that we're so concerned with the sanctity of the wall, that we never bother to find out. We tend to "jerkify" all of the outliers.
Ø Someone told Tom Edison's parents that he was retarded, because he wouldn't concentrate on 1+1=2.
Ø An art professor told Ted Gessel (later known as Dr. Suess) that he couldn't draw, simply because his artwork looked odd.
Ø And little Alby Einstein was constantly in trouble because his hair violated the school dress code, as well as the law of gravity.
By the time most of us reach 3rd grade, the fear of God has combined with the adhesive stars and awards to firmly establish the wall. And once that happens it is nigh unto impossible to even imagine that anything exists beyond it. The world is flat all over again, and nothing exists beyond what we can see.
Then, after we're thoroughly socialized, we become adults and get a job with a firm that wants creativity, demands creativity, and rewards it. Whoops! We are utterly unprepared. So we scramble to find out how to do this wondrous thing, and in the process we are amazed to find out that survival and success actually depend on the very same things that got us through first grade:
Ø taking turns,
Ø coloring within the prescribed lines,
Ø being quiet and orderly,
Ø and above all others ... being obedient.
As it turns out, maybe school is a perfect preparation for what most of us confront on the job.
There is a wall. It may surround designing computers instead of using construction paper and paste, but it is a wall none-the-less. It sets out what the world at XYZ company is like, how a good XYZer ought to approach it, how XYZ's problems and opportunities are defined, and how a good XYZ employee should go about addressing them. The only thing that's really new is that there's also a set of stock excuses and scapegoats to explain why XYZ has once again been aced out of the market by some competitor from Japan, Bulgaria or Saskatchewan.
So, What's The Point?
1. The Wall of Rationality is an obstacle to creativity. It patterns our behavior to such a degree that after spending years acting within the boundaries, we forget what it feels like to even think outside of them. When we try to be creative, the best we usually do is bump along the inside of the wall looking for a cute idea that hasn't already been used. The problem is that there aren't many of those critters left. Everyone else has been grazing in the same corral for generations.
2. There is no universal wall of rationality that governs all of existence. One of the things that makes life interesting is that we have a wall of rationality that surrounds every activity we do and every role we play. There's one for work. There's one for parenthood. There's one for courtship. And there's even a wall that governs scrubbing a fan. In truth, we tend to build a wall for each type of situation that we face.
3. We are the masons. To be sure, everyone else - including parents, teachers, bosses, politicians and spouses - tries to do it for us. But in the final analysis we build our own walls; actively, or by making a conscious decision to punt and use the walls that someone else has made for us. Either way, we have to come to the point of accepting our own responsibility. If you're old enough to read and understand this blog, then you're old enough to accept your responsibility. It's part and parcel of being an adult.
© 2009 Joe Anderson
