The Medici Effect

Frans Johansson has taken on an interesting, albeit potentially fruitless task. Johansson teaches in his book The Medici Effect, how people and corporations can embrace and encourage innovation from among their ranks. The only problem is - very few corporations will ever implement the necessary changes.

Don't get me wrong - the book is brilliant. One example: Johannson talks about the concept of risk homeostasis. Don't let the term intimidate you; the concept is simple and brilliant: people are hard-wired to allow for a certain amount of risk in any given situation. If the situation itself is dangerous, they will approach it with care, but if the situation is relatively benign, then they'll be more careless.

For example, when your local department of transportation spends millions of dollars to make a road or highway safer, the end result is NOT fewer crashes - because people drive on those safer roads MORE recklessly (to meet their hard-wired allowable amount of risk).

Another example: child-proof lids to medication have actually been found to INCREASE the number of poisoning among children. Why? Parents are more careless about leaving medicine around their kids, now that it has a child-proof cap.

The entire book is very well thought out and researched, and chock full of examples to follow so that individuals can get a better sense of how to really create groundbreaking innovation. He talks about working 'at the intersection' of two different fields, then using the combination of skills and concepts within those fields to generate truly innovative ideas.

I found the thing very helpful personally, as it speaks to the kind of mindset that generative and creative PEOPLE need to cultivate in order to become innovative and creative individuals...but the idea of foisting these concepts onto an organization is just downright silly.

Perhaps whether these corporations actually implement the ideas isn't really the point; the point is to be available for expensive speaking engagements, and to realize your clients will FEEL more innovative, without genuinely applying these ideas. If a company is to truly foster innovation among the ranks of all its employees, further ideas should be considered.

• Companies should regularly host gatherings where staff members from different divisions congregate to come up with new ideas, and those ideas should receive genuine feedback.
• Focusing on low-hanging fruit (really easy-to-implement ideas) is a cop-out for taking on the work of real innovation.
• Innovation should be encouraged and mentored within different parts of the company...and mandatory implementation of ideas should occur.
• A regular meeting where a tiny portion of the budget is allocated to implement an idea every quarter should happen, and people from all segments of the company should be encouraged to participate. The money MUST be spent in that quarter, mandating action from senior executives as well as input from staff.
• The implementation of innovation must be the sole focus of one person or group, and their evaluation must include metrics for the QUANTITY of ideas followed up on (instead of on the number of successes, removing the focus on from how polished an idea is to the sheer brute-force mindset of quantity of ideas).
• The economy continues to falter in the US, and companies are looking for places to balance their expenses. Cutting of R&D and innovation are the first places to look - especially at large, publicly-traded, quarter-to-quarter focused enterprises. Companies that fall into that trap will become cautionary tales for the coming generation of business leaders.
  

The Medici Effect will give you a lot to think about, both in terms of its potential effect on the corporate sphere and in your personal evolution. Johansson has succeeded in compiling an amazingly insightful book - but I wonder if he gets discouraged by all the lovely feedback he gets from corporations, only to see them follow the same directional line of development they always have. For his sake, I hope he views a successful speaking engagement is a victory in itself - or else he may become a very discouraged man.