I attended a national conferencein 2015and had the great pleasure of hearing Victor Hwang speak. At the time he was CEO of T2 Venture Creation, a Silicon Valley firm that builds startup companies and designs the ecosystems that foster entrepreneurial innovation. He's also the author or co-author of several books, including The Rainforest: The Secret to Building the Next Silicon Valley. He writes about what makes Silicon Valley what it is - not a place, but rather a state of mind. The good news, Hwang tells us, is that states of mind are free; you can create one in the company where you work.
Hwang uses the metaphor of the rainforest to talk about innovation and creativity, and he starts by comparing it to the plantation, where crops are raised like a business. On the plantation, you plant useful crops in large scale for harvest and consumption - and profit. Like a business, you have to be able to predict outcomes and control everything that happens. If a weed sprouts up, your mission is clear: pluck it or kill it. There is no room for weeds in the midst of your crop.
Now let's switch to the rainforest, which the dictionary defines as "a luxuriant, dense forest rich in biodiversity." Can you point out the weeds in a rainforest? Frankly, it's all weeds. You can't predict what will grow or how high it will grow in the rainforest - and no one is trying to.
Plantations are neat and precise, with clear lines of ownership and management; rainforests are chaotic, and no one is in charge. Great innovation seldom comes out of a business structured like a plantation; it's hard to get creative ideas past the rules, policies, structure and management. Creativity thrives in chaos, where no one knows the outcomes in advance and where they're open to anything that might happen.
If you're trying to push yourself or your company into a more creative space, here are some guiding rules of the rainforest (and the weeds who grow there.)
How did you - or your company - score? Don't feel bad if you feel more like a farmer than a weed; we need farmers, too. Hwang says that every product or service has to move from the rainforest to the plantation to grow and serve its markets. Your iPhone 10 may have been conceived and designed in the rainforest, but it's produced with mechanical precision on the plantation. Victor Hwang smiles when he says that you don't want iPhone production line workers getting creative - you want to get what you expect when you open the box.
You can't grow a rainforest overnight; that doesn't happen in nature either. But you can hire, help and stop hassling the weeds you know. Let them experiment, even if it means failing occasionally. Be open to outcomes you can't control or predict. Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, put it best: "Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep."
Published by candacemoody
Candace's background includes Human Resources, recruiting, training and assessment. She spent several years with a national staffing company, serving employers on both coasts. Her writing on business, career and employment issues has appeared in the Florida Times Union, the Jacksonville Business Journal, the Atlanta Journal Constitution and 904 Magazine, as well as several national publications and websites. Candace is often quoted in the media on local labor market and employment issues. View all posts by candacemoody
