Thomas Kuhn & Meaningful Innovation
Note to my readers: You may not like the contents of this post. It’s not meant to be a judgement, but an observation. I am certainly guilty of the behavior I am discouraging. Though I would not categorize myself as one of our best and brightest…
But to understand Kuhn’s objection, you need to understand Kuhn’s work. In 1962, Thomas Kuhn wrote one of the most influential pieces in the philosophy of science; The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. If you consider yourself an innovator in any field, you should read it. At its core, Kuhn’s argument centered on something he called paradigm shifts. Like Christensen’s “disruption” or Ries’ “lean” in our modern innovation vernacular, the term paradigm shift has been wildly misinterpreted by the public. If you think you know what a paradigm shift is, but aren’t familiar with Kuhn, you probably don’t.
While I can’t do Kuhn’s study justice in a few hundred words, I will simplify his theory as best I can. Essentially, Kuhn argued that throughout scientific history, true changes in our understanding of the world were only derived when scientists made observations that ran contrary to popular understanding. Copernicus’ observation and defence of a heliocentric understanding of the solar system in the face of a geocentric standard allowed us to better understand the movements of the planets. Einstein’s theory of relativity ran contrary to the widely accepted Newtonian physics and have helped us master spaceflight. As Kuhn saw it, each time a scientist made an observation that broke our understanding of the world, a new set of explanations for how the world worked was able to fall out. While we had previously spent centuries explaining the movement of the stars (incorrectly) based on a geocentric understanding of the solar system, we were able to create a new and far more accurate set of explanations once Copernicus had simply proved the earth, in fact, revolved around the sun.
As Kuhn made his argument, what emerges is a complex explanation for why these sorts of contrarian observations allow us to change our most fundamental assumptions. Once our assumptions had been changed, as Kuhn saw it, a better understanding of the world could emerge. Even more, as Kuhn positioned the argument, once our assumptions had been changed a more complete understanding of the world was bound to emerge. Subsequent improvements to understanding within the new paradigm – the new set of assumptions – could be viewed as assembling pieces of a puzzle that was created by the scientist who made the original observation that ran contrary to popular theory.
In just a couple hundred pages, Kuhn’s argument shines. He walks his readers through countless paradigm shifts and helps them understand the implications of such shifts. But Kuhn’s argument isn’t only restricted to the realm of the hard sciences; it also applies in our start-up world. Consider the 90’s gold rush in consumer Internet, the mid-2000’s rush into social media, and the current exodus into mobile computing. Each of these revolutions in the technology world was enabled by innovation that broke the existing paradigm. The development and proliferation of dial-up Internet allowed millions of individuals to instantly access information, information that was previously assumed had to be delivered via paper products or in bricks and mo0rtar locations. The development of the php language made it possible for everyone to be a content publisher online, an ability previously assumed to be relegated to the world of developers. The simultaneous creation of mobile operating systems, touch screens, and high speed telecommunications networks made it possible for us to serve information to consumers anywhere they might be, where we previously assumed they had to be connected to a Wi-Fi network.
When we push our best innovators to break the rules, to test our fundamental assumptions, and to innovate meaningfully in hardware and software, new waves of disruption will fall out. Paradigm shifts, the kind that emerge when technologists create something that business leaders never imagined possible, spur the creation of new industries and the development of new jobs. But we don’t get to that point by putting innovators on a pedestal for creating quick wins, for getting their names on TechCrunch, or for getting funded by investors looking for easy commercialization, we encourage incremental innovation.
In order to spur meaningful innovation, we may need to support our most talented scientists and managers in doing something wildly unpopular and increasingly less “sexy.” We may need to encourage them to work for large corporations with well funded research labs, extensive distribution networks, and the ability to move markets. In the last decade, Apple, Google, and the telecommunications networks innovated meaningfully to enable the sorts of paradigm shifts I’ve described. In the 1990’s, it was Prodigy and Aol and the broadband networks. In the 80’s it was Microsoft, IBM, and Intel. In the 70’s, groundbreaking research was falling out of Xerox and NASA. Though each company was once a fledgling startup, when each innovated in a way that changed the business world’s very landscape, each was a major corporation.
