I first got an inkling that I’d got it all wrong about innovation and design when I was lying in a hospital bed in April 2020.

It was during the first COVID-19 outbreak, when many suspected the NHS would collapse under the pressure.

I’d been admitted to a non COVID ward for emergency surgery. For over two weeks I got to see first hand what it looks like when bureaucracy starts to thaw.

I got to know the staff pretty well. They told me that – outside of the COVID wards – things were working well. Without any management initiatives and interference things were already working better than under the previous NHS command and control.

Evidence suggests that the NHS frontline demonstrated significant innovation and creativity during the COVID-19 lockdowns. This was facilitated by a temporary loosening of usual rules and a sense of urgency.

The pandemic demanded swift and novel solutions to unprecedented challenges. Staff had to quickly adapt care delivery models, manage resources in new ways, and find solutions to protect themselves and patients.

The urgency of the crisis led to a temporary suspension or streamlining of some bureaucratic processes and regulations. This “unfreezing” of bureaucracy allowed for more agile and experimental approaches to service delivery.

Frontline workers had greater autonomy to make decisions and implement changes at a local level to respond effectively to immediate needs.  

The unfreezing of bureaucracy during times of crisis, like the COVID-19 pandemic, was observed in various other sectors beyond healthcare. The urgency and need for rapid solutions often led to similar adaptations.

Many government services rapidly adopted digital platforms for service delivery, sometimes bypassing usual procurement protocols in the short term.

The need to respond to the multifaceted crisis fostered increased collaboration and information sharing between different government agencies. This broke down traditional silos.  

Some regulations were temporarily eased or adapted to facilitate essential services and economic activity. For instance, rules around outdoor dining for restaurants or delivery services were often fast-tracked.

The thaw of bureaucracy didn’t last though.

Five years later most of the command and control measures are back in place.

Many of the pandemic-era adaptations were implemented as temporary fixes rather than fundamental shifts in organisational design or culture. Without formalising these changes in policies, processes, and training, they were vulnerable to being rolled back.

Bureaucracy has re-frozen.

And this is what I got wrong about innovation and design.

I used to think that innovation was something to be managed, with an idea generation phase, followed by a selection process, followed by a test and learn approach.

However all these ‘pipeline’ approaches do is support the existing system. The management may select the ‘best ideas’ but the management also maintain and control the system. The ideas that threaten the system get weeded out.

This will prioritise incremental improvements and operational efficiency within already established frameworks, rather than driving radical, systemic change. Managers will always choose to optimise what already seems to work rather than envisioning entirely new ways of delivering value.

The most effective way to innovate is to create conditions where the bureaucracy starts to thaw, and the system is updated to prevent it becoming refrozen.

This is best achieved through fundamental organisational redesign, and the enabling of people to become the innovators themselves. This is more gently disruptive that being beholden to a innovation approach managed by the managers.

Teams that are enabled to solve problems without interference thaw bureaucracy because decision-making becomes decentralised.

This fosters responsiveness and reduces reliance on any central control. Collaboration is enhanced as local partnerships and cross-functional teams break down traditional silos. Increased agility and adaptability arise from the ability to tailor solutions to specific local contexts and iterate rapidly based on feedback.

Life becomes better.

Top-down control misses what locals know.

Real change starts on the ground, with real-life experience driving new ideas. We unlock powerful, lasting progress when we support bottom-up innovation, instead of relying on sterile, centralised commands and controls.

Image by Annette Meyer from Pixabay