Calculated Inactivity

As an innovation researcher and consultant, I'm currently examining two barriers: change fatigue (observed in my years managing NPOs) and resourcing challenges (cited by arts professionals in my current dissertation research). Today, the idea of "calculated inactivity" expanded my thinking about what innovation can look like:

Calculated inactivity is a firm's ability "to be agile but not necessarily display its agility at every opportunity."*

This could be reassuring for those with limited resources to act on every opportunity. It also reminded me of a view held by social service staff at the charity I led in Vancouver: that running on 80% output during everyday activities maintained the energy needed to gear up to 150% during extreme incidents requiring crisis response. This was essential when the pandemic hit, and I had the choice to either redesign our programmes to safely reach youth falling through the cracks...or pause them and leave young people at risk. Thankfully, I had the energy to dive in: I designed our Social Distancing School, with a 100% graduation rate and zero infections. You can't pull solutions like that out of the hat when you're exhausted.

What do you think of calculated inactivity as an innovation tactic?

*Overby, et al., 2006, cited in Walter, A. (2020) "Organizational agility: ill‑defined and somewhat confusing? A systematic literature review and conceptualization", Management Review Quarterly, p. 361.

“A firm’s ability to be agile, but not necessarily display its agility at every opportunity.”