How to create a culture of criticism to facilitate innovation?, HR News, ETHRWorld

By Damodar Enduri

In order to improve their revenues and margins, organizations must keep innovating their products, offerings or business model. This is because there is one cost/expense item that will inevitably keep increasing for all organizations over a period of time – the salary bill.

However, it is not easy to keep innovating your products or offerings. An analysis of the innovations conceptualized by organizations across industries will reveal that there are more failed projects than successful ones. The Harvard Business School professor, Clayton Christensen, once famously estimated that 95% of new products fail. Others have put the innovation failure rate of new products at around 70% to 80%. Similarly, more than 70% of organization-wide process innovation or transformation projects fail.

Reasons why Innovation Projects Fail

Key factors that contribute to the failure of innovation projects

1. unwillingness of an organization to weed out bad ideas
2. ideas are not fully developed before implementation

A key factor that contributes to the failure of innovation projects is the unwillingness of an organization to weed out bad ideas at a preliminary phase itself. Another reason for failure is that ideas are not fully developed (or allowed to be developed) before they are taken to the implementation phase. This, naturally, leads us to the question – what prevents an organization from doing either of these two critical tasks?

Criticism – an enabler and not deterrent for innovation

Weeding out bad ideas or improvising incomplete ideas requires a culture where critical arguments and experimentation are allowed. The employees/members of an organization should not be fearful of being judged or evaluated for voicing their disagreement to an idea. On the face of it, however, this culture of raising disagreements to an idea voiced by another individual seems contrary to conventional wisdom. Criticism is generally frowned upon during a brainstorming session, as it is thought to discourage enthusiasm or kill creativity. Suspending judgement is one of the necessary behavioural norms expected in a brainstorming session.

Logical Criticism Vs Individual Criticism

When we say that a culture that encourages criticism of an idea should be encouraged, we mean ‘logical criticism’ and not ‘individual criticism’. Individual criticism focuses on critiquing the individual’s personality or abilities, and is, obviously disastrous, and should be shunned at any cost. However, logical criticism is essential to meaningful innovation because idea generators are usually blind to the inherent flaws in their creations, and it requires an objective party to discern the gaps in them so that those can be addressed. This kind of a no-holds-barred criticism is especially important to prevent inventor’s hubris when inventors are all-powerful. Overconfidence, at times, leads to commitment for a full-scale implementation of half-baked ideas. So, logical criticism is desirable.

It, helps develop half-baked ideas into more robust ones, kills bad ones, and drives meaningful collaboration for implementation. Thus, the final idea becomes the brain child of many contributing individuals. When contributions of many enhance an idea, it moves away from being ‘my idea’ to ‘our idea’.

Logical criticism helps

1. prevent inventor’s hubris or overconfidence
2. develop half-baked ideas, kills bad ones,
3. move an idea from being ‘my idea’ to ‘our idea’ (important for implementation)

Barriers to a Culture of Criticism

A culture of criticism is not very typical in a hierarchy-driven organization. In a traditional hierarchy, the power structure depends on what level one occupies. The higher up one is, the more power one yields over others in terms of their career progression and increments. In such an organization, managing perceptions about oneself, and, at the same time, competing with peers in the perception battle are constant needs. “What will happen to me if I say this?” is the primary filter by which an individual shares his opinion about different topics in forums. This conflict of interest comes in the way of objective evaluations of decisions and ideas. It is not uncommon for managers in typical hierarchical organizations to have one opinion in an official forum, and its exact opposite during coffee breaks! With such a duality in communication, there is no way one can create the desired culture of logical criticism.

It is common for managers in typical hierarchical organizations to have one opinion in an official forum, and its exact opposite during coffee breaks!

Overcoming Barriers and evolving a Culture of Healthy Criticism

The way to create a new culture that facilitates ideation and criticism is to dismantle the formal and informal systems supporting a hierarchy-driven culture.

Formal Barrier: The Appraisal Process

The formal part that promotes a hierarchy-driven culture is the appraisal system where the opinions of a few in power determine the professional growth or stagnation of an individual within the organization. If the appraisal system provides disproportionate power to a boss to exercise his free will to decide upon the fate of his subordinates, then, most likely, personal biases creep into these evaluations. Consequently, there is a continuous need for the subordinates to manage their boss’s perceptions in every situation.

So, one of the ways to create an open culture that encourages judgement-free criticism, is to have a mechanism where the need to manage perceptions is nearly eliminated. This implies that the power structure between the boss and the subordinate needs to be eliminated. Thus, it becomes clear that the appraisal system not only has to be free from the power structure, but it should provide honest feedback to the individual for his/her own development. Such feedback can come from many sources – everyone who interacts with the person. This includes the supervisor, the subordinates, the bosses, the peers and even the persons themselves.

Eliminate the power structure between the boss and the subordinate created by ‘Boss’ led appraisals with a 360-degree individual feedback system

A 360-degree evaluation where inputs of all interacting stakeholders are taken into consideration will help dismantle the power structure. The final decision in each case should be taken by an independent expert committee based on the assessment of all feedback. In the interest of objectivity, critical incidents should be given as backup to validate positive and critical feedback. The expert committee should interview the person to reconcile differences between one’s own perception versus that of others, and finally reach a conclusion. The suggested method will not only remove the unequal power of the immediate supervisor, but it will also drive individual improvements and foster better relationships in the workplace. Needless to say, the overheads of managing such a process are significant. It can also be emotionally taxing for the expert committee and the individual, as all conflicting opinions must be surfaced and reconciled. However, it is a price worth paying!

The removal of the power structure changes the supervisor’s role from being a controller to that of a facilitator who helps solve issues and obstacles for the subordinate. More importantly, this removes the need for perception management on the part of the subordinate when it comes to providing his feedback on decisions or ideas.

Informal Barrier: Behavioural Norms

The change in the appraisal system is just a necessary condition to create an open culture; but it is not sufficient for an organization with decades of power structure at play in the workplace. The transition also requires changes in various behaviour norms, the informal system of guidelines for decision-making.

Changes are required in the entrenched behaviour norms or the informal system that guides decision-making in an organization

– In meetings, people in power should encourage logical criticism of ideas while overruling criticism against personalities.

– Decision-making on key ideas in meetings should mimic a flat structure; but strong leadership is required when ambiguity prevents a decision from being taken, despite all attempts at logical criticism and counter-arguments.

– If consensus cannot be reached through logical criticism or thought experiments, small pilots or field experimentation can be conducted to test ideas

– Failure in experiments should be encouraged only when it reveals new knowledge or insights; but it must be strongly discouraged when it reveals avoidable mistakes due to lack of rigour.

– Collaboration should be celebrated; but, at the same time, it should never dilute an individual’s accountability to complete identified tasks.

Conclusion

Such changes in norms and behaviours (the informal organization), along with a new appraisal system (the formal systems) are necessary to help build a new culture that celebrates constructive criticism and ensures the success of innovation projects.

The author, Damodar Enduri, is HR Head at Vector Consulting Group.

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and ETHRWorld does not necessarily subscribe to it. ETHRWorld will not be responsible for any damage caused to any person or organisation directly or indirectly.