The Three Essential Forces for Innovation

Dentsu Inc.'s new service, "Indwelling Creators," involves Dentsu Inc. creators "residing" within client companies to creatively drive their organizations toward innovation. This time, let's discuss the "common problems found in organizations where innovation doesn't happen" that this initiative aims to solve.

[For inquiries about "Indwelling Creators," please contact us here]
opeq78@dentsu.co.jp Contact: Mr. Yamada

 

What they share isn't necessarily a "lack of motivation" for change. In fact, when speaking with smaller groups, they often demonstrate a clear sense of crisis. However, at the same time, a certain kind of "resignation" is frequently observed.

To be more specific: top management agonizes, "Our members lack energy." Frontline staff complain, "Our management just doesn't get it." And middle management struggles with the mental strain, "Ah, caught in the middle again today."

Of course, they aren't sitting idly by. They try things like collectively defining a purpose—like "Why does our company exist in society?"—or creating forums for cross-hierarchical discussions. Yet, somehow, the situation just doesn't improve.

Here's the crucial point: what's needed to move an organization forward is "creative dialogue." The vision of top management and the reality on the ground, or the company's circumstances and the needs of consumers, are fundamentally not things that easily align. Rather than assuming there's some "right answer" and clashing with each other's valid points to reach consensus (compromise), what's needed is interaction (dialogue) to find a new path to overcome that "discrepancy," starting from the position that "they don't easily align" ( as mentioned in the column before last ).

To engage in this "creative dialogue," three capabilities are essential: "top management's ability to ask questions," "the frontline's ability to create," and "middle management's ability to choose."

A major role of top management is to motivate the organization. To do this, they must present "ambitious numerical targets" and a "vision." Here, "vision" means more than just an "aspirational state"; it is the organization's fundamental values – "what it considers to be truth, goodness, and beauty" – and represents "realistic idealism."
The question, "Unfortunately, reality isn't there yet, but don't you want to realize this ideal?" becomes the trigger that sets the organization in motion.

This directly reflects the individual manager's values and education. There is no single correct answer, so resolve is also necessary. That is precisely why experienced creators provide support, helping to cultivate the "power to ask questions" that moves the organization.

Meanwhile, what's required at the operational level is the "ability to create" solutions that respond with "I never thought of that!" to seemingly impossible ideals set by top management. Unfortunately, while many companies and organizations can train people to logically arrive at correct answers, they often struggle to cultivate the discipline for creative solutions. Indwelling Creators takes Dentsu Inc.'s long-accumulated know-how in developing creative capabilities and makes it widely applicable across business operations.

And from experience, the most difficult and crucial skill is middle management's "ability to choose." When faced with choosing from ideas generated by the front lines, we often see managers either becoming critics demanding extreme objectivity in "correctness" metrics, gamblers betting on potential with little basis, or agonizing somewhere in between. The primary cause of this recurring issue lies in ( as discussed many times in this column before ) "a lack of understanding about concepts."

A concept is never just flowery language to decorate a proposal; it is the single phrase that illuminates a future that does not yet exist. All Indwelling Creators possess extensive experience in sifting through numerous ideas and creating outputs guided by concepts. We apply this to the business world, cultivating middle management that is neither critic nor gambler.

The "Indwelling" in Indwelling Creators means "to inhabit." We literally inhabit the organization during our contracted time, fighting as "fellow crew members on the same ship." Here, the traditional distinction of "Creator = thinker, Client = decision-maker" does not exist. From top management to the front lines, the entire organization participates together in the process of questioning, creating, and selecting.

You might be thinking, "...I get the abstract discussion, but can you get a bit more concrete?" Next time, I'd like to proceed with the discussion based on actual cases where Indwelling Creators revitalized organizations.

Now, when inviting guests to dine at my humble home, imagining their faces while deciding the menu is always a delightful moment. This particular day was a farewell party for a senior colleague from Nagoya before their move to Okinawa. I prepared a stew using pork belly cartilage—sometimes used for "soki" in Okinawa—simmered in Nagoya's Hatcho miso. Since the entire menu leaned Western, I decided to serve it as a gratin.

I simmered it thoroughly, thinking it was perfect. But when we finally tasted it, it was overwhelmingly lacking in sweetness to call it Nagoya-style. Hmm. While my ability to question and choose the menu was decent, my crucial ability to actually make it was still lacking...

Please, help yourself!