Sarah Nelson Interviews Scott Berkun at MX San Francisco

by Sarah B. Nelson

February 22, 2007

In the following interview highlights, Adaptive Path design strategist Sarah Nelson talks to author, software industry veteran, and MX closing speaker Scott Berkun about the struggles of innovation, the emotional risks of creativity, and his latest book, The Myths of Innovation.

Sarah B. Nelson: I have Scott Berkun here with me today, and we’re going to talk about his upcoming book. But first: Scott, could you give us a little bit of a background and tell us about yourself?

Scott Berkun: Sure. So, my background’s in computer science and design. I went to Carnegie Mellon University. I was a computer science major there, but I also learned very quickly that I was not going to be a great programmer, so I studied user interface design before I left. I got hired at Microsoft in ‘94, and I worked as a usability engineer and as a program manager on Internet Explorer. I did that for maybe five or six years. I did all kinds of management stuff: Led software development, wrote specs, made decisions, treated all its bugs. I left Microsoft in about 2003 to write books, and my first book was called The Art of Project Management, which was published by O’Reilly in 2005. That book did really well, so well that they were willing to let me write another book, called The Myths of Innovation, which is what I’m talking to you about today.

SN: So, what would you say is the biggest myth about innovation?

SB: Well, there are so many to choose from. The first chapter of the book is all about one of the biggest ones: The myth of epiphany, which is the idea that when all the great thinkers and all the great creative minds get new ideas, they just come from beyond with no explanation as to why that happens or who it’s going to happen to. If I had to pick the biggest of the innovation myths, that’d be it: The myth of epiphany.

SN: So, why do you think that this myth is so pervasive?

SB: It’s nice to think that we can just say, “Maybe I’ll be creative today and maybe I won’t; it just depends on what the gods decide. And I’ll be okay if I’m not creative, but if it happens, it’s not in my control.” I think that’s a big part of many of the myths, that they distance us from having to take responsibility for whether we are creative or not.

SN: Creativity and the processes of business sometimes seem like strange bedfellows. Creativity often involves a lot of risk and ambiguity, whereas business seems to value efficiency and guarantees. In your experience, how can you bridge the gap between those two different approaches?

SB: Well, even if you are doing something that you’ve done before, something that you think is super predictable and reliable, it’s still not guaranteed. There are always uncertainties that factor into any decisions you make or any processes you put in place. So it’s an illusion that managers have complete control over their businesses, or complete control over how things are done. Someone has to stand up and say, “We don’t have that much control over the simple things. There’s always uncertainty. There’s always some kind of risk. There’s always some kind of chaos.” And once you get people to acknowledge that they don’t have as much control as they think they do, then the conversation starts to be about how do you introduce new ideas? How do you have processes that support change? How do you have processes that allow us to see what the process is missing? All those questions start to come up, and then you can reach a point where people recognize, “Okay, in order for us to grow as much as we want to grow, we have to change, and change demands risk, so we have to be okay with taking a risk on this project.” I think it always starts with someone having the guts to reflect back on the illusion of control. We always think we have control over everything, yet if you look at what’s really going on, we don’t.

SN: One of the things I’ve been wondering about is the idea of “source of innovation” within a company. Do you think it’s actually possible to create an environment in which innovation occurs?

SB: Oh, that’s a really good question. I think that you can create an environment, and it’s very simple. I think that whoever has power over a budget, and whoever has power over what features are included in a product or go up on the website, they enable innovation by saying “yes.” That’s really the fundamental thing that they have to be willing to do. When someone shows up with an idea — “Hey, why don’t we change the navigation system from this older design to this new design I’ve been thinking of? Can I get some money to go and prototype this?”— all that has to happen is the person with power says, “Yes, I will give you a week to go and prototype that and we will review it when you have the prototype, and then we’ll consider actually making those changes.” And once everyone witnesses the person in power saying “yes” to a new idea, then they’ll be comfortable bringing another idea, or a third idea. And then all of a sudden, you have an environment that is very receptive to new ideas and innovations, as opposed to the more common complaints about environments, where new ideas are like wanted men: They’re shot down pretty quickly.

SN: What would prevent someone in a position of power from saying “yes”?

