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[Innovation Theory] Why are managers who make old man jokes successful at work?
Roughly speaking
- The manager makes cold jokes at meetings. That's not just a smooth move. It is a daily practice of "new combinations" proposed by Schumpeter, the father of innovation.
- The way old jokes think, that is, the process of combining "unrelated concepts" with "sound similarity" as the trigger, is the very brain training to create new value.
- Therefore, old man jokes are the easiest and most effective "innovation creation drills" that ordinary people can practice, and we should be more respected.
That "cold gag" is the birth of innovation
"Chief, your futon is blown away, what do you mean! Gahaha!"
The quiet meeting room. As the young employees gave a cold look, you just sighed, "It's starting again..." But that's a big mistake. You are now witnessing the birth of the core process of innovation, "New Combination**," proposed by the genius economist of the century.
Schumpeter said. "Innovation is born from a new combination of existing knowledge." So, what was happening in the head of the department head? The moment he heard the sound of the word "futon," he performed a phonological search in his brain, instantly drawing and combining the entirely unrelated concept of "blowing away." This is the new combination. Regardless of the market evaluation (or whether it's popular or unpleasant) of the resulting products (=gags), the thinking process is undoubtedly that of innovation.
The surprising similarity between old man's joke thinking and disruptive innovation
Furthermore, this way of thinking is very similar to the pattern of "disruptive innovation" that Clayton Christensen calls. Disruptive innovation is innovation that disrupts existing value standards and creates entirely new markets.
Please think about it. Old man jokes destroy the existing value criterion of "logical context" of conversation with a completely different value criterion of "sound similarity." They completely ignore the flow of the conversation and forcefully hack the context by saying, "Are you talking about the Apollo spaceship? I see, let's talk about Apollo Gyze here."
This is exactly the same as the structure in which large companies that have been stuck in "sustainable innovation" that pursue high performance only, but are defeated by "disruptive innovation" that takes the market away from low performance but low prices and convenience. If logical and smooth conversation is "sustainable innovation," then old jokes are "disruptive innovation" that destroys the order of conversation and creates a new market for laughs (or laughs).
4 steps to creating old man jokes (along with the theory of innovation)
- Trigger perception: Input a specific word in conversation (e.g. "aluminum can").
- Phonologically diffuse thinking: Quickly search for concepts similar to the sound of "a certain mandarin orange" from a brain database (e.g. "a "a certain mandarin orange").
- New Combination: Forces sound to be combined as a bridge, two concepts that are completely unrelated to the original context. A new value (?) is created: "mandarin oranges on top of an aluminum can."
- To market (and destroy): Put the finished product (gag) into conversation, destroying existing logical order.
I wonder. It should be no different from your company's new business development process.
Conclusion: Old man jokes are the strongest business skills
We've only seen old guys jokes as just communication lubricants (or cooling oil). However, its essence is an extremely advanced intellectual task that involves repeating "new connections" training in the brain on a daily basis.
The power to connect the unrelated things. The courage to destroy existing contexts. And the courage to not be afraid to slip. These are all important skills that modern business people need.
The next time you hear the head's cold joke, never look at it in a cold way. I recite this in my heart. "Now, Schumpeter's ghost has taken over the club president." And we should give our utmost respect to this courageous attempt at "new unity." In any case, you should give it a try too. "The manager, I've understood that (shoji screen) about that."
Side note (recommended book section)
Recommended design books. Packed with tips for designs that you can use forever. I use it a lot too.