We need to understand who creates value, and encourage those who can to replicate that behavior. We need to stop directing people towards early stage organizations if their talents could be best leveraged in other fashions. And if the start up world is the right place for an innovator, we need to steer them to build lasting organizations; organizations that will exist long enough to enable the paradigm shifts that generate meaningful value in society.
Scientists in the academic world understand the implications and importance of Kuhn’s theory. It’s time we bring it into the start up world.
10 Responses to “Thomas Kuhn & Meaningful Innovation”
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rajshankar says: Very interesting post. The lack of innovators in fundamental areas is a long term loss. The people who need to understand this are the innovators / researchers themselves. In India we find many brilliant brains from graduate courses drifting away towards IT and ITeS industries without even considering research / innovation as an option. The primary driver at least in India is the dramatic growth in salaries from the above industries. In fact i would say we have lost a whole generation of engineers in electrical / civil / mechanical.
The only way corporate labs, research labs, university labs can attract the best brains is not by attempting to match pay scales – BUT by exposing the benefit of a career in research & innovation during the under-graduate & graduate years of education. We need a lot of our young minds to move towards long term achievements which are definitely beyond material wealth creation.
Sorry if i am sounding a little harsh here, but my love for academics, research & innovation is making me say this. In fact i would say that there is serious lack of entrepreneurial ability in the research community. We need that!
deitch says: This is really fascinating, thanks to @claychristensen for tweeting it.
Corporate labs are part of large corporations, which, by and large, are ossified and stagnant. The single greatest discouragement for a research is *not* being underpaid (but that does it, too); it is seeing your research go down a black hole because of corporate politics. Copernicus would have failed in a corporate framework, as would Einstein (the Swiss patent clerk). Remember the scene at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, where the Ark is just filed away in a massive anonymous warehouse? That is the most discouraging and depressing thing a researcher can see. The guys at Xerox PARC saw their innovations wither until the Apple guys did something with them.
This kind of paradigm-breaking innovation will only come from two areas:
* Academic research, where being published alone gives recognition, and commercialization can come later. Think Israeli chemist Dan Shechtman, who just won the Nobel Prize after being ridiculed for a decade over the absurdity of his ideas (but then again, Israeli culture has a long history of going against the grain).
* Startups. Not existing corporate R&D labs, but startups. If the idea is crazy, goes against everything we "know" is correct, then a startup funded by an investor with a long enough view (and diverse enough portfolio) is the right place for it.
I cannot see corporate research offering the attraction of research+implementation+recognition, and financial benefits to boot, that either of these two environments can. And, yes, academic can be lucrative, too.
Adrian Bye says: awesome writing and i agree 100%. i could care less about learning to code, which seems to be the theme of today's startup community. larry ellison and steve jobs seem to have done ok
Todd Dunn says: My concern with encouraging innovative thinkers to possibly pursue large corporations is that disruptive innovation and large corporations don't seem to go together as well now as they did a number of years ago. Why? There seems to be an almost insurmountable incompatibility between innovation and large corporations' FP&A cycles. I think this article discusses this to some degree……the quarterly expectation management that CEO's seem to have to do today. http://strategyprofs.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/duly-noted-solving-the-principal-agent-problem-in-firmsthe-dumbest-idea-in-the-world/
For corporations to attract innovative minds and people passionate for making a difference they must encourage experimentation and "budget" for such experiments.
In your writings you speak often of the "job to be done" and I believe companies need to train people in how to do the contextual inquiry, problem definition, ethnographic research, etc…that will enable the discovery of the "Job to be done" and then the processes for pushing those ideas through. This clearly will summons a new breed of leadership thinking.
