Pain Drives Innovation

Pain drives innovation, suggests Tom Floodeen, a change management expert in the electronics industry.

When the reality of business is not going our way, we experience pain, says Tom.  This may come in the form of negative feedback from customers or an imbalance in the laws of supply and demand within the organization.

Business reality is recognizing an organization’s goals to stay in business, survive cuts and improve profits.

When business reality is going our way, we feel happy, our customers are satisfied and our team is motivated.  Stability is our result when the general experience of happiness is greater than the experience of pain.  When this balance threatens to flip to the opposite side, we consider innovative changes.  If the perceived value of the result is intense enough, it will be enough to overcome the fear of losing more stability and the discomfort of change.

Instead of tracking an individual employee’s performance to validate a proposed innovation, Tom tracks the organization’s process.  The organization’s process is a team of individuals with specialized talents working together to reach a common goal.  He looks at this process by generally tracking increased productivity, efficiency of process and customer satisfaction.

An organizational team is like an orchestra of musicians all playing different instruments. Each may be able to play their instrument with excellence but how well can they sync up with each other?  How well can they listen to the conductor?  And how well can the conductor bring the specialized talents together to orchestrate a harmonious presentation that results in happiness, not pain?

After 28+ years of experience, Tom concludes that incorporating an active sensitivity to the customer’s and employee’s pain/happiness through surveys and consistent communication reduces the pain of business reality and increases happiness.

He believes in making the conflict resolution process a team effort as opposed to a top-down effort in order to promote participation and motivation to succeed.  Employees shouldn’t be regarded as droids—mere processes who implement all of their manager’s bright ideas.  They should be apart of the cause—the group mind that internalizes the conflicts and forms the resolution processes. He has found that recognizing the conflict resolution talent in team members returns some of the best solutions and promotes the most successful implementations.

Check out his full text:  "Pain Drives Innovation" by Tom Floodeen