Don’t Try to Be Distinctive via a Committee
Chip and Dan Heath have a column in Fast Company magazine related to their “Made to Stick” book, and in June they discuss word of mouth marketing. In short, they argue that in order to authentically generate conversations, you have to be distinctive. One problem: distinctive tends to run counter to “always done it that way.”
“Most organizations systematically snuff out anything that’s distinctive enough to spark conversation, usually thorugh processes and committees. Would woolen caps for smoothie bottles [done by a successful bottler in England] have survived a committee decision at Coca-Cola? Could a formal market-research process have justified the VW Beetle’s bud vase? …When people with different opinions compromise, they meet in the middle, not at the edge. But the edge is what sparks conversation.”
We have created organizations that are all focused on the middle. On pleasing the most people. That’s fine–we don’t have to give that up–but why not create some structures that at least allow for distinction?
Good posting. I wonder if we created more organizations and structures focused on results, if it would matter where the suggestions came from to be distinctive? If the suggestions achieve the desired result, does the source matter? Just a crazy thought…
From a design perspective, associations aren’t going to move toward greater distinctiveness by adding more structures to the current nightmare scenario of perpetual bureaucracy. Where associations can move toward offering distinctive value is by getting simple: what’s the simplest thing that could possibly work is a great question to be asking here. Another is what is the minimum necessary infrastructure required to support our desired outcome?
Committees prevent the free flow of creativity in favor of achieving an illusory peace-keeping consensus. Committees have never been and will never be about being distinctive. They will always focus their energies on the stated want over the unarticulated need, and since committees are responsible for so much of the work that goes on in associations, it is small wonder that there is so little innovation in our organizations.
So let’s get rid of committees and just about all other official structures in favor of what organically emerges from the group. Let’s shift our trust away from ourselves and toward those we serve.
This is such an interesting (and important) discussion that I can’t resist a shameful second post. Mea culpa, and here goes:
1. Resource: Bill Jensen’s book, “Simplicity, the New Competitive Advantage” is still a good read on the subject of simplicity.
2. Who was it who said, “Make it as simple as necessary, but no simpler?” Great advice if one can do it.
3. Let’s face it: associations are composed of thousands of members, each with their own interests–there is nothing simple about associations and never will be so long as the thousands of members believe the association exists to support their particular individual interests (and ASAE keeps publishing books extolling the importance of serving members)!
4. While we are facing it: Committees are one of the primary culturally accepted ways of bringing member diversity together for a shared, common purpose in an association. It is too often true that commitees may define success in various undesirable ways–by relationships (sometimes by competencies), by processes and procedures–even by wanting to simply out-do last year’s similar committee! Committee success may seldom be defined by results. If committees do produce results, it may take extraordinary amounts of time and energy to produce the results, raising the question as to whether the results are commensurate with investment. That’s the critical challenge with committees, IMHO (I’m ignoring committees’ almost predictable desire to redefine their charge/scope to fit their own perspective).
5. Definitions please: Per Wikipedia, a) creativity is the act of generating new ideas, approaches or actions; b) innovation is both the generation and application of creative ideas in some specific context.
6. Innovation applied: If one agrees that creativity is primarily an individual process, and innovation is primarily an organizational, market-applied process, then I would submit that there are many, many examples of successful innovation using committees, teams, groups. Many (if not most) modern innovations would have been impossible without committees, teams, groups, etc. This Friday’s I-Phone may be the most currently hyped innovation that is successful due to a committee, team, group or other multi-person endeavor!
7. Good Committee/Bad Committee: Committees can do good stuff. Committees can do bad stuff. Committees can even do no stuff! Don’t we need to be careful about generalizations like “snuff the committee”? Could the source of concern really be association’s consensus-based decision-making culture that stresses maximum maintenance of relationships, rather than the optimal/best results?
Would life be simpler if we were all a bit more results oriented?
My apologies for a second post. Blog on!
Hey Virgil,
No apologies! We write blogs for the comments (particularly from smart people like you), so keep’em coming!
First, yes, we need groups of people to get together to get things done, but there are plenty of ways to do that without having committees. Jeff makes that point in his original book posting on this topic.
And the fact that committees are the “culturally accepted” way of doing it is part of the problem. With that “culture” comes a set of rules about how the committee operates (written and unwritten) that stifles creativity. I don’t think that demanding a results focus will overcome that cultural predisposition. That is precisely why we need to think about introducing a new structure.