Scanning

Sometimes it can be difficult or impractical to come up with totally new ideas. You might need to look outside your normal surroundings and scan the market. Although this can be done in a variety of ways, there are a number of common approaches. These are built around two key variables. First is the breadth of the search: is the search based within the same industry or does it move into a totally different area? The second variable is the balance between a passive and active search. For the passive, systems are put in place and then left to react to ideas as they surface. Alternatively, you can search in a proactive way. The relationship between these two produces the following activities which can generate a matrix (Fig. 8.4):

• Ration: There is only limited interest in searching. This is seen in only a passing desire to subscribe to journals, join committees or scan the Internet.

• Radiate: Ideas from other areas are of interest but little positive action is taken to pick up on them. Benchmarking is one example of a positive process for identifying new ideas, although the extent to which other people's ideas are actually adopted will indicate whether a reactive or proactive stance is being taken.

• Rummage: The creative team will take the time to interact closely with new people but the search is still limited to the local area. New ideas are forthcoming but they are likely to be in use already.

• Roam: A positive decision has been taken to look aggressively for inspiration beyond the local area and to actively look for ideas from counterparts in other industries and across more diverse fields.

It is important to keep a balance. The danger is that people can be lazy and might try to simply transplant what other people have implemented. It is this approach that is seen in the way that companies blandly climbed on the total quality, reengineering and downsizing bandwagons.

A crucial part of the scanning process is to develop the ability to recognize ideas that occur naturally. Stories abound of the various inventions that have emerged from the process of serendipity, such as Goodyear's accidental discovery of the vulcanization process for rubber or Fleming's accidental discovery of penicillin. All of these originated because someone (apparently) happened to be in the right place at the right time and was observant enough to notice something out of the ordinary. However, simply being around when an accident happens is not enough to bring about new ideas and discoveries. It is important that the development team is in a state of constant preparedness and able to recognize the difference between an accident and when fate offers the chance to create something new. A discovery based on serendipity is the fruit of a seed sown by chance in fertile ground (Chambers, 1991).

The idea of "fertile ground" is an engaging one. How can a consultant create the fertile ground to allow for surprises or serendipity? The list is probably endless but the importance rests in helping individuals to be in a state of readiness. An eagerness to challenge, desire to learn, a spread of relationships and the ability to reframe all contribute directly to creating fertile ground. It is also important to draw upon the unspoken ideas and thoughts that are held at a tacit level. Tacit knowledge is described as the thoughts, feelings, dreams and intuition that go on in the background while people are performing a task or as the natural acts that people perform without consciously thinking.

In one study, 82 of the 93 winners of the Nobel Peace prize over a 16-year period agreed that intuition played an important part in creative and scientific discoveries (Cooper and Sawaf, 1997). It is just this soft and intuitive part that can help to develop consultancy processes that break the mould. Human emotion rather than any logical cause-effect analysis drives intuition. It is the ability of the individual to have a hunch that something might work, even though everyone else says it will fail. I am not suggesting we try to systematize an inherently soft factor, but I am making the point that people can choose to influence their ability to take intuitive decisions.

However, intuition does not preclude the notion of rationality. Although intuitive insights can appear not to make sense and might seem to be the opposite of a rational response, when brought together they form a more powerful tool. Einstein never discovered anything solely with his rational mind - the principle of relativity came about after he imagined himself travelling on a beam of light. This intuitive idea, coupled with his brilliance as a physicist, allowed him to develop a scientific theory that helped change the world's view of itself.

Once the power of unspoken knowledge is extracted, the tap is turned on from the pool of known explicit knowledge - the clear, known and unambiguous experiences that people bring to work. For example, product managers do not live that role for every hour of the day. They might also be parents who experience products on a personal as well as a professional level. This is just a simple example of the life experiences that an individual will bring to the workplace. The question is, to what extent can the consultancy team draw upon this fountain of knowledge and skills? If you are serious about creating new and innovative ways in which to assist your client, you need to offer freedom for the members of the consultancy team to present their whole self to the change process. You must value the rich diversity that resides within the workforce.