Breaking business as usual – what the fox say about innovation

We all experience Business as Usual, or more succinctly BAU.

BAU can be a curse word in organisations searching for growth and progress. BAU can be seen to smother change, bury innovation, and hinder leadership.

BAU is not all bad, however. BAU provides stability; without BAU we would not have steady revenue streams and security. An absence of BAU combined with a leadership deficit opens the door for chaos and anarchy.

There is a natural tension between BAU and innovation. On the one hand we work to create stability and a steady and sustainable income for ourselves and our organisations. On the other hand, there is a drive for growth and progress that forces us to challenge convention.

We are presented with conflicting messages to “Be bold” and “Stay safe”, when being bold can feel anything but safe. We celebrate heroes who take chances while we create structures around us that minimise the chance of uncertainty. We know we need change, but are cautious not to “throw out the baby with the bathwater”.

People who create new things do not typically set out with BAU in mind. Quite the contrary, many launch themselves upon the world to challenge convention. BAU is a condition that we carefully construct with one hand while we reach for the next rung of the ladder with the other. If we are not careful, there may come a point when both hands are so busy maintaining BAU that we forget we were ever climbing.

Yet we know that it is when we take chances that we feel most alive. In his book Flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi writes about the Shushwap Indians who would move their entire community every 30 years to allow a new generation to feel the challenge of creating a new environment. Fast forward to modern times, I see a big difference in people who are afraid of losing their BAU job compared to those who step out into the unknown to start something new.

A fox says challenge BAU

This may seem like an odd segue into a viral music video that recently hit the Internet: What does the Fox Say? by comedian duo Ylvis. If you have not been exposed, I will warn you not to look for any hidden meaning. The video, which has received over 153 million views, really is just talking about what a fox says. Indeed, according to this interview, the video was intended as a “so bad its good” experiment that got a bit out of control.

The video hit a nerve with society. The over 1.7 million positive video ratings far exceeds the 167 thousand negative ratings. Apart from a somewhat catchy tune, what I immediately loved about the video when I saw it was the pure randomness of it. The video to me represents the value of art, drama, comedy, and creative industries in challenging BAU.

To break out of BAU, we often require something we consider new or novel to disrupt our mental models. These BAU disrupters:

1. May have nothing to do with BAU
   New situations and experiences can bring fresh perspectives and spark innovation at the cross-section of disparate concepts. What are some ideas in your situation that are as off-the-wall as singing about what a fox says?
2. Can become BAU
   BAU disruptors may have a very short life span. What works once to spark innovation can quickly become common, replicated, and absorbed into BAU. Ylvis’s video will likely be forgotten by most people in a few months. Where can you find a steady diet of ideas that do not then become common?
3. Can create their own BAU
   Apart from getting absorbed into BAU, innovation can itself become its own BAU. We see this with waves of music hybrids, like rock/rap, “nu-metal” and goth rock or movies like Blair Witch’s handi-cam action. What at one time was new and created ideas can be replicated to where it can lose its impact.
4. Are relative
   What works for one person may not work for another. My wife gets her inspiration from walking in a forest and taking photos of tree bark patterns, whereas I like to have conversations with as many interesting people as possible to get their perspectives. This is not to say I cannot get ideas from nature or Theresa does not enjoy a good conversation, but we have preferences. What is your own go-to place to thinking outside of BAU?
5. May need to be as big as BAU
   The more established we are in BAU, the bigger the disruption may need to be. For some, it may be a matter of completely changing your situation to get new ways of thinking. How do you get a steady diet of small disruptions to avoid a major disruption?

There are times when we need random expressions to challenge our engrained mental models. I respect What does the Fox Say? may not do it for you. Are there other ways for you to engage with ideas, art, or culture that are foreign to your day-to-day activities?

The video did it for me in that it broke me out of a bit of writing block and made me think about other ways I can challenge my own BAU. If commenting on blogs is not part of your BAU, I invite you to briefly break convention and share below what you use to challenge your business as usual.