Did you see the announcement that US Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is turning to NASA scientists for help analyzing Toyota electronic throttles? Secretary LaHood, Why did you wait so long?  “We are determined to get to the bottom of unintended acceleration”, said LaHood. This comment coming after 8.5 million Toyota vehicles have been recalled over the last six months and probably just as many law suits on the drawing board. Why does it take us so long to look beyond the boundaries of our organizations for answers?  When will we figure out that solutions are rarely found inside the silos we cocoon ourselves within?  It is impossible to innovate from inside a cocoon.

I suspect that Secretary LaHood is only turning to NASA due to political pressure.  I am sure he preferred to keep the federal analysis within the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that he oversees.  The problem is that they have been investigating sudden acceleration within the agency since 2004 and have found no throttle problems.  The pressure on the agency now to bring in outside expertise is too great to withstand.  Secretary LaHood has been drilled during Congressional hearings.  I doubt when he signed up for the job he thought he would have more air time than the Secretary of State.  The Secretary is a colorful character and fun to listen to. He even tweets for heaven’s sake. (@RayLaHood)

Just imagine the treasure trove of scientific and complex problem solving skills in NASA that could be tapped if it were easier to work across agency boundaries.  It’s not as if these NASA scientists don’t have time on their hands while President Obama and Congress argue over whether we should go back to the moon or not.  So nine scientists from NASA have been selected with expertise in electronics, electromagnetic interference, software integrity, and complex problem solving to help analyze unintended acceleration.  I can’t help but wonder if the NASA Nine think they drew the short straw.  Hey, I am a rocket scientist, I didn’t sign up for this.

We shouldn’t wait for a crisis to connect to capabilities outside of our organization.  We should design external networks in to our organizations and make them an everyday part of how we operate. What if NASA scientists had collaborated with NHTSA sooner?  I suspect that Toyota may have resisted the scrutiny at the time but would be in a far better position today if the problem had been worked much earlier.

The imperative for interdisciplinary thinking and networked action is not just for problem solving either.  I believe that the biggest value creating opportunities will only be discovered in the space between disciplines, silos, and sectors.  Identifying and capturing these new opportunities requires all of us to get far more comfortable in the gray areas between us and better at what I call collaborative innovation.  Innovation is a team sport and the best teammates come from unusual places that you wouldn’t normally think to look in.  Connecting unusual suspects in purposeful ways is the secret sauce for solving complex problems and for innovation.

Cocoons may be comfortable but it is impossible to innovate from them.  Don’t wait for a crisis or for outside pressure to look up from your silos and embrace the unusual suspects.