What We Can Learn About Innovation from Detroit

This summer I found a great way to get people’s attention: I told them I was going on a golf outing in Detroit.

[featured-image single_newwindow=”false”]Photo courtesy of Jason Mrachina.[/featured-image]

I went on the golf outing with three of my good friends. We are from different parts of the country, and we try to connect somewhere each year to play golf and engage in the traditional trading-of-insults.

One of those friends is a local of the Detroit metro area, and so we golfed with him just outside Detroit and afterwards stayed downtown for a night of Tigers baseball and socializing. The next morning we stopped by the Eastern Market where multi-ethnic Detroit was out in the sun, buying flowers, crafts, and fresh produce.

Detroit’s travails have been well documented, and so I won’t rehash them here. My friend gave us an up-close view of both the blight and the hope that is Detroit. And since I had heard so much about the blight already, it was the hope that struck me most.

When someone, someplace, or some company has hit rock bottom, people often say “there’s nowhere to go but up”. That certainly was the case with Detroit, and from my vantage point, “up” is the direction Detroit is heading.

Think about what a remarkable experiment is happening during our lifetime in Detroit. It will be a long time – if ever – before Detroit utilizes all of the land that was contained in it’s original, enormous footprint. What Detroit appears to be doing, and something I often advocate for leaders who are trying to establish culture, is what I call the “hot coals” approach to renewal. In order to generate maximum heat with a small amount of coals, the savvy grill master learns to pile his coals close together to maximize heat, thus igniting the coals nearby.

Detroit’s downtown is showing signs of life – and not just a Disneyfied downtown for show, but one that reflects the character and personality of a city that made its mark in manufacturing, design and music.

Situations like Detroit’s energize me to no end. Not all entities in dire straits end up in failure. IBM famously pivoted from a bloated has-been on life support to what today is a vibrant company with a compelling vision for a Smarter Planet.

21st century Detroit bears some similarities to the migrations of 19th century America – an America where people went into an unsettled and inhospitable land to establish a tenuous finger-hold, and then focused on building. Where else might we find in our own present-day country a place where such a 19th century-like opportunity exists for exploration and resettlement?

Companies and cultures that are in dire straits need to react like the emergency-room patient whose body automatically routes the blood supply to the vital organs. They need to focus on what is most important, and avoid unnecessary exertions. These unnecessary exertions might include:

* Blaming. I generally believe that huge disasters require the “cooperation” of several people or groups, so trying to hang the blame on one villain often misses the point. Although there’s great insights to be learned from past mistakes, there is a difference between learning and scapegoating, and groups with any hope of success focus on the former, not the latter.

* Seeking personal wins at the expense of the team. From my (limited) vantage point, it looks like the city administrator, mayor, city council, governor, and state legislature are collaborating in important ways because they have to. In fact, Detroit’s biggest danger will be when they recover enough for some people to think the past business-as-usual activities can re-commence. Teams on the rebound need to stick together.

* Being non-responsive to customers. Back to IBM for a second: when IBM’s board selected Lou Gerstner to lead IBM, his selection struck some as a poor choice since he was non-technical and came from RJR Nabisco rather than some big technology hardware company. But Gerstner had been a customer, and knew what business executives – IBM’s target group – really wanted from a technology company (which were “solutions”, not “products”). I assume Detroit is spending some time in “listen mode” as they chart their course for the next iteration of their city.

There are many who know much more about Detroit’s situation than I. But for me, I sensed a place that is piling it’s coals and generating heat. I saw a city filled with opportunity, where passionate and positive people can make their mark. I believe people there are excited by what they see, which is a great foundation for the difficult building process ahead.

Detroit is now like any team that is going through it’s most challenging times: it is a great place for optimists.