Surfacing Innovation in Bureaucracy

Innovation can seem impossible in a bureaucracy. Despite all the talk of change and transformation, progress can feel slow and superficial. In a world where the pace of change outstrips our bureaucratic processes, true innovation within large organizations isn't just an option; it's a necessity for survival and effectiveness. In the context of government, reputation and trust depend on it.

The Central Question: How can public sector organizations balance the need for innovation with the imperative of maintaining stability and public trust?

All Transformation Requires More Than Surface Change

All transformation results in change, but not all change is transformative. Transformative change goes beyond surface-level adjustments. It involves completely new ways of thinking about and seeing the world. It's about introducing entirely new practices and approaches to solving problems and creating value.

Creating space to prototype culture change is the most promising way of breaking free from the dependent path of bureaucratic organizations.

Innovation labs and similar prototyping spaces represent the most promising approaches to escape the dependent path of bureaucratic organizations.

Government leaders emphasize whole-of-government strategies, digital technologies, ethical artificial intelligence, and omnichannel experiences for citizens. These are worthwhile goals. However, bureaucracies were not originally designed to achieve these objectives. Additionally, innovation is often treated as performative rather than substantive.

As Jenny Lewis notes regarding innovation labs in government:

A more critical reading would extend this to the possibility that design approaches and labs are more important for signalling innovation credentials than for doing anything novel.

Despite this risk, innovation remains imperative. Meaningful results within government are possible, but require embracing discomfort, unlearning old ways, and changing established formal and informal organizational structures.

Defining Innovation Broadly

The OECD Observatory for Public Sector Innovation defines innovation as the realization of:

• New products, services and processes
• New policies and systems
• New ways of thinking and of understanding the world
• New ways of acting, organizing and relating to the world

This definition is valuable because it encompasses various types of innovation. The latter two categories can result in transformative change, and these innovations may be essential for creating viable innovations in the former categories.

When seeking new products, services, processes and policies, consider Mel Conway's question: "Is there a better design not available to us because of our organization?" Fragmented organizations deliver fragmented experiences.

SS Bureaucracy: Surface-Level Solutions

An organization maintains the systems and fundamental structures that lead to its outcomes and impacts. Calls for "innovation" suggest current results are not meeting expectations. However, altering outcomes without innovating the foundational system will likely fail. Culture powerfully influences outcomes beyond strategic planning — true change requires culture shifts.

Tamami Komatsu and colleagues discuss the importance of going deep into organizations to co-design services with citizens:

This approach encourages public sector organizations to take a deep look into the lives of citizens and provide value as needed rather than seeking to do more of what they already do.

Public service innovation demands that organizations interact with users in fresh ways and collaborate amongst themselves to move beyond repeating existing practices and reconfigure internal structures aligned with citizens' needs.

Cosmetic Changes Miss the Mark

Innovation requires more than superficial changes. As Komatsu notes, cosmetic efforts "fail to re-design services based on a re-framing of the problem but rather employ design tools to embellish or re-market existing services." Reframing problems to support "new ways of thinking and understanding the world" is necessary for genuine innovation.

Human-centered design can facilitate this reframing by engaging citizens, though its application remains inconsistent in the public sector.

Episodic use of design — by failing to engage in strategic design — hinders transformative change, with innovation described as being episodic, driven by accidental events that do not leave public organizations with lasting capacity to innovate.

Focusing innovation efforts on new policies, processes and services without addressing underlying ways of acting, organizing, thinking, understanding and relating to the world is akin to "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic."

Innovation Beyond the Visible Tip of the Iceberg

Think of the OECD definition of innovation as an iceberg. The first two types represent what's visible above the water's surface, while the latter two remain hidden beneath. To achieve true transformation, innovation must reach these concealed depths — a dive into organizational culture is essential.

Culture Is Deeper Than Strategic Plans

Culture exists deeper than strategic plans and vision statements, which represent only the visible level to bureaucratic organizations. Beneath the surface lies an array of invisible and intangible cultural components and informal social structures that influence observable outcomes.

To achieve transformative change, organizations must explore these profound depths. Yet this endeavor can be unsettling and unfamiliar. Moreover, bureaucracy is not equipped to delve into these unseen layers, as it is preoccupied with stabilizing and managing observable effects that float at the surface.

Theory U as Navigation Framework

Theory U stands as a method for managing change that facilitates collaboration and innovation. It presents an approach guiding individuals from narrow individual perspectives to broader collective understanding. This method enhances systems awareness by fostering empathy and encouraging introspection among group members.

Theory U can empower transformation initiatives to chart actions and navigate paths beneath surface barriers impeding change efforts. Innovation labs equipped with this framework serve as potent catalysts for organizational change.

The Role of Labs: SS Labo

Governments must approach change more cautiously than the private sector. Stability is a priority, and the scale of potential risks to public harm and trust surpasses that of business.

Public sector innovation is stuck between the need for change and the need for stability. Public bureaucracies must somehow succeed at the balancing act of unleashing innovations while also maintaining socio-political stability.

Conversely, failing to effectively change and adapt risks public harm and damaged trust. Risk exists in the status quo as well.

Innovation labs can de-risk organizational change. They provide space and facilitated practice for groups to develop shared understanding of problems and experiment with potential solutions. Labs coupled with parallel learning structure functions represent a promising way of de-risking innovation, fostering organizational learning, and advancing transformation.

An innovation lab with a Theory U compass can explore culture depths needed for transformation in ways bureaucracy cannot.

Lab Work Must Extend Beyond Lab Walls

The work of a lab cannot stay in the lab, or results risk withering on the vine. As research indicates:

States should support "innovation bureaucracies" — constellations of public organizations capable of delivering agile stability. If governments create new organizations like labs led by charismatic outsiders, but these people and networks don't become part of routine government, innovation won't be sustained.

Labs operate along the path of the Emergent System by building innovator networks, making space for prototyping culture change, and growing influence by showing results.

Conclusion

Creating places where people can freely experiment with new ways of thinking, understanding the world, organizing and acting is vital for enabling innovation. Like sports, performance, or cooking, reading and emails won't improve practice — practice itself does.

Practice shapes organizations. Allocating time and space for practice ensures organizational change. Processes and outcomes from labs allow showcasing value and potential of ideas, not just discussing them.

Colleagues will believe it when they see it; they will be changed when they experience it.

This is how movements build, one step at a time, spreading innovation with unstoppable momentum. The alternative path becomes irresistible.