Geoffrey West did a great job of extending Kleibers law to cities and corporations. The math clearly proves that large corporations should be more innovative and that leaders are sitting on top of the ultimate asset; employees' passion and knowledge. The math argues that large corporations should be more innovative and yet what we see is the lack of disruptive innovation. What the law misses is the cultural pieces that must be encouraged AND the virtual spaces being utilized within these corporations that enable the connections among employees of like skills, mindsets,ideas, etc…..I propose that large corporations CAN be incredibly innovative when they figure out the people, processes, and platforms to make disruptive innovation happen. It truly is a call to leaders to make it happen and to recognize and reward those who want to help make it happen!
Riku says: The biggest steps forward by the example companies Apple and Google were done when they were still startups. Moreover, I would argue that the biggest impact Google is making now is with Android. Android is currently changing the world by allowing access to the internet to millions of new users. Android is a startup that Google bought. Startups often need large companies, but it doesn't mean that the startups are any less valuable.
I would also argue that software is actually where we can make huge leaps forward at the moment. Creating software that has the ability to predict and model the physical world is required for new findings. I don't think we should really be making a distinction between software and "the real world".
I do agree that most startups are chasing unimportant problems. It might however be that it's often required as a step towards more meaningful things.
Eugene Eric Kim says: It pains me to point this out, because I think your post is provocative, and your description of Kuhn's work is decent. But your leap from Kuhn's notion of a paradigm shift to Christensen's notion of disruptive innovation is a non sequitur. Kuhn's work was all about epistemology, his attempt to explain how we acquire scientific knowledge. In Kuhn's world, paradigm shifts happen when current worldviews are no longer adequate to explain natural phenomenon. Resistance is generally irrational, but acceptance isn't totally rational either.
Disruptive innovation is about changing market conditions. I think most people are pretty open to the idea that markets can and will change. Whether or not people invest in trying to change those markets in ways that are disruptive is also generally rational.
Frankly, I doubt that Kuhn would have tried to steer students away from startups and toward large research labs, but even if he would have, it would have had nothing to do with his notion of paradigm shifts.
RMIC says: Great article.
Marc says: As someone who doesn't necessarily want to work for an early stage company, but feel like Paul Graham, etc. would look down on me for not doing so, I find this refreshing.
David MC says: I wonder is the point that disruptive technology i.e. "technology innovation" has come from the large labs in the past, and the "business innovation" that builds new really innovative product based on the new technology comes from start-ups?
Maxwell says: I actually think this is a great observation. Generally speaking, I think the development of break technologies (see the Triggers of disruption) can only come from labs with resources. Business model innovation tends to come from start-ups, but doesn't have to come from those businesses.
Very interesting post. The lack of innovators in fundamental areas is a long term loss. The people who need to understand this are the innovators / researchers themselves. In India we find many brilliant brains from graduate courses drifting away towards IT and ITeS industries without even considering research / innovation as an option. The primary driver at least in India is the dramatic growth in salaries from the above industries. In fact i would say we have lost a whole generation of engineers in electrical / civil / mechanical.
The only way corporate labs, research labs, university labs can attract the best brains is not by attempting to match pay scales – BUT by exposing the benefit of a career in research & innovation during the under-graduate & graduate years of education. We need a lot of our young minds to move towards long term achievements which are definitely beyond material wealth creation.
Sorry if i am sounding a little harsh here, but my love for academics, research & innovation is making me say this. In fact i would say that there is serious lack of entrepreneurial ability in the research community. We need that!
This is really fascinating, thanks to @claychristensen for tweeting it.
Corporate labs are part of large corporations, which, by and large, are ossified and stagnant. The single greatest discouragement for a research is *not* being underpaid (but that does it, too); it is seeing your research go down a black hole because of corporate politics. Copernicus would have failed in a corporate framework, as would Einstein (the Swiss patent clerk). Remember the scene at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, where the Ark is just filed away in a massive anonymous warehouse? That is the most discouraging and depressing thing a researcher can see. The guys at Xerox PARC saw their innovations wither until the Apple guys did something with them.
This kind of paradigm-breaking innovation will only come from two areas:
* Academic research, where being published alone gives recognition, and commercialization can come later. Think Israeli chemist Dan Shechtman, who just won the Nobel Prize after being ridiculed for a decade over the absurdity of his ideas (but then again, Israeli culture has a long history of going against the grain).
