Structured for Creativity

By Laura Weiss on March 3, 2010 2:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Recently I was working with my colleagues on some organizational design issues. We were grappling with the classic question of how to scale an organization so that it's optimized for impact. As we explored ways in which other types of enterprises have dealt with this kind of growth challenge, I realized how easy it would be for the discussion to remain fixed on an analysis of traditional organizational models - functional, divisional matrix - in the quest to find one that suited us best.

Such organizational models emerged in the early part of the twentieth century to prevent chaos and to promote efficiency in growing businesses. Unfortunately, management theory today confirms that these very structures can become so rigid that they often prevent creativity even as they preserve order.

This all got me thinking - how much structure does a small organization really need? In mulling over this question, I found myself thinking about the work of the famous Swiss architect LeCorbusier (1887-1965) and his equally famous plan libre. Allow me to explain.

During the early days of LeCorbusier's career, buildings were designed to reflect traditional bearing wall construction, which often limited the placement of interior walls. But LeCorbusier changed all that with his most iconic design and lasting legacy to the architecture profession - the "Domino" house. Conceived in the 1920's, it promoted a simple grid of structural columns supporting horizontal concrete slabs. This organizing armature, if you will, allowed for a more important innovation to be realized - a "free plan" of undulating walls that could be placed in a variety of configurations to achieve spatial ingenuity. This was achievable because the walls were not limited by the structural grid but rather were enabled by it - the grid was "the function that gives the form to the interior space"¹. 

To bring the conversation back to that other kind of organizational structure - can we design nonprofits for efficiency as well as creativity? Can there be just enough structure in the right places to not only support but also enable the kinds of human interactions that will help them operate as creative entities? In an ever-changing world, organizations of all kinds must be both strategically adaptable as well as operationally efficient. To paraphrase management guru Gary Hamel, we must "build organizations where discipline and freedom aren't mutually exclusive"².

Organizations that enable some freedom of activity are naturally structured for creativity. They are often characterized less by prescribed roles, functions or departments and more by the types of human interactions their culture desires. Typically these are reflected in such things as a strong sense of community, interdisciplinary collaborations, a "one-team" mentality, and an open environment (both literally and figuratively).

So when thinking about what kind of structure is the right kind of structure, we need to ask ourselves what kins of behaviors are we trying to encourage so that our relationships - both internally and externally - deliver unique value and have real impact. Too much structure can mean too little freedom to explore and adapt. We need to prevent that from happening.

¹ Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture, 1960
² Gary Hamel, The Future of Management, 2007


Laura Weiss is the Vice President of Service Innovation at the Taproot Foundation. Laura comes to the Taproot Foundation after nine years as Associate Partner and Practice Director with the world-renowned design consultancy, IDEO, where she was an advocate for bringing a business perspective to the design process. A former licensed architect and educator, Laura holds and MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management, an MArch from Yale University and a BArch with honors from Cornell University.
              

Contrarian Thinking

By Laura Weiss on February 1, 2010 4:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Innovation is a very large ten-letter word.  It usually conjures images of vast sums of money invested over lengthy periods of time resulting in significant change in products, services, processes or entire organizations.  Anything small or incremental runs contrary to achieving success.  

Or does it?


I've recently encountered two works that promote seemingly contrarian approaches to solving the types of problems that can lead to lasting change.  These same techniques can help offset the "analysis paralysis" that often blocks the innovation process.

In their new book Switch, Chip and Dan Heath suggest that the key to solving big problems can be found by looking at similar situations where things are actually working well - in other words, by focusing on the bright spots. Instead of tackling an entire system at once, the idea is to investigate easy-to-observe elements of the system; instead of trying to fix what's broken, try to emulate what's working instead. The authors illustrate this point with an exploration of malnutrition in rural Vietnam.  Instead of relying on heaps of socioeconomic data about poverty and education, for example, a research team went out into the field to understand what was actually going on in the villages, and even made villagers part of the investigative team.  Taking this approach had remarkable results in the discovery of dietary habits with surprising nutritional value.
 
