Innovation Teams Must be Able to Cross the Knowing-Doing Gap
In their book, The Knowing-Doing Gap, authors Pfeffer and Sutton highlight four main reasons for what they call the Knowing-Doing Gap (the inability of an organization to act on insights):
Talk vs. Action
Memory vs. Thinking
Fear vs. Knowledge
Measurement vs. Judgement
These four reasons get straight to the point regarding some of the broader, organizational culture reasons for why many organizations have difficulties moving from Knowing (having insights) to Doing (acting on these insights).
I think you’ll all see a little bit of yourselves as organizations in each of barriers to taking action.
Talk vs. Action. This is the tendency within an organization to equate talking about something with actually doing something about it. If you’ve been part of a conversation like, “Didn’t we talk about that 6 months ago?; why hasn’t anything been done about it?" you've experienced this underlying reason for not taking action.
Memory vs. Thinking. This occurs in organizations when memory serves as a substitute for thinking. I am sure that all of you have been part of a conversation, sometime in your career, where someone says, “We tried that and it didn’t work.”. End of story. A situation in which people defer to what has been done historically (e.g., past precedent, custom or standard procedure) without reflecting, thinking about a new problem or a new challenge in a new way.
Fear vs. Knowledge. Breaking away from the past, questioning conventional wisdom within the organization, works best in an atmosphere of trust and safety. Past failures can create "fear of failure" within organizations. To encourage courageous behavior you need to drive out fear, be it fear of failure itself or fear of the consequences of getting it wrong. People need the opportunity to try new things and test out new ideas. To experiment, test, and learn. They need the knowledge gained thru experimentation as well as the knowledgethat they have the freedom to learn from mistakes.
Measurement vs. Judgment. We all know that measures affect what people do. What is measured is presumed to be important. What gets measured gets done. What is not measured tends to be ignored. Often times people and organizations fall into this trap of simply focusing on and doing what is measured (or incentivized) despite their better judgement as to what should be focused on or should be done in a given situation.
A few Tips when Putting Together your Innovation Team
As you put together teams of people to help drive innovation within your organization, be sure to thoughtfully consider how to select the right individuals for this team.
First of all, rather that selecting people specialized in a specific domain (e.g., marketing, finance, or operations), select what are sometimes referred to as T-shaped people. T-shaped people are individuals having deep expertise in at least one domain area, but, whom are broad in their understanding of other functional disciplines as well. In understanding other domains, they can also relate to what is important to people whose job is focused on these domains. They have an inherent ability to think and work cross-functionally more so than others.
Secondly, and I think most important, select people whom you think can overcome the Knowing-Doing Gap. Individuals whom exhibit the following behaviors:
a) collaborate and work well with others;
b) are prone to action rather than simply talk;
c) are able to reflect on past initiatives and apply critical thinking to a new situation; and
d) are courageous not fearing mistakes; and whom lean on good judgment and understanding.
In putting together an innovation teams it is critical that you think about the overall makeup of the team. Not simply considering knowledge or skill, but, attitude as well.
This group of people will collectively champion, promote, sell, and help execute your CX innovation initiatives to improve customer experience (product or service).