Eliminate Barriers to Communication
"We had made the mistake of confusing the communication structure with the organizational structure," says Pixar's Ed Catmull, in his fantastic memoir, Creativity, Inc.
He's describing the source of the tension that threatened to drive a wedge into the heart of the organization after the spectacular last-minute rescue of Toy Story 2. Efforts to protect folks' attention resulted in stultifying red tape that impeded the free flow of ideas and communication, the beating heart of the creative team.
The solution? A simple but profound policy change:
"Going forward, anyone should be able to talk to anyone else, at any level, at any time, without fear of reprimand. Communication would no longer have to go through hierarchical channels. The exchange of information was key to our business, of course, but I believe that it could -- in frequently should -- have an out of order, without people getting bent out of shape. People talking directly to one another, then letting the manager find out later, was more efficient than trying to make sure that everything happened in the 'right' order and through the 'proper' channels."
Reading this reminded me of one of the hallmarks of another hotbed of creativity and innovation of a previous generation, Bell Labs (excerpt from The Idea Factory):
"In truth, the handoff between the three departments at Bell Labs was often (and intentionally) quite casual. Part of what seemed to make the Labs a 'living organism,' Kelly explained, were social and professional exchanges that moved back-and-forth, in all directions, between the pure researchers on one side and the applied engineers on the other. These were formal talks and informal chats, and they were always encouraged, both as a matter of policy and by the inventive design of the Murray Hill building. Researchers and engineers would find themselves discussing their respective problems in the halls, over lunch, or they might be paired together on a project, either at their own request or by managers.
"Or a staffer with a question would casually seek out an expert, 'whether he be a mathematician, and metallurgist, and organic chemist, an electromagnetic propagation physicist, or an electron a device specialist.' At the Labs this was sometimes known as going to 'the guy who wrote the book.' And it was often literally true. The guy who wrote the definitive book on the subject -- Shockley on semiconductors, John Tukey on statistics, Claude Shannon on information, and so forth -- was often just down the hall. Saddled with a difficult problem, a new hire at Bell Labs, a stuttering nobody, was regularly directed by a supervisor toward one of these men. Some young employees would quake when they were told to go ask Shannon or Shockley a question. Still, Labs policy stated that they could not be turned away."
This raises a great question in organizations: how approachable, and available, are our best people as a true resource to the rest of the organization? Are the siloed off, shuttered behind closed doors? Or are they encouraged and expected to support the work of others? And by the way, often, they stand to gain from the interaction as well...
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