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Arne Stjernholm 

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"Strategic Innovation: To dare to think with the heart" was the title of my keynote speech at the IIR conference on Strategic Innovation in Scottsdale, Arizona, November 7-10 1999. If you would like to read an outline of the speech, here's a link. It was also the title of my Innovation Blitz Story at the "Convergence" conference in San Diego, March 27-30, 2000.
This page deals with one of the topics of my speech: The need for personal courage and subjectivity.

I think it is fair to say that there is a common demand for more creativity in Strategy. Amongst others, this means working with your personal intuition and imagination. But when we do this, at least to my experience, we run into all kinds of resistance in the organization.

If everyone wants more creativity in Strategy, how come we meet resistance, when we walk the talk?

I have thought about this problem, and below I describe one of the aspects. But I would like to hear your opinion as well. If you send me your answer to the problem, I will mail you more of my thoughts about it.

The demand for documentation:

In our culture there is an almost blind faith in everything, which has been written down on paper.

This demand is a part of the scientific-industrial paradigm. Every piece of knowledge must be codified. A demand that Intuition obviously does not satisfy.

It's quite funny, because in our daily life we don't have this blind faith in written codes. We know, that the recipe doesn't cook your food. You have to read and interpret it.

Try to read a recipe and imagine, that you had never cooked before. You wouldn't be able to cook following a recipe. When it says "Add salt" - how much? A gallon? - Only because you, as a living subject with your experiences and your taste, are able to interpret the codes into real life, you can cook something worth eating.

Imagine that some expert wrote an instruction on "How to play the violin". Even every motion was described, I bet you would not be able to read the instruction and then play the violin, unless you had already learned to play it.

But still, in business life, you constantly meet this blind faith in written words. Only what is written down counts.

I suggest we put a bit more faith in ourselves as individuals, as living subjects. What we know in our hearts counts, even if it cannot always be expressed in a document.

If you want to hear more on why it takes courage to "think with the heart", please write your own ideas on the subject an mail them to me: E-mail: arne@strategic-innovation.dk - I shall then send you a mail with my considerations.

Please also read: Innovation Management and Organizational Consciousness.