Physicist Herman Kahn once said: ‘Risk taking is the essence of innovation.’ At Zühlke we too value the role of intelligent risk taking in the innovation process – it’s why we empower our teams to be curious and encourage novel approaches. But we also know it can present a challenge. How can you create a measurement framework that ensures you’re delivering impact as efficiently as possible but also encourages curiosity?
To help explore this tricky topic, we asked two of our organisation’s innovation specialists for their thoughts.
Alex Bögli is our Group Head of Emerging Technologies, and Thomas Schulz is the Head of Sales and Delivery for our Asia–Pacific region.
Both Alex and Thomas agree that empowering teams to take intelligent risks is the best way to uphold our commitment to deliver impact for our clients.
Their take on striking the impact vs. curiosity balance?
At Zühlke, finding a competitive edge to bring to our customers relies on a culture where employees are free to challenge assumptions and take intelligent risks. To encourage his team to do this, Thomas asks them to think about their efforts in terms of collective contribution goals, as opposed to individual metrics and targets.
“The language we use can make a big difference,” he explains.
“Try to steer away from thinking about traditional ‘targets’ as most of us don’t perform as well when we know we’re being measured. But when you flip that to ‘what is it that you’re trying to achieve,’ everything changes.”
That’s not to say that traditional learning and development metrics aren’t important. They play an important role in understanding if a team is on track. The trick is to avoid going ‘overboard’ with them, and risk negative consequences as a result.
If your goal is to establish a culture where people have the Right to be Wrong, and take more creative risks as a result, over-measuring will only damage that environment. “Be aware that KPIs steer behaviour. Individual KPIs promote individualistic behaviour,” says Alex. “For a team to work creatively, setting an inspiring vision is what gets them there.”
It might feel counterintuitive, but a big driver of intelligent risk taking is setting limitations. But how you set those limitations is vitally important. This is another area in which getting the semantics right really matters.
"When I say ‘boundaries’, it may seem limiting,” Thomas notes. “Yet, calling them ‘guardrails’ implies direction and safety. It completely changes the perspective.”
Framing limitations in this way has two direct benefits. The first is that it helps you focus on the right kind of ideation, which in turn helps you deliver impact quickly. The second? When you know what the guardrails are, you feel safer to push for, and share, novel ideas. You feel guided, rather than limited. That ‘sweet spot’ – the zone of potential – is where we aim for.
“When there's a defined ‘zone of potential’ to work within, teams feel safer to fail, and more empowered to share their ideas,” adds Thomas.
“We track a lot of metrics at Zühlke,” says Alex. “Whether it’s features delivered, say, or velocity, or number of bugs, they’re great for formalising your gut feeling. But obviously not for measuring curiosity. It’s about finding the right balance.”
So how should you come up with less traditional, ‘curiosity-shaped’ metrics? According to Thomas, it’s easier than you might think.
“Think about the hallmarks of a curious or inquisitive team. For example, how many questions do they ask? How keen are they to learn rather than just deliver work? The best part is there are systems like Co-Pilot, a Gen-AI tool that can help you. By default it shows you how many questions a participant in a recorded meeting might ask – a useful measure of curiosity.”
Curious people also like to learn, so examining Learning and Development records represent another window into someone’s appetite for inquisitiveness. That extends to recruitment, where you might seek to capture that appetite into hiring questionnaires.
Alex proposes a final take-away for thinking about how you shape the appropriate blend of traditional and curiosity-driven KPIs: connect to the individual.
“Although there are ways to ensure you’re measuring in a way that promotes curiosity overall, don’t forget that every individual has a different motivational currency.”
As Alex explains, these personal drivers can be very useful to bring the best out of employees, alongside those curiosity-shaped metrics you’re tracking.
“For some, the driver might be delivering a product that helps a subset of society. While for others, it might be the desire to achieve a personal goal. I’d urge you to build a KPI set that satisfies the diversity of your team.”
