Basics on Innovation: How to Invent New Structures and Processes

An Intro to Innovation...

The first thing to note about innovation is where it comes from. While we turn to experts for mainstream knowledge and wisdom, innovation generally comes from normal, unsuccessful people. Yes, "innovation" plays a part in most mission statements and has a highly positive ring to it. But the reality is that innovation is most often a lower level person who is struggling with what he or she is given and who is telling higher-ups that they have it wrong. This is not the pleasant picture with which any of us envision innovation.

If you do not believe me and are fearful of following those that do not have experience or expertise, then consider the prevailing business literature. While members of all fields--academics, public servants, and private interests--benefit from producing new ideas, only businesses live or die by their ability to stay ahead of the curve. Experts on business should therefore provide the most well-wrought wisdom on locating innovation, and they will point you to mid-level troublemakers in your organization as sources of new ideas (see Wayne Burkan, Wide Angle Vision).

This observation indicates two important characteristics of innovators. First, innovators come from lower levels. Second, innovators struggle in the mainstream world. I believe that these traits both point to something about the vision and the motivation that is required to create new ideas. As to vision, innovators see the world (or certain aspects of it) differently from everyone else, leading to conflict with mainstream thinkers and causing them to struggle in the lower levels of their field or organization. As to motivation, innovators need to be able to challenge the very ground they stand on with unrelenting determination, a task that is better suited for outsiders and nonconformists than for well-paid, comfortable experts. The common characteristics of innovators therefore demonstrate who the potential innovators are and what they must possess and undergo to invent something.


Tips for Inventive Thinking...

First, what not to do. When most people set out to write a paper or in some way make an intellectual dent in their field, they chose a topic and then try to say something about it that hasn't already been said. However, starting with a specific focus severely limits your creative potential in ways that will take me at least a paragraph to explain. Also, when people set out to invent something, they zero-in on a problem/unfulfilled need or take something that exists and attempt to find a new use for it. These approaches also limit creativity and lead to inventions such as hamburger-earmuffs (it's a Simpsons reference people).

These methods are problematic because they tie the author down to a topic. If you start out by picking a subject matter, you may have limited yourself to a problem with no solution or one in which you personally can't see the solution. Starting out with a topic therefore gives you "tunnel vision" and limits your possibilities. If you decide to argue an issue or contribute to an existing train of thought, then the best you will do is add a building block to the existing landscape (and the blocks get smaller and less significant as they go up). Focusing on an issue or a source will thereby apply a "gravity" that hinders your potential. On top of these constraints, working under this common mode of analysis will bring you to address the same issues and problems as everyone else. Under these conditions, creating something new is all about searching for a subject matter that others have not explored (likely to be so narrow that it has little real importance) or writing about it better than everyone else (a gamble to be left to the well-paid experts).

Okay. So if you can't start out by picking an issue, problem, or solution to write about, then how can you do anything productive? The following is the system I've used to come up with quite a number of unique structures for dispute resolution and human interaction.

1. Create a structure by aimlessly combining or altering ideas/elements.
2. Evaluate the structure by surmising its potential and comparing it to the status quo.
3. Work backwards by focusing on the inconsistency between the structure and the status quo, searching for a revolutionary shift.
4. REPEAT until a quality structure is discovered.

Like brainstorming, this method enhances creative potential by allowing a degree of boundless thinking. Plus, its evaluation method aims to identify big ideas. Now for a more detailed explanation:

Create a Structure. The goal of this crucial step is to create with reckless abandon--do not attempt to create a certain effect or address a certain problem, just come up with ideas (and lots of them). However, not the product of random neutral firings, good structures will draw on the innovator's general knowledge of component parts he or she is working with. Creating a structure is therefore a process of combining or altering different ideas, even if the results initially seem incompatible or counter intuitive. My personal examples include combining lobbying reform and mediation, melding co-mediators and advocates, and bringing arbitrators to act as mediators. In each case, I followed my instincts in combining/altering concepts and then thought out how the concepts could work together and what potential benefits the new structure could accomplish. (This may seem like firing blindly, but as discussed below, the key is to propose many structures and abandon the vast majority that don't work).

Evaluate the Structure. In order to identify the structures that are meaningful and workable, simply ask what the new structure could accomplish. The key is to focus on the potential effects and avoid premature negative judgment. Premature negativity towards the idea may be correctly-channeled wisdom over the components of the new structure, but such thoughts may be inapplicable to the the new combination or alteration.
When an idea with potential is located, the next step of the evaluation process is to compare it to the status quo. Therefore, locate the goals and potential effects of the new structure and then identify the existing structures that share the same purpose. The significance and uniqueness of a new idea is often measurable by the degree to which it adds to, improves on, or contradicts current practices. A truly revolutionary idea will stand apart in distinct ways from existing ideas that attempt a similar function.

Work Backwards. Focusing on the inconsistency between the new structure and the previous system, see if the improvements of the new structure point to some incompleteness or vestige held over from prior conditions. The comparison between the new and the old will therefore reveal the unfulfilled need. Once the innovator has worked backwards to identify the problem that the new idea addresses, it then becomes possible to resume normal analysis--presenting the unresolved problem first and then introducing the new structure as the logical solution.

REPEAT. The key to this thought process is repetition. It would miraculous to find a brilliant structure on the first try, and it would clash with the scientific method to create an idea and then argue that it has value. The process of creating and then working backwards will therefore involve the conception of many unworkable ideas that should be filtered out and abandoned. To increase the chances of finding upon a gem, the aspiring innovator should apply this thought process repeatedly (in law school, I was doing this constantly). Repeating the first two steps (creating a structure and proposing its potential) will bring many yet-unthought-of ideas across the innovator's mind and attempt to filter through the nonsensical ones for something of value.

Unlike prevalent modes of inspiration that attempt to build a line of reasoning (stacking blocks, constrained by gravity), my method involves inventing and then working backwards analytically (flying around and then working through the path to the ground once something of value is discovered).



Creating Dispute Resolution Systems...

My personal experience with the above method was in designing cooperative systems of dispute resolution and human interaction. As a developing field, ADR provides a fertile environment for new ideas. In creating substance-specific ideas, I would chose an area of consistently problematic human relations and then find some way of applying mediation or some negotiation-based, cooperative, positive-sum model. In creating substance-neutral ideas, I would combine or alter certain elements of dispute resolution processes or play around with roles and relationships among and of their component parts.

Now keep in mind that I never became too attached to an idea until it had presented sufficient potential. What I would do is take a class that involved writing a paper. Then I would spend the first couple of weeks (as I was learning about the subject) tossing around various ideas for structures to write about. I would go through many ideas covering a wide range of topics, find a few ideas that had possible potential, and then settle on the one that presented the most drastic shift over prevailing thought.

Note that I was focusing on the basics of a subject (reading the material for the first week or two) when I was tossing these ideas around. I believe that using basic ideas on a subject as the component parts of the proposed structure creates the most potential for revolutionary ideas. It seems to make sense that a new thought affecting the very base of a field, issue, or line of reasoning would have the largest effect. However, academics and theoreticians seem to value the more specific, highly-sophisticated topics. Whether this reveals a habit of searching for an unexplored area of study or an arrogant distaste for revisiting the basics, sticking to downstream, intricate subjects limits the big-picture impact of intellectual endeavors.

That is all for now. I hope these ideas will inspire innovators in dispute resolution, other social sciences, and beyond.