The Art of Impossibility
Umair Haque, writing for Management Innovation eXchange, discussing why so few companies invest earnest energy in examining and executing the best they can do and instead find scads of reasons to display what they can’t do:
So here’s the question: why do most companies have such a narrow, blinkered view of the possible? Why don’t they even attempt the impossible? And why, when rivals do attempt the impossible, do most organizations (like RIM) have a kind of organizational cognitive dissonance—why are they so mentally threatened by the sudden, stark violation of their own most cherished beliefs that they refuse to believe anyone else can attempt the impossible?
Here’s my guess. What most bureaucracies groan under today is the weight of their own colossal timidity. I’d guess that something like 80% of time and effort in most organizations is spent discussing why and how the awesome, the significant, the meaningful, the lasting—the impossible—can’t be done.
Great piece. And let’s back up to Haque’s opening sentence:
Here’s a thought to chew on while you’re considering your new year’s resolution: if it’s not laughably impossible, hopelessly impractical, preposterously insurmountable—stop. Start over. You’re not doing it right.
Haque touches on organizational malaise and stagnation, but does’t really get to the boldness necessary to push something quite impossible through the company ranks.
In too many meetings, from too many people, the playbook says to play it safe. To think of all angles why something will fail. I’ve seen it time and again, and what’s very poisonous about the tenor of this sort of discourse is that it ignores — and shuts down — equal investment in passionate debate about what amazing things can be done. Why something won’t fail. Why the seemingly impossible things are the ones worth chasing if a company believes it can be extraordinary.
Too often a company finds a successful niche, gets a reputation, enjoys some fame. Makes some money, paints smiles on shareholder faces, issues nice employee bonuses. That’s great, but it’s dangerous, because it’s the perfect breeding ground for malaise and laziness. Using Haque’s example of RIM, look where there were versus where they now are. They thought small, they were too comfortable, they didn’t continue to innovate wildly because they thought they had a stronghold. Along came Apple and Google, who flipped the smartphone market end-over-end a few times, and suddenly RIM’s stronghold is crumbling and taking on water.
The status quo can’t ever be thought of to be the pinnacle of what’s possible. Start thinking that way and you’re finished.
(Via Andres Segovia)
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