Good ideas scale with ease

Already in 1995, but as relevant as ever, Jonathan Rauch coined the term “demosclerosis” to express the progressive shrinking of government institutions’ ability to solve societal problems. Someone recently likened the term to a software package, where constant maintenance, revisions and added features eventually drive it into instability and a construct beyond repair. Can we take this analogy a bit further? Does technological innovation management have lessons to offer to make governments effective? Or even to other domains? I think it does. After all, it’s all about a constant influx of good ideas.

Let’s examine the technological perspective. The recipe I used to follow to generate ideas runs like this: let professional resources be made aware that what they do should be for the good of the Company, and mutually keep each other sharply focused on that target. The manager’s task is to educate, inspire and initiate, provide network and coaching, and function as an umbrella for ‘weather from above,’ but above all know when to step back in time and leave it to the professionals. Especially in the uniquely flatland hierarchy of the Netherlands, this can give excellent results.

The first task at hand is always to find out what problem is to be solved and for whom. Next, let the team saturate its knowledge in all aspects of the challenge as broadly as possible. From there, it’s only a matter of time until an “Aha!” lights up.