*The plan (oh, there so was a plan) was
to write a few “rules” around ways that innovation and the institution can understand the other since I think they truly can only function effectively in an environment of
interdependence. Except, I tend on the innovator side by nature and I got a
little carried away with “rule one” and so now this may or may not be a series
of posts…in addition, I started doubting the word rule because it suggests commitment and uniformity...but I couldn't think of another word for rule....so really it's a miracle this post is being posted at all let alone thinking I would post more "rules" given the challenge I seem to have channeling the institution in me to structure my posts.
So, here, you go: my first, and perhaps only, humble rule-suggestion-hope-dream-whatever-the-right-word-is for the institution and the innovator in all of us to find a place inside to belong.
Rule One: We Really Do All Belong
Don’t
feel bad, Institution, even Innovators don’t know what to do with themselves.
It’s
like the Institution had a party, invited the Innovator because they thought it
was the right thing to do but then it’s 3am and everyone’s gone and we’re still
standing on the table singing “I Will Survive.”
Yeah,
we’re that guy.
But,
here’s a secret. We aren’t trying to
be innovative. We’ve been this way all our lives and we are fully capable of
exhausting ourselves with our own ideas.
Our
ideas are like bunnies…
if
the season was always Spring…
and
there were no coyotes. (*Hashtag-poor
bunnies.)
What
do you do with all these bunnies?
Shoulder
Shrug. Cue: Sweet Smile. We don’t know.
Innovators
are the kids that decided they were going to make our own butterfly costume in third
grade and that the wings definitely had to be to scale even though we later
discovered that meant not being able to fit through the doorways on Halloween
night. People still gave us candy. They just threw is at us from inside.
This
is a true story.
Of
this girl I knew.
It
wasn’t me.
Yes,
it was.
It
was totally me. And if you know me, the only surprising part of the “Night-I-Got-a-Concussion-from-a-Flying-Snickers-Bar”
Story is that I do not walk around still wearing these wings. I would but I
hadn’t thought of it until just now. (*Hashtag-game on).
Only,
here’s the thing. Home Depot charges a lot for the refrigerator boxes required
to make wings scaled to my body, and seriously, a money-saving argument could
be made that I do walk around with wings on. Maybe
all innovators do.
You
just may not identify them as wings because I think for innovators our ideas,
our imaginations, are our wings. And if we can’t spread them out without
everyone getting all upset because of stuff like, “oh, there go all the papers
flying off the desk,” or “seriously, we just replaced that glass window two
weeks ago,” then it’s going to be really hard for us to feel safe being fully
present. Our wings, this thing everyone calls “innovation,” is a hot mess. But these
wings are also a beautiful possibility that one day we all might take flight.
And
if we all can’t risk the mess so that our ideas and our creativity have no
space, then how could we ever fly to this new place we are dreaming of?
And
that’s the whole point, of our belonging in this place together, isn’t it? To
fly up and see beyond the place that we are.
Institution,
Innovators know you look at us sometimes and think, “Holy crap, kid, this is
great but you’re never going to fit through the door” and right in that panicking moment sits the power of the institution, the institutional magical power... to craft the doorway a little wider, to stretch the ceiling a little
taller, so there is a place for all of us to belong.