SB: The first reason that comes to mind is the fear people in power have about the origin of their power; they’re afraid that if they say “yes” too often, they are giving up control. And if they allow someone to follow an idea, they don’t know where that idea’s going to go. Maybe that idea will make the person who’s championing it look better than the boss does. And the boss isn’t ready to handle that, or is afraid of not being the center of attention. And by granting license for someone to go follow an idea, it puts managers who haven’t thought that much about how innovation happens, it puts their positions at risk. There’s also the fact that some people are more comfortable with change than others. Most of the time managers are invested in protecting what they have. And I don’t mean that in a selfish sense. I mean a manager has a team of ten people, and he’s trying to make sure that those people are working efficiently and productively. He’s trying to protect the assets that his company or his group has. And that’s a different attitude than wanting to go out of your way to introduce changes, which you can’t predict how they will play out. So, there’s a bunch of natural forces, just a human psychology, that makes people who have control over things naturally resistant to trying out big changes.

SN: What types of things do you think that designers, or anyone who finds themselves charged with innovating or developing a new idea, can do to encourage the person in power to say “yes”?

SB: Blackmail’s good. Stealing their cat and putting it up for ransom. All those things are time-tested. The person in power has some set of motivations or some set of goals, and you have to understand what those are and then cast your idea, or filter through all the ideas that you’re thinking of and pick the ones that are most inline with the boss’s interests or goals. And then you can walk into the room and say, “Hey, you’re working on goal number five. Well, I’ve got this great idea that might help us deliver on goal number five.” And then the context of the conversation isn’t how cool your idea is, or how much you want to prove yourself as an innovator, the context from the boss’s perspective is, “Oh, one of the people on my team is trying to help me solve one of my goals. Okay, I’ll have this conversation. Okay, I can find a budget for that.” And now it’s in a context that is much more palatable. That’s a simple technique and you can find all kinds of stories of people who have crazy ideas, but they’re very careful to pitch them in ways that don’t sound so crazy.

SN: Right. Now here’s another question just about organizational structure. One of the posts I read on your blog was about “VPs of Innovation,” and the development of groups that are specifically charged with “being innovative.” Are these kinds of groups successful?

SB: First I have to say that there’s no 100% wrong way or right way to do any of this stuff. So, there are VPs of Innovation who probably do fantastic jobs, and there are groups that are charted with innovation — innovation task forces or whatever — that actually provide value to their companies by coming up with great ideas and delivering on them. And that’s great. But according to most of the experiences that I’ve come into contact with, or stories that I’ve heard, as soon as you label something as innovative, or label one person or one group as the creative nexus of the universe, you set yourself up for all kinds of problems that are avoidable. If we have two teams and both teams think they’re smart, and the CEO goes to team A and says, in front of the whole company, “Hey, you guys are now the innovation team,” what is team B going to think? Team B is going to have some sort of negative response. Also by setting up this nexus, this focal point of innovation, it creates a whole bunch of mixed messages that are difficult to manage. For instance, how is this group supposed to interact with the rest of the company, or the organization, or even within the group? So, I’m not a fan of that kind of innovation and isolation. I think labeling a team or a person in that way is usually a mistake. On the other hand, I think that picking a project that is going to try out new things or have a new set of goals, or new approach with a different set of rules, and piloting that and allowing it to develop on its on, away from the rest of the group, that’s fine. But I would never call that an “Innovation Team.” I would never give that group a name that would communicate to the rest of the company that I didn’t expect them to be innovative, too. I wouldn’t like it if my mom came over and told me, “In this household, your brother is the innovative kid, so you have to do all the ordinary things.”

SN: It seems that emotions play a big part in a group’s success.

SB: How could it not — what’s more emotional than creation? It’s one of the most personal things that people deal with, especially if they are working in the tech sector, or working in a competitive industry where people are expected to work really hard and put a lot of their psychological energy into what they’re doing. Of course emotional aspects come into play. And I think leading a team that’s trying to innovate means providing a safe place for those emotional investments to take place. And also protecting the people who are taking all these personal risks, putting two months of their lives into proposals that are radical or have a high chance of not being accepted. The manager has to not only make you feel comfortable investing in those sorts of efforts, but protect those investments and make sure people are coached, and mentored, and guided, and respected in the investments that they make. That’s the stuff that very rarely gets talked about, certainly in the tech sector: the emotional life of an innovator. It’s probably a good topic for another book or something.

Sarah B. Nelson is a design strategist for Adaptive Path. She has ten years of experience in interactive media, designing online experiences for both corporate and not-for-profit organizations. Clients include The New York City Opera, AOL, Nintendo, and the Federal Home Loan Bank.