nabilprofelgen
09-12-2006, 09:05 PM
It drives me crazy when I get the argument, "Well Roger, the reality is…." The instant I hear the expression "the reality is," anything that follows is just "blah, blah, blah" to me.
Why? Almost everything that we think is real is actually a construction of inferences and interpretations that we misinterpret as reality. And unfortunately, the belief that we are directly observing and understanding 'reality' discourages us from trying to change it. Hence our concept of 'reality' is the enemy of innovation.
The 'reality' assertion happens all the time. I recall a fellow board member, Tony M., arguing with me during a board meeting, "Roger, the reality is that we can't sell this division right now." In fact, we could (and did) sell the division, but it didn't appear that way to Tony because the things to which he paid attention didn't add up to the possibility of sale.
Tony didn't see his view as a model of reality, but as reality—direct, pure, and clean. That is why he didn't say, "I don't think we can sell it," but rather "the reality is we can't."
When we see 'reality,' we act to confirm and reinforce that 'reality', whether it is real or not. So if we were to conclude that 'the reality is' that consumers won't pay a premium for quality—for example, they won't pay more than 99 cents for a four-roll package of toilet paper—then we won't even try to provide more quality. Instead we will provide a generic product and spend our resources on price promotions that enable retailers to hit the 99-cent price point.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
In this context, the consumer will wait to buy his toilet paper until it is on special at 99 cents and thereby exhibit what is logically interpreted as superhigh price sensitivity. In doing so, he reinforces the 'reality' that toilet paper consumers won't pay a premium for quality.
Inadvertently, these prophecy-fulfilling consumers reinforce the belief that we can identify 'reality' when we see it, whether it is a 'reality' about customers, colleagues, competitors, distributors, suppliers, family, friends, or relatives.
The problem with the rush to define 'reality' is that very few people are inclined to try to change reality. Why would you? You can't change reality. Why would you try to change, for example, the laws of physics? In the late 17th century, Sir Isaac Newton made a number of observations about properties of physical objects and came up with a set of basic laws of physics.
Braving Change
For over two centuries, these laws were considered immutable reality. We know now that Newton's Laws were nothing more than his interpretation of a set of observable features of moving objects. When Albert Einstein came along, he demonstrated that a different interpretation of the observable world would generate a different 'reality' that we now know as the general theory of relativity.
It was no small task for Einstein to take on two centuries of 'reality'. In fact, it is stunning that he did and that he prevailed. He had a better time of it than Galileo.
The treatment of interpretation as actual reality has a chilling effect on innovation. Reality is there to be accepted, not challenged. It is a bit like the expression "possession is nine-tenths of the law." Once something gains the stature of 'reality' it becomes the law, and any related innovation is suppressed.
Seed of Scientific Thinking
I had long wondered why there is such a predisposition in the modern world to classify things as 'reality' and only recently got a compelling answer when I met a clever guy from Australia named Tony Goldsby-Smith, an ex-philosopher who heads a consulting firm called 2nd Road (www.secondroad.com.au). He traces the problem back to Aristotle or, more specifically, to a tragic partial interpretation of the Greek thinker.
Modern scientific thinking arguably stems from Aristotle, whose classic book Analytics laid out what may have been the first truly comprehensive view of how to reason scientifically from observation to rigorous conclusions.
by Roger L. Martin (http://www.businessweek.com/bios/Roger_L._Martin.htm)
to complete the article:
http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/dec2006/id20061204_636179.htm?chan=innovation_innovation+% 2B+design_insight
Why? Almost everything that we think is real is actually a construction of inferences and interpretations that we misinterpret as reality. And unfortunately, the belief that we are directly observing and understanding 'reality' discourages us from trying to change it. Hence our concept of 'reality' is the enemy of innovation.
The 'reality' assertion happens all the time. I recall a fellow board member, Tony M., arguing with me during a board meeting, "Roger, the reality is that we can't sell this division right now." In fact, we could (and did) sell the division, but it didn't appear that way to Tony because the things to which he paid attention didn't add up to the possibility of sale.
Tony didn't see his view as a model of reality, but as reality—direct, pure, and clean. That is why he didn't say, "I don't think we can sell it," but rather "the reality is we can't."
When we see 'reality,' we act to confirm and reinforce that 'reality', whether it is real or not. So if we were to conclude that 'the reality is' that consumers won't pay a premium for quality—for example, they won't pay more than 99 cents for a four-roll package of toilet paper—then we won't even try to provide more quality. Instead we will provide a generic product and spend our resources on price promotions that enable retailers to hit the 99-cent price point.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
In this context, the consumer will wait to buy his toilet paper until it is on special at 99 cents and thereby exhibit what is logically interpreted as superhigh price sensitivity. In doing so, he reinforces the 'reality' that toilet paper consumers won't pay a premium for quality.
Inadvertently, these prophecy-fulfilling consumers reinforce the belief that we can identify 'reality' when we see it, whether it is a 'reality' about customers, colleagues, competitors, distributors, suppliers, family, friends, or relatives.
The problem with the rush to define 'reality' is that very few people are inclined to try to change reality. Why would you? You can't change reality. Why would you try to change, for example, the laws of physics? In the late 17th century, Sir Isaac Newton made a number of observations about properties of physical objects and came up with a set of basic laws of physics.
Braving Change
For over two centuries, these laws were considered immutable reality. We know now that Newton's Laws were nothing more than his interpretation of a set of observable features of moving objects. When Albert Einstein came along, he demonstrated that a different interpretation of the observable world would generate a different 'reality' that we now know as the general theory of relativity.
It was no small task for Einstein to take on two centuries of 'reality'. In fact, it is stunning that he did and that he prevailed. He had a better time of it than Galileo.
The treatment of interpretation as actual reality has a chilling effect on innovation. Reality is there to be accepted, not challenged. It is a bit like the expression "possession is nine-tenths of the law." Once something gains the stature of 'reality' it becomes the law, and any related innovation is suppressed.
Seed of Scientific Thinking
I had long wondered why there is such a predisposition in the modern world to classify things as 'reality' and only recently got a compelling answer when I met a clever guy from Australia named Tony Goldsby-Smith, an ex-philosopher who heads a consulting firm called 2nd Road (www.secondroad.com.au). He traces the problem back to Aristotle or, more specifically, to a tragic partial interpretation of the Greek thinker.
Modern scientific thinking arguably stems from Aristotle, whose classic book Analytics laid out what may have been the first truly comprehensive view of how to reason scientifically from observation to rigorous conclusions.
by Roger L. Martin (http://www.businessweek.com/bios/Roger_L._Martin.htm)
to complete the article:
http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/dec2006/id20061204_636179.htm?chan=innovation_innovation+% 2B+design_insight