The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO's Strategies for Defeating the Devil's Advocate and Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization [Hardcover]

With Jonathan Littman, Kelley provides in this volume a wealth of information and counsel which can help any decision-maker to "drive creativity" through her or his organization but only if initiatives are (a) a collaboration which receives the support and encouragement of senior management (especially of the CEO) and (b) sufficient time is allowed for those initiatives to have a measurable impact. There is a distressing tendency throughout most organizations to rip out "seedlings" to see how well they are "growing." Six Sigma programs offer a compelling example. Most are abandoned within a month or two. Why? Unrealistic expectations, cultural barriers (what Jim O'Toole characterizes as "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom"), internal politics, and especially impatience are among the usual suspects. That said, I agree with countless others (notably Amabile, Christensen, Claxton, de Bono, Drucker, Kelley, Kim and Mauborgne, Michalko, Ray, and von Oech) that innovation is now the single most decisive competitive advantage. How to establish and then sustain that advantage?

In an earlier work, The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America's Leading Design Firm, Kelley shares IDEO's five-step methodology: Understand the market, the client, the technology, and the perceived constraints on the given problem; observe real people in real-life situations; literally visualize new-to-the-world concepts AND the customers who will use them; evaluate and refine the prototypes in a series of quick iterations; and finally, implement the new concept for commercialization. With regard to the last "step", as Bennis explains in Organizing Genius, Apple executives immediately recognized the commercial opportunities for PARC's technology. Larry Tesler (who later left PARC for Apple) noted that Jobs and colleagues (especially Wozniak) "wanted to get it out to the world." But first, obviously, the challenge was to create that "it" which they then did.

In this volume, as Kelley explains, his book is "about innovation with a human face. [Actually, at least ten...hence its title.] It's about the individuals and teams that fuel innovation inside great organizations. Because all great movements are human-powered." He goes on to suggest that all good working definitions of innovation pair ideas with action, "the spark with fire. Innovators don't just have their heads in the clouds. They also have their feet on the ground." Kelley cites and then examines several exemplary ("great") organizations which include Google, W.L. Gore & Associates, the Gillette Company, and German retailer Tchibo. I especially appreciate the fact that Kelley focuses on the almost unlimited potential for creativity of individuals and the roles which they can play, "the hats they can put on, the personas they can adopt...[albeit] unsung heroes who work on the front lines of entrepreneurship in action, the countless people and teams who make innovation happen day in and day out."

Because organizations need individuals who are savvy about the counterintuitive process of how to move ideas forward, Kelley recommends three "Organizing Personas": The Hurdler, The Collaborator, and The Director.

Because organizations also need individuals and teams who apply insights from the learning roles and channel the empowerment from the organizing roles to make innovation happen, Kelley recommends four "Building personas": The Experience Architect, The Set Designer, The Caregiver, and The Storyteller. Note both the sequence, interrelatedness and, indeed, the interdependence of these ten "personas."

I am reminded of comparable material in A Kick in the Seat of the Pants. Specifically, Roger von Oech's discussion of what he calls "The Four Roles of the Creative Process" (i.e. Explorer, Artist, Judge, and Warrior). Also Six Thinking Hats in which Edward de Bono explains the need for a creativity "wardrobe" comprised of several hats. Specifically, white (rational, logical, and objective), red (emotional), black (negative), yellow (positive, hopeful, optimistic), green (creative and innovative), and blue (ordered, controlled, structured).

What Kelley achieves in this volume is to develop in much greater depth than do von Oech and de Bono what are essentially ten different perspectives. He does so, brilliantly, by focussing the bulk of his attention of those who, for example, seek and explore new opportunities to reveal breakthrough insights...and while doing so wear (at least metaphorically) one of de Bono's hats (probably the green one). Kelley devotes a separate chapter to each of the ten "personas," including real-world examples of various "unsung heroes who work on the front lines of entrepreneurship in action, the countless people and teams who make innovation happen day in and day out."

Two final points. First, most of those who read this book can more easily identify with "unsung heroes" such as those whom Kelley discusses than with luminaries of innovation such as Thomas Edison or with celebrity CEOs such as Andrew Grove, Jeffrey Immelt, Steve Jobs, and Jack Welch, all of whom were staunch advocates of constant innovation in their respective organizations. Also, presumably Kelley agrees with me that those who read and then (hopefully) re-read his book should do so guided by a process which begins with the curiosity of an anthropologist and concludes with the empathy of a caregiver. This is emphatically not an anthology of innovation recipes. Rather, it offers a rigorous intellectual journey whose ultimate value will be determined, entirely, by the nature and extent of innovative thinking which each reader achieves...and who then uses the breakthrough insights to drive creativity throughout her or his own organization.

Outlining ten major roles often played on successful and innovative teams, this book catalogs personas used at IDEO to create new products and services. The book is easy to read and contains powerful, persuasive arguments about some of the activites teams need to participate in to unblock the rut they're in or to combat negative environments. I'd recommend this as a light-hearted read for people who see themselves as an energetic personality and are interested in coming in to work on a Monday and giving their team a kick-start.

However, I wouldn't recommend the book to anyone attempting to build more capacity for innovation into their organization. It doesn't really cover how to hire, use, or retain people in these roles or even how to develop the roles in the people you already have.

Much of the text is also a rolling story - you come away from each of the roles feeling like they must be a critically important part of the team and that the people who have played them are clearly smart people, but unsure of whether it was the role, the person, or both that made the team successful. Or even that the person was more than just a ringside activity on an already creative team.

It seems I've valued my ability to play Devil's Advocate a bit too highly. According to Thomas Kelley, I may have had a hand in quashing new ideas rather than enouraging them.

Not that there's anything wrong with playing Devil's Advocate, but why limit yourself to a single role? You could become typecast as an idea-killer -- a singularly difficult rut to get out of.

Kelley outlines ten other roles -- "Faces" -- that you can adopt when going through the creative process. Anthropologist, Experimenter, Cross-Pollinator, Hurdler, Collaborator, Director, Experience Architect, Set Designer, Storyteller, and Caregiver. Each Face falls into a persona category of Learning, Organizing, or Building.

While no single Face is going to make your ideas any more successful than another, being able to play each role (or assemble a team with a complementary strength in each role) will only increase your chances for success, and make your ideas stronger than ever.

Then Ten Faces also give you an excellent response to that guy (that guy who is no longer me!) who says "Let me play Devil's Advocate a moment..." and proceeeds to rip into your idea and rain on your parade. Simply respond with "Well, let me play Hurdler a moment and tell you how we can get around that problem." or "Let me play Anthropologist a moment and tell you what I've found when observering our customers."

The Ten Faces of Innovation basically gives you the ability to tell the Devil's Advocate to "Go to... Heck."

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