Creative People Must Be Stopped (20 page)

Overcoming Values and Identity Constraints

When working on ideas you strongly believe in, it can be easy to forget that your innovation will affect more than you and your intended adopter; there will be other people who, because of their values, care a great deal more than you realize. It is also dangerous to believe that somehow everyone will divine (and embrace) the positive intent that you know is driving you forward. Sometimes they will think you are just a dork. But there are some possible remedies.

Let Values Be Your Guide

Like Dean Kamen and Dr. Boisselier, we may get so excited about the obvious benefits of our idea that we neglect to consider the wider array of values that might come into play on the path to adoption. To correct this potential myopia, there are two well-worn strategies from the world of start-ups and new product development that come to mind. One is to take inventory of all the possible values that might be affected directly or indirectly by your innovation. Do this by casting a wide net, engaging many diverse people, and deliberately seeking out those who represent your target audiences and potential stakeholders. Another strategy is to find ways to involve “customers” in early developmental stages through such means as interviews, focus groups, observations, or letting them try out prototypes and beta versions. As you do this, probe not only for issues of usability—often the explicit target of this kind of research—but for possible underlying values issues.

Understanding the sources and strength of held values can help you judge the potential support you are likely to find for your innovation. Similarly, consider that violations of these values can generate significant constraints as you pursue new ideas. Having access to a wide diversity of opinions can help in this regard. The idea is not to let a poll drive your intentions but to use the findings to understand what you are truly up against.

Look for Clubs That Wouldn't Have You as a Member

The informal nature of social values that you share with your peers and friends in particular strata of society may leave you unaware of the significant constraining potential of those relationships and values. You probably have heard the old axiom about how to make a decision consistent with your values: ask yourself how you would feel if your decision became known to all of society on the front page of the newspaper (or, as we might say nowadays, if it were featured on every wall on Facebook). If you'd be embarrassed that people found out, the axiom dictates, don't do it.

In a study that Damon Phillips and I (2004) conducted examining radical innovation in the early jazz recording industry, we found that the large, dominant firms wanted to profit from the new popular music, but the social context made it difficult for the leaders to choose to do so. The owners and directors of the dominant firms, such as Edison Phonograph, Columbia Phonograph, and Victor Talking Machines, made some successful early recordings, but then came under intense pressure against proliferating this illegitimate music form associated with alcohol, prostitution, blacks, and even illiteracy (because the musicians did not use written music). Although they might have liked to profit from the new jazz music, which ended up constituting about one-third of the market by the 1920s, these leaders, who were connected to the elite class through educational, financial, matrimonial, and political ties, succumbed to the negative pressure that came from these sources. This elite group of people—for example, the founders and leaders of Columbia included influential lawyers, alumni of top universities, and even financiers who had close ties with the U.S. Supreme Court—had a value system to uphold, which meant not participating in the innovation called jazz. Clearly the clubs they were members of had a constraining effect.

The advice here is not to try to overcome this constraint by pulling out of the social networks that form part of your identity. Rather, you should understand the nature of the social ties you have and the effect they might have on your judgments about innovation. You may be tightly tied to advocates for tradition, as in the case of these recording firms, or you may be tied to advocates for radical change, as was Dean Kamen at Segway, whose advisers included venture capital firms and such revolutionaries as Steve Jobs of Apple and Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon. In either case, knowing the nature and power of these ties creates the opportunity for insight and choice.

In a postscript to the jazz story, the dominant firms still found ways of participating in the emerging industry. One approach was to record the same music played by white musicians, dressing them in tuxedos and requiring them to play from music stands. These derivative recordings did not withstand the test of time in quality, but did provide some amount of profit at the time. Another approach was to found “race records” companies that sold exclusively to blacks and provided a significant degree of social separation between their firms and the music. These firms found success, but the limited market they served also limited the number of records that could be sold.

Do Good Change and Let People Know

The best strategy is probably the same one that your mother or father told you: strive to engage in constantly and continuous unequivocally positive actions; in other words, do the right thing. Sure, that's easy to say for yourself, but how do you do it in a complex organization? Google uses its informal corporate motto to this end. The phrase “Don't be evil” offers people there a test for potential actions and a guide for future ones. Anytime they are considering a product or a change to a product that will affect other people, they should stop and ask themselves: By doing this, am I doing evil? If the answer is yes, then stop. In a letter preceding their IPO (Google, 2004), the founders explained,

Google users trust our systems to help them with important decisions: medical, financial and many others. Our search results are the best we know how to produce. They are unbiased and objective, and we do not accept payment for them or for inclusion or more frequent updating. We also display advertising, which we work hard to make relevant, and we label it clearly. This is similar to a well-run newspaper, where the advertisements are clear and the articles are not influenced by the advertisers' payments. We believe it is important for everyone to have access to the best information and research, not only to the information people pay for you to see.

If you can build trust enough times and in as many different ways as possible, you'll develop a reputation that allows people to trust you; or at least you will bring them to a point where they will remain open to the possibility that your innovation may, in fact, make the world a better place.

Social Control Constraints: Self-Protection and Regulating Behavior

“Man is born free but everywhere he is in chains,” wrote the philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau ([1762] 1968). Rousseau wondered why people so willingly accepted the chains (that is, took on the yoke of society), accepting the strict limits they set on their personal freedom. In effect he was asking, Of all the things (both creative and wonderful, mean and awful) that we might do to others in our society, why do we refrain from doing most of them?

