Disruptive Innovation for Social Change

Every once in awhile, an article appears that goes on to have significant impact in the nonprofit sector. In 1989, Peter Drucker wrote What Businesses Can Learn from Nonprofits, an important counterbalance to the prevailing belief that all of the answers to organizational effectiveness could be found in the for-profit sector alone. In 1996, Chait, Holland and Taylor wrote The New Work of the Nonprofit Board. This article led to a number of important efforts to improve board performance and these efforts continue. Now in December 2006, a new article in the Harvard Business Review promises to do the same. In the article, Disruptive Innovation for Social Change, Clayton M. Christensen, Heiner Baumann, Rudy Ruggles, and Thomas M. Sadler offer a challenge to the nonprofit sector:

"In the social sector, too much attention is devoted to providing more of the same to narrow populations that are already served. It's time for a fundamentally different approach. . . . it's not a lack of solutions, but rather misdirected investment. Too much of the money available to address social needs is used to maintain the status quo, because it is given to organizations that are wedded to their current solutions, delivery models, and recipients. ... While they may do a good and important job serving those people, and while there services may steadily improve, these organizations are unlikely ever to reach a far broader populations that are in need -- and that would be satisfied by simpler offerings, if only they were available.”

The authors advocate searching for “disruptive" or "catalytic” innovations that have the potential for dramatic breakthroughs in efforts to address pressing community needs and social issues. The article offers examples of disruptive innovation, qualities of catalytic innovators and advice to funders and investors who want to see their dollars lead to real change.

The relevance for strategic planning? The challenges posed by the authors of this article are ones that need to be incorporated into our strategic thinking and planning efforts. Whether we refer to it as "theory of change" or "logic model", we need to ask ourselves if we operate from an understanding of how change happens, if our programs and services reflect this understanding, and what is the evidence that our program/service approach is actually working. And as the authors of the article Making Sense: Reviewing Program Design with Theory of Change suggest, this analysis needs to take place before strategic planning -- not after. A strategic planning effort that avoids this analysis can lead -- as many strategic planning efforts do -- to the decision to continue with more of the same --ineffective programs with mediocre results.

More commentary on this important article can be found at ManyWorlds, New Profit, Community Health Edge, the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship and the Private Sector Development Blog.

Be sure to read “Disruptive Innovation for Social Change” and share it with board leaders, staff, colleagues, and friends.

Shedding Old Rules

Two quotes to set the stage for strategic thinking for 2007.

The first quote on the difficulty in letting go from The Accelerating Organization: Embracing the Human Face of Change by Arun Maira and Peter Scott-Morgan ...

"At the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, mathematicians and scientists in physics, chemistry, biology, economics and computer science look at the mechanisms and principles whereby organisms and other complex systems change and learn. One principle of survival they've observed is continuous shedding of operating rules that cease to be relevant because of changing environmental conditions.

They found that complex systems, whether biological organisms or computer systems, can hold only a small number of rules in operation at anytime. So they must have an ability to shed old rules to make room for the new. Shedding becomes more complicated in systems involving human beings, because their sense of self-worth is often attached to many old rules."

The second quote on laying the foundation for new ideas from Where Do New Ideas Come From? Maximize the Differences by Nicholas Negroponte, Director, M.I.T. Media Lab ...

"The best way to guarantee a steady stream of new ideas is to make sure that each person in your organization is as different as possible from the others. Under these conditions, and only under these conditions, will people maintain varied perspectives and demonstrate their knowledge in different ways. There will be a lot of misunderstanding – which is frequently not misunderstanding at all, but the root of a new idea."

Wishing you a Happy New Year!

Accidental Innovation

In an earlier post, (Wednesday, April 05, 2006, Strategic Thinking Starts Wednesday at 8:30 AM), I talked about the expectation that our strategic planning efforts foster innovation and the reality that innovative ideas often come to us outside of the structured planning sessions. This is explored in a recent Harvard Business School Working Knowledge Newsletter interview by Sarah Jane Gilbert. In the interview, Professor Robert D. Austin discusses his research and practical implications of the concept of accidental innovation. He notes that many important innovations are the byproduct of accidents and that the key is to be prepared for the unexpected. Austin’s key concepts include: “Innovation can't always be planned—accidents happen. Be prepared to recognize serendipitous opportunity, and, Understand the nature of breakthrough inventions in your industry and plan accordingly.”

To access the full interview, go to: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5441.html.