* Startups. Not existing corporate R&D labs, but startups. If the idea is crazy, goes against everything we "know" is correct, then a startup funded by an investor with a long enough view (and diverse enough portfolio) is the right place for it.
I cannot see corporate research offering the attraction of research+implementation+recognition, and financial benefits to boot, that either of these two environments can. And, yes, academic can be lucrative, too.
awesome writing and i agree 100%. i could care less about learning to code, which seems to be the theme of today's startup community. larry ellison and steve jobs seem to have done ok
My concern with encouraging innovative thinkers to possibly pursue large corporations is that disruptive innovation and large corporations don't seem to go together as well now as they did a number of years ago. Why? There seems to be an almost insurmountable incompatibility between innovation and large corporations' FP&A cycles. I think this article discusses this to some degree……the quarterly expectation management that CEO's seem to have to do today. http://strategyprofs.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/duly-noted-solving-the-principal-agent-problem-in-firmsthe-dumbest-idea-in-the-world/
For corporations to attract innovative minds and people passionate for making a difference they must encourage experimentation and "budget" for such experiments.
In your writings you speak often of the "job to be done" and I believe companies need to train people in how to do the contextual inquiry, problem definition, ethnographic research, etc…that will enable the discovery of the "Job to be done" and then the processes for pushing those ideas through. This clearly will summons a new breed of leadership thinking.
Geoffrey West did a great job of extending Kleibers law to cities and corporations. The math clearly proves that large corporations should be more innovative and that leaders are sitting on top of the ultimate asset; employees' passion and knowledge. The math argues that large corporations should be more innovative and yet what we see is the lack of disruptive innovation. What the law misses is the cultural pieces that must be encouraged AND the virtual spaces being utilized within these corporations that enable the connections among employees of like skills, mindsets,ideas, etc…..I propose that large corporations CAN be incredibly innovative when they figure out the people, processes, and platforms to make disruptive innovation happen. It truly is a call to leaders to make it happen and to recognize and reward those who want to help make it happen!
The biggest steps forward by the example companies Apple and Google were done when they were still startups. Moreover, I would argue that the biggest impact Google is making now is with Android. Android is currently changing the world by allowing access to the internet to millions of new users. Android is a startup that Google bought. Startups often need large companies, but it doesn't mean that the startups are any less valuable.
I would also argue that software is actually where we can make huge leaps forward at the moment. Creating software that has the ability to predict and model the physical world is required for new findings. I don't think we should really be making a distinction between software and "the real world".
I do agree that most startups are chasing unimportant problems. It might however be that it's often required as a step towards more meaningful things.
It pains me to point this out, because I think your post is provocative, and your description of Kuhn's work is decent. But your leap from Kuhn's notion of a paradigm shift to Christensen's notion of disruptive innovation is a non sequitur. Kuhn's work was all about epistemology, his attempt to explain how we acquire scientific knowledge. In Kuhn's world, paradigm shifts happen when current worldviews are no longer adequate to explain natural phenomenon. Resistance is generally irrational, but acceptance isn't totally rational either.
Disruptive innovation is about changing market conditions. I think most people are pretty open to the idea that markets can and will change. Whether or not people invest in trying to change those markets in ways that are disruptive is also generally rational.
Frankly, I doubt that Kuhn would have tried to steer students away from startups and toward large research labs, but even if he would have, it would have had nothing to do with his notion of paradigm shifts.
Great article.
As someone who doesn't necessarily want to work for an early stage company, but feel like Paul Graham, etc. would look down on me for not doing so, I find this refreshing.
I wonder is the point that disruptive technology i.e. "technology innovation" has come from the large labs in the past, and the "business innovation" that builds new really innovative product based on the new technology comes from start-ups?
I actually think this is a great observation. Generally speaking, I think the development of break technologies (see the Triggers of disruption) can only come from labs with resources. Business model innovation tends to come from start-ups, but doesn't have to come from those businesses.