Burning Platforms

The story tells that a man on an oilrig in the North Sea woke up from an explosion and as he stepped out fire caught up with him and he had to make a quick decision. He decided to jump into the water, although this option was in itself extremely risky. If he survived the jump, he would die within fifteen minutes in the cold water. He survived, and later when asked of his decision he said: ”better probable death than certain death”.

The story turned into a business term and was called ”Burning Platforms”, implying that people only change behavior radically due to terrible circumstances. Radical change in behavior only comes when survival instincts trump comfort zone instincts, it’s said, therefore leading changes in an organisation is easier if there is a sense of a ”Burning Platform”. Perhaps relevant for cultural entrepreneurs who has the sense of always working on Burning Platforms and fast changing circumstances?

At Krenova in Umeå, an incubator within art and culture, I suddenly hear the term. Anders Persson, Director, used it when talking about the incubator and described it as a way to work when building something.

”I use ‘Burning Platforms’ quite often when I am building something, like an activity or project. In short it’s a way to do your vision or idea so sharp, cool, relevant, fantastic, realistic, necessary – whatever you choose – that no-one can or want to resist it. Everyone wants to be on the platform, without really understand why. They want to be on board, whatever it takes. This is a way to shape the boarders of a project or business idea, giving you the possibility to work on the content within these boarders.”

At a seminar in Göteborg on 11th of March, on the topic ”Future Businessfield in Western Sweden” (Framtidens näringsliv i Västsverige), a man in the audience lifted the conception again. A presentation on the economic development in Sweden was done by Professor Lennart Schön from Economic History Department at Lund University. He showed that global economic crisis has been in forty years sequences, the ups and downs in the economy has come in regular periods of time and can perhaps be seen as recurring changes over years. The comment from the man in the audience was that renewal never happen if there are no sense of Burning Platforms. In a financial crisis it is, which forces renewal to happen.

So: What happens to a field that always has a sense of working on Burning platforms?

A short text on Umeå and Krenova can be found here. Information of ”Burning platforms” can be found on Policy Perspectives (from 2005), Problem-solving-techniques.com, and a story about leading change without a Burning platform can be found on the website Harvard Business Publishing.