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March 18, 2007

Lies, Damn Lies, and Innovation

"Improvement" is always near the top of our agenda, if we think we can have it. But meanwhile, method and performance are so deeply intwined in our thinking that we have a hard time untangling the language to think about them differently. The problem with this is that we are so reluctant to give credence to alternative methods. We see something being done differently and actually think that it can't be successful because of that, until proved otherwise.

Because of the misunderstanding, scientific management is still amazed by the vaguery of creativity and innovation, and with 20/20 hindsight struggles to find their formulae.

This pursuit of formula is legitimized by what is thought to be the example of science, which accounts for nature (the essence of creation) in the metrical way. We then generalize the practice to our professions when we need similar balm for our uncertainties... and (except in marketing) we push back against accepting theory without the proofs. To get closer to the truth, we'll sign up the experts -- people on whom we can impose performance standards as our paid proxies -- to bring academic proofs to the problem.

The enduring vanity of academia, as opposed to intellectualism, is the scientific method. Ironically, the scientific method accumulates a shroud of dificult esoterica that obscures what may be its most important characteristic: good science is essentially democratic. The whole point is to lay it out so that anyone who follows the instructions can do it. It's just that it is often really hard to follow the instructions. So when it comes to scientific experts, we wind up commissioning their stamina even more than their knowledge.

The alternative approach to credence is evidenced by the great artists and athletes of any time, who's business of constant microinnovation under pressure is their working definition of performance. What underpins their performance is experience and the consciousness of that experience -- and there they have the key reference needed to justify their claims: the school of hard knocks. Getting back to science, it isn't really the metrics that drive things, is it? It's the experiments!

No reason to discount the "excellence of expertise"; on our budgets there often isn't enough to go around. But the "genius of experience" is equally valid, established through a different mode. The thing is, for most of us, genius is actually no less accessible than academia is, and practically speaking, it is "most of us" that cause something to happen with what we can get. Until we use what we can have, we can't discredit it. When it comes to pursuing improvement, the real difference is in whether we want to prove something or whether we just want the proof.

Posted by Malcolm Ryder at March 18, 2007 4:12 AM

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