Designing Ideas: Create dangerous Ideas

The golden thread running through the landmark theories of leadership, strategy, performance, innovation and organisational design for the last 20 to 30 years is the relationship between change and the mind.

The success of radical innovation depends on “the constraints of established patterns of thought and action.” And this is where the problem lies. Our common sense view of how the mind works, especially in relation to disciplines like innovation, strategy, creativity and the like is at odds with the way experience is actually constructed.

The missing link in current models of personal and organisational development is the relationship between theory and practice. It can be argued that most of these frameworks are based on principles which implicitly operate from a taboo of subjectivity, and therefore do not adequately take into account the role of perception and emotion in designing experience. Moreover, we can draw the conclusion that unless business academics and corporate executives take into account the processes of Blind Vision and Blind Emotion they in fact collude in skilfully maintaining convergence.

The Traditional model of business leadership needs to turns its microscope round the other way and look at how organisations design their own experience. Real competitive advantage exists in transforming thought and creating new ideas

Until this is realised, in effect all external restructuring is really the equivalent of reshuffling the deckchairs on the Titanic. We need a new model of business strategy which breaks the taboo of subjectivity and sets out an organisational framework to enable new modes of thinking, talking and acting.

In an economy based on ideas and meaning, imagination is your competitive edge. If you seriously want to pursue groundbreaking advances in Innovation and Leadership then establishing a breakthrough scenario to take the conceptual and emotional high ground is not a nice to have, but a must.