Making Progress with ‘Just Manageable Confidence’
We’ve heard all of the COVID-19 tropes for months now; ‘get used to the new normal’, ‘survive or thrive’, and of course, there’s the unprecedented use of the word ‘unprecedented’.
Catch-cries aside, we are all operating in uncharted territory – with no norms to fall back on and no promise of stability on the horizon. It’s time to get comfortable with ‘just manageable confidence’, to move innovation forward despite (unavoidable) uncertainty, and learn how to build business on an unstable platform.
But just how adept are we at innovating in this (new) world? If a recent study by McKinsey & Co is anything to go by, not very. While 90% of executives believe that COVID-19 will fundamentally change the way they do business over the next 5 years, just 21% believe they have the expertise, resources, and commitment to pursue new growth successfully.*
We’re certainly all aware of the scale of the challenge. What’s missing is our ability to act.
Everyone is familiar with the old adage of ‘fight or flight’, and as we’ve more recently discovered, there’s also the ‘freeze’ response. That psychological drive we all have as individuals towards immobility when overwhelmed by an extreme looming threat… and 2020 has certainly brought us plenty of that.
Too often, the (rigid) structures we put in place commercially are geared towards reinforcing this ‘flight’ or ‘freeze’ mode over the ‘fight’. We’re conditioned to default to the ‘safe’ route – to shoot for the most predictable result, manage risk, deal in hard facts and follow protocol.
But, what happens when the default route is no longer an option? For the vast majority of industries, COVID-19 has taken ‘safe’ off the table. There’s no longer a fail-proof precedent to fall back on, no proven model to follow as you weather the storm.
This is the new business reality we find ourselves operating in – and will continue to operate in for some time. And it’s a paradigm that demands a new modus operandi for innovation. One that embraces flexibility, agility and resilience in the face of constant market uncertainty, change and set back.
So, how do we get there? We’re not suggesting that we should all be wading blindfolded into the unknown. Instead we need to get into a zone of ‘just manageable confidence’.
By this we mean, finding the sweet spot where there is a clear picture of the immediate next step, without slowing the whole process down to a grinding halt. Avoiding getting weighed down with laborious (over)planning or the paralysing wait for guaranteed confidence before making that next leap to pursue a new business opportunity… and doing it now, before the window of opportunity passes.
There’s a famous quote from E.L. Doctrow that sums up how it feels when you’re in that ‘just manageable confidence’ zone quite perfectly. While he is talking about his craft as a writer, it’s just as applicable to business and innovation:
“It’s like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” - E.L. Doctrow
In innovation, this way of working means ‘unfixing’ your processes and your mindsets. Breaking away from linear project structures, formal stage gates, traditional business cases and full-scale launches… and moving towards models that are anchored in experimentation and learning – where each activity (or sprint) is designed, not to solve everything, but to answer that one critical question and move you forward.
We call this step-change ‘Unfixed Innovation’. Less rigid method, and more flexible mindset, it’s a leaner approach to innovation that prioritises outcomes and embraces alternative ways of working and routes to market. One that’s anchored in hypothesis-led discovery, unconstrained problem-solving and real-world validation.
Of course, with less ridged protocol and formulaic process, the final destination might not look like what you expected when you first set out. And so often in innovation, it’s the third, fourth or 10th pivot that unlocks that killer solution with the right balance of Product, Market and Technical Fit anyway.
But, by focusing less on having all of the data and process in place, and instead gathering just enough to move forward to the next step – you can get results (and get them faster) if you ensure that you still:
have a defined ‘true north’ – your guiding strategic vision of what you’re working towards and of what success looks like,
with a clear, manageable ‘next step’ on the journey… that’s bite-sized enough to tackle at speed and with controllable risk and investment – we like to break each down into its own individual ‘sprint’ with a clear and discrete objective,
move fast, with plenty of stops on the way to change course and pivot when you need to – we call these your built-in ‘Go | No Go’ points.
They say that sometimes you need to break things down to truly fix them. Well COVID-19 has certainly revealed the cracks in the innovation system. Now it’s time to ‘unfix’ our approach and build a more sustainable model for the future.
Are you ready to ‘unfix’ your approach to innovation?
Our 2-hour ‘Unfix’ workshops; guide organisations through a rapid reframe of a big innovation or business challenge, identify an ‘unfixed’ path forward, and extract a pool of starting ideas to jump-start progress at the same time.
Get in touch to find out more about Unfixed Innovation and how it can help your business navigate the current landscape of rapid change by finding that zone of ‘just manageable confidence’ to move forward at pace and pursue new opportunities.