This disconnect between our genetic instincts and our social, economic and technological environment seems to have changed how we evolve. Successful scientists seem to frequently and naturally reject important evidence because they are wedded to contributing to a paradigm that promotes creating science that is considered "normal" and adds to a prior tradition. This is documented by Kuhn in his book about the process of human discovery, one whose thesis maps best to what I've seen. In the language of genetics, we naturally avoid mutation, choosing selection and recombination instead. We choose to enhance the present rather than thinking about the future.
Similarly, the "gene" of a firm is very different from the gene of a person. And this is what makes information technologies so disruptive. Successful firms are those that are wired to select and recombine, to gather and react to what their environment (customers) tell them is important. So when the development that requires radical mutation comes along, it is the most successful firms that don't react. After all, ignoring the fringes is what makes them succeed, and most new technologies develop on these fringes. This is a lot like the scientists who contribute to a paradigm while ignoring the evidence that contradicts their theories.
The firms that recognize that their success imposes these horse blinkers will therefore make that extra effort to "mutate" and experiment aggressively, even if it doesn't add to their short term profits. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft (yes) and IBM are great current examples, although in different ways. I'm not sure they are doing enough; however, it is good to see some convergence between our genes and our socially constructed instincts.
4 comments:
So, the innovators dilemma presented from a biological point of view. Thought-provoking...
Once you start thinking about ideas, firms, strategies, or any phenomenon really, as a phenotype associated with some gene, it's difficult to stop applying the evolution paradigm universally. The tradeoff of "exploration vs exploitation" becomes the key decision for any intelligent agent in an evolutionary setting.
In the business sense, exploitation amounts to using the same business model while trying to improve and perfect it. Economists know intuitively that this is the road to marginal-cost pricing (absent some other considerations). We see profitable firms investing heavily in human capital and giving people leeway to be creative. Google's 20% time and all the associated "beta projects" is a great example. This is the exploration side of Google's strategy, but they couldn't afford to do this without a bread-and-butter source of revenue.
Continuing the biological theme, one could argue that large firms that attempt to introduce "skunk works" create antibodies in the rest of the company. If the firm's ideal is efficency/market share/sustained profitablility then small sections experimenting widely should be treated as bacteria.
Google's 20% seems to get around this by allocating a percentage of each resource rather than a select set of resources.
I think TIMING is the key. even though large corporations are able find the right solutions but at the wrong time.
It is a matter of time when some small start up with smaller baggage comes up with a better version of same idea at the right time.
Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsJAlrYjGz8
Post a Comment