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Management Side
Week of 16 November 2015: Innovation is not fiction

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Several times during my career I have heard people come along and proclaim they were doing something innovative. Often, this has had to do with construction contracts, engineering specifications or other similar and related matters.

Virtually every time, I have seen these people have their heads handed to them on a platter.

So, I am an innovator and I am a big proponent of innovation. What happened in these cases? The so-called innovation was pure fantasy land. It was never going to happen and to say that it was going to happen was simply wishful thinking.

One case I remember from decades ago involved an "innovative" way to contract for the construction of a recovery boiler at a major southeastern US coastal paper mill. The only problem (besides the entire foolishness of the contract draughting) was that the company leader who came up with this jewel started bragging about it before it was over. By the time the project was completed, the change orders drove the price to what it would have been originally. Part of his braggadocio narrative was that he had figured out how to write a contract that it was impossible to produce change orders against. Wrong.

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To add insult to injury, he took his premature declarations to a major engineering meeting and presented them in a session. I was in the audience. He talked about how his contract was innovative and fostered true teamwork between owner and contractor. In the same session on the same dais, the president of the construction company that had taken on this contract also had a presentation. And in his presentation, he quoted chapter and verse from the other fellow's contract the super restrictive language that clearly showed this contract was completely one sided and had nothing to do with teamwork. The president of the construction company was a gentleman and he never let on that the contract he was reading from was the one that had been bragged about minutes before. I may have been the only one in the room that had had access to and read the contract in detail, so hence the only one in the room that knew what was going on.

In recent years there has been at least one company running around our industry claiming they have innovative construction contracting skills as well. Their technique seems to be to write contracts that are missing vast chunks needed to make the proposed installation work. Then, they fight all change orders hammer and tong. Nice.

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Innovative fiction does not just occur in contracting, but these examples are instructive.

The problem is, good innovation often looks like fiction on the surface. So, challenge innovation--challenge what will make it work. If it is in contracts, challenge the legality. If it is in products, challenge the science. And if it is in services, challenge the psychology that will cause people to behave in the manner that will result in the outcome predicted.

Legality, science and psychology must stand as a foundation for all innovation.

For our quiz this week, we will ask you one simple question. You may take it here.

For safety this week, we certainly don't want any fiction in our safety equipment or procedures. Always test for these issues as you have your safety meetings.

Be safe and we will talk next week.

You can own your Nip Impressions Library by ordering "Raising EBITDA ... the lessons of Nip Impressions."


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