Do rules and regulations improve innovation in organisations?
Yes
No
Have you ever been in a situation where you had to think on your feet? Maybe it was a surprise client visit or a sudden change in the market. In today's fast-paced business environment, the ability to improvise is essential. But how can we improve our capacity to think clearly and act decisively under pressure?
The answer might lie in a concept known as the "magical number 7, plus or minus 2." This theory, proposed by cognitive psychologist George A. Miller in 1956, suggests that our brains can only hold and process about seven pieces of information at a time. This limitation has profound implications for how we approach improvisation and innovation. The ability to improvise is one of the key steps in the resilience framework.
Making Space for What Matters
To improvise effectively, we need to free up as much mental space as possible for the tasks that truly require our attention. Here are two techniques you can use:
Automation: Through prolonged, deliberate practice, you can transform complex tasks into intuitive actions. When you practice long enough you will move some activities to the intuitive system of your brain and free the space within your magical seven for other things. Expert intuition is exactly the result of automation, the landing process that becomes second nature of the pilot, firefighter automatically recognising danger areas in the middle of the fire, and so on. More you can automate more you reserve from your mental bandwidth for improvisation, creativity and innovation.
Checklists: They are powerful tools for offloading the burden of remembering tactical steps. They ensure we don't miss crucial details while freeing up brainpower for improvisation. For example, to prepare for a physical meeting you need a room, invite participants, decide on the set-up, etc. Those are simple steps, but I often used to this thought going through my mind – have I forgotten anything? This is the purpose of the checklist, it allows to let those thoughts go and focus on what really matters – content preparation, meeting dynamics, anything unexpected.
The Power of Standardization
Both techniques are used heavily in the pilot training, where automation is crucial for fast-paced decision-making, while checklists ensure critical steps aren't missed.
Organizations can leverage similar principles through standardized processes. Diane Coutu brough UPS as a great example of the organization, which has mastered improvisation through very rigorous standards. UPS encourage drivers to do whatever it takes to deliver packages on time, but at the same time the company lives on rules and regulations, which determine a lot of daily activities and behaviours. Those rules allow people to focus on smaller number of real issues and forget everything else. They were quoted to be able to deliver parcels one day after Hurricane Andrew in 1992 to the people still living in their cars.
The Takeaway
Automation through deliberate practice and checklists are great tools that allow you to manage your mental bandwidth and hence improvise and innovate.
At the organisational level researchers confirm that standardization of business processes enhances organisational ability to improvise and innovate. More structure frees brain power of people for activities that really matter.
Resources
Harvard Business Review, Goleman D., Sonnenfeld J.A., Achor S. - Resilience (HBR Emotional Intelligence Series), Harvard Business Review Press, Boston, 2017.
Miller, G. A. - The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological review, 63(2), 81, 1956.
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