Robert Maurer's 2004 book One Small Step Can Change Your Life discusses the concept of kaizen, the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement. Similar to the Heath brothers, Maurer promotes a focus on breaking a systemic issue down into smaller pieces (specifically, "small problems") as a more manageable way to deal with an overwhelming crisis.  He suggests that asking small questions and taking small steps can dispel fear of failure, inspire greater creativity, and generally stave off inertia.  Maurer, a clinical psychologist at UCLA, illustrates this concept through the successful efforts of individuals seeking to improve their health, financial stability, or personal productivity.  As with the stories told in Switch, these too have positive outcomes.

The guidance offered by these two books is characteristic of design thinking - itself a contrarian concept that showcases inspiration, intuition, and experience as key elements of the innovation process. The Heaths' "seeking the bright spot" is a human-centered approach to insight gathering that is based on observing how people actually behave in a specific context in order to design solutions with broad impact.  Maurer's "taking small steps" is suggestive of rapid prototyping where pursuing a series of low investment experiments can increase the pace of learning towards reaching more significant outcomes. Both of these techniques have application to innovating in the nonprofit sector, a sector that passionately tackles society's biggest challenges utilizing minimal resources. Contrary to the complexity of these efforts, a focus on small steps and bright spots can actually help lay the groundwork for transforming our world.



Laura Weiss is the Vice President of Service Innovation at the Taproot Foundation.  The newest member of the Taproot team, Laura comes to the Taproot Foundation after nine years as Associate Partner and Practice Director with the world-renowned design consultancy IDEO, where she was an advocate for bringing a business perspective to the design process. A former licensed architect and educator, Laura holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, an MArch from Yale University and a BArch with honors from Cornell University.  

Architects & Pro Bono

By John Cary on August 4, 2008 5:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This is the first in a series of posts under the banner of "Pro Bono Design." Future posts will range from specific pro bono design project profiles to developments in the growing pro bono design movement.  Two brief disclosures are probably in order: first that I am the executive director of a nonprofit (Public Architecture) on whose board Aaron Hurst serves; second that the subject of this post is a membership organization that I have belonged to for over eight years and which in 2008 became a sponsor of Public Architecture's pro bono service program, "The 1%."

 

This past Friday, August 1, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) issued a draft of its forthcoming "Pro Bono Guidelines." This is the first substantive and official statement on the subject in the AIA's 150-year history.  To date, the AIA's position on pro bono has been a very general 2-sentence mention in the organization's Code of Ethics & Professional Conduct. 

 

Architects and the AIA as our primary professional association are apt to compare ourselves to other established professions such as law and medicine.  The reality, however, is that both the American Bar Association (ABA) and American Medical Association (AMA) have long had explicit expectations and provided resources for their members to undertake pro bono service, while it has been simply an aspirational statement in architecture.  In this respect, the ABA in particular provides a compelling model for the AIA to now aspire to.

 

Although still in draft form and awaiting adoption by the AIA Board of Directors this fall, the guidelines are a major step forward for the AIA and the architecture profession as a whole.  It also a sign that this culture of pro bono that we have been working to build since the launch of Public Architecture's pro bono service program, The 1%, is taking hold.

 

Between now and August 20, the AIA is soliciting comments on its Pro Bono Guidelines, a 15-page document, which is broken up into nine major sections.  The stated intent of the guidelines is to provide "encouragement, guidance, and recommendations for the management of the provision of pro bono services by members of the Institute, firms, and AIA components who are presently, or contemplating becoming, engaged in providing such services."  No small task.

 

AIA members have been invited to comment on the draft in a members-only section of the AIA website. My hope through this and future posts addressing each major section of the draft document is to draw on the expertise and interests of this pro bono discussion forum to help refine this important landmark document.  Your comments will directly inform Public Architecture's response and recommendations to the AIA, and help shape the pro bono agenda for an entire profession.

 

Click here to download a PDF of the 15-page report.