Rigour and mortis
We were reflecting about one of our earlier innovation projects with a client, from some years ago. At that time we were working to establish an innovation incubator and we found a conflict of positions with the client - we were clearly coming from different ends of the spectrum and our ideas collided.
We’d hear comments like these:
“You’re all rhetoric and no rigour!”
We were glad for this candid expression of views because it helped us all move on.
We felt their desire for rigour was inconsistent with their desire for innovation outcomes, placing constraints around the activities which severely limited what could be tried. We kept revisiting the shared vision, which helped us all reach consensus.
Rigour can be an armchair of inactivity, a comfortable cardigan that leads to nothing getting done unless it is perfectly accountable and guaranteed not to fail.
We’ll talk more the tension between process rigour and innovation activity.