Explicit Controls: Laws and Regulations

In order for a society to function, it requires a set of
social controls
that put limits on behavior. These controls are meant to deter members of the society from considering forbidden actions and, when deterrence fails, to form the basis of punishment. The most explicit social controls are the laws and regulations that govern so much of our lives, from wearing shoes and shirts when you enter a store to how many milligrams of caffeine can be added to a beverage.

The constraining effect of laws is obvious. No innovation that violates existing law is likely to be widely adopted, and if it were, it would put the innovator at legal risk. Napster is a case in point. Although the service was widely adopted, it was debilitated by a series of legal challenges and injunctions that forced the company to eventually cease operations. The company was resurrected later, but then as a legal subscription-based sharing service.

The more challenging cases are those where there are no current laws that cover the innovation. In the case of the alleged human cloning, it was deemed by most to be unethical, but not necessarily illegal, in early 2000. However, after the birth was claimed, civil law quickly closed in and started the bans. Even religious laws were passed against it. In the “Dignitas Personae,” the Roman Catholic Church declared it to be a “grave offense to the dignity of that person as well as to the fundamental equality of all people” (quoted in Stein and Boorstein, 2008); the Islamic Fiqh Academy issued fatwa No. 21582 against the practice, arguing in part, “So it is not permissible to implement something simply because it can be implemented, rather it has to be beneficial knowledge which serves the interests of mankind and protects them from harm” (“Ruling on Cloning of Human Beings,” n.d.). According to Clonaid's Web site, as a result of the backlash, and “following visits from U.S. Government representatives,” the company “decided to pursue the human cloning project in another country.”

Backlash and illegalization don't arise only with radical propositions like human cloning. In the case of the Segway Personal Transporter, it wasn't just market forces that impeded adoption: the political system imposed constraints as well. In response to the Segway's use and misuse by early adopters, numerous municipalities began to establish rules prohibiting the operation of the transporter on a road with automobile traffic. The Segway's top speed of 12 mph is simply too slow for the road, and they judged it could pose a significant danger both to its rider and to other traffic. But then some of these same municipalities and many others banned the Segway from the sidewalk, where 12 mph is entirely too
fast
. Under the circumstances, it's understandable that Segway users in Internet groups were soon asking, “So where are we supposed to ride it?” Unfortunately for them, this is not a problem that lawmakers see as their business to solve.

Tacit Controls: Morals, Ethics, and Traditions

Social control is not just asserted through formal rules and laws. There are also many tacit “rules” that shape our behavior and our response to new ideas. Morals and ethics are in the category of these kinds of assumed but not necessarily articulated social rules for what it means to be a member of good standing in a society, and for what it means to do no harm. So although certain activities may not be illegal, they can carry a significant negative social stigma. Individuals might not adopt an innovation because it doesn't support their values, but other innovations may conflict so deeply with important values that people want adoption to be stopped. Many parents decry the 1990s fashion innovation known in slang terms as
slabbing
, which means wearing your pants so low below your waist that your underpants show. In addition to being considered indecent, the source of the innovation—rappers who picked up the style from prison inmates prohibited from wearing belts—may irritate as well.

Living for long periods of time in our culture makes us unconscious of its rules and conventions; we have internalized them. But this makes them more powerful and not less so, particularly if we can't articulate why we do not like an innovation, but simply reject it. So, consistent with the philosophy of this book, anything that seems so obvious as to be unnoticeable should draw our attention as being the source of an immense strategic advantage or of a debilitating constraint.

Overcoming Social Control Constraints

Because societies require social controls to function, overcoming the resulting constraints on innovation is not a matter of somehow defeating or overriding these generally beneficial features of society. Rather, we need ways of taking social controls into account, modifying them where that is both desirable and possible, and adapting to them when it is not.

Monitor Impending Rules and Regulations

The unpredictability of the political process means that we can easily be blindsided by new laws, regulations, and court rulings. Consider the example of Virgin Galactic, a space tourism business founded by Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Records and Virgin Airlines fame. The technology certainly posed some difficult constraints—for example, the need to sufficiently reduce the aircraft's weight to enable it to be lifted into space, while also ensuring the fuselage's strength. The market is also a potential constraint, with tickets currently starting at $200,000 per person, not including training. Still, Virgin reports that it has received several hundred $20,000 deposits from aspiring astronauts around the globe.

But what about the safety of those astronauts—how can that be ensured? Certainly the solid-liquid hybrid engine developed for the Virgin spacecraft was designed with safety in mind. However, this was insufficient to satisfy the U.S. Congress, which had begun debating issues of risk and liability in the emerging space tourism business. Many legislators were opposed to a “fly at your own risk” policy for a transportation company, but the economics of a company assuming that risk made the whole business model collapse. The social constraints were moving in a direction that might choke the whole industry, in effect killing any chances that the fledgling industry might have of developing in the United States.

But instead of continuing to fret over rocket fuel formulations and parachute configurations, Branson and others interested in helping and participating in the emerging industry mounted an expensive and significant lobbying effort. A bill in support of the industry was finally passed in December 2004, but not before enduring many near misses. When it finally did pass, one of the space policy consultants working in support of the bill responded with an expletive and then offered, “Never watch sausage or legislation being made, it's been a long and tortuous road” (Boyle, 2004).

Of course most organizations won't have the resources to first detect a pending legislative problem and then to mount a significant lobbying effort the way Virgin did. Still, there are numerous Internet-based sources of information today that make it easier than ever to scan the environment for pending legislation, regulatory hearings, court cases, and other events that can have a direct bearing on your innovation. Know what's on the horizon so as not to be taken by surprise. Early knowledge can help you decide whether you might take your innovation in a slightly different direction or even whether to stop investing in it if you can't change what's coming.