Can Innovation be forced through crisis?
The chocolate chip cookie was in fact invented by accident, when a women by the name of Ruth Graves Wakefield, ran out of bakers chocolate while preparing dessert for her guests at the Toll House Inn on Route 18 near Whitman, Massachusetts, in 1930.
This might be a crumb-y example, but sometimes our lack of abundance can create a need for innovation. Hence, the invention of the chocolate chip cookie, now one of the world most beloved sweet treats.
As a kid, I couldn’t have fathomed that as a 30-year-old graduate student and corporate employee, I’d be experiencing one of the largest global crises’ in the 21st Century.
Here, I sit in my home office, social distancing myself, as I see more schools, businesses, and retail centers shut down in response to our country’s efforts to control the spread of an invasive and dangerous virus called COVID-19.
[Que Dramatic Reverb HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9n9iR7iJNE]
In all seriousness though, I feel like the current state of the country, leaves me feeling shifty and uncomfortable on the edge of my seat not knowing the specific impact that something like this could have economically, socially, and innovatively.
Could this pandemic, send us spiraling towards a recession faster than we ever sought coming? Can anything good come out of this?
In my graduate class, Leading Emergence, we’ve discussed that it can be in an organizations best interest to practice ideation frequently as a way to forecast disruptions and seek growth in new ways that might separate itself from its competitors and the normal market trends.
But what do we do when a disruption disrupts us before we have time to predict its impact, let alone innovate for it?
The right answer? To be honest, I don’t know if there is one. But, here is what I’ve seen…
We prioritize time to wash our hands of the failure or stifling challenge we’ve encountered, we get back up, and we evolve.
I think crisis forces rapid problem solving and innovation. It creates an innovative platform that can be used as a catalyst for change in an organization’s ecosystem. If we look at our track record in history, crisis can create new ways of doing business.
“Necessity is the Mother of Invention.”
Plato
I work in higher education, where our ROI is heavily based on bringing executives from all over the world to continue their learning journey within the prestigious walls of an Ivy League business school. When we are forced to close our doors for the safety of our clients, how do we continue to quickly bring our clients top-notch education from afar?
I think this new era is creating a realm for Innovation Management. A unique opportunity for professionals to introduce innovative techniques to leadership, who might have otherwise found it easy to stay complacent in an organizations traditional method of doing business.
Perhaps, we can further understand Plato’s words a little better now, when he stated, “Necessity is the Mother of Invention.”
