The Discretionary Component
In innovation, there exists the concept of a ‘discretionary component’. In a company’s innovation budget, there is usually one segment that is ‘dedicated’ or fixed to be spent in a pre-decided manner, and another segment that is ‘discretionary’ and can be spent on whatever the company deems relevant to their innovation agenda. The dedicated segment is set in place such that the innovation efforts don’t waver from the initial objectives of the business, and follow the preliminary intent. On the other hand, the discretionary segment is simply that, left to the discretion of the innovation team and kept loose, open to play around with and enabling movement from the set path of activities.
I’m going to take the opportunity of applying this concept to our individual lives. So much of our lives are comprised of tasks, goals and bucket lists, predefining our movement across years and decades. We think to ourselves — I want to be ‘here’ in 5 years — putting ourselves on a chartered path towards that fate. Oftentimes, the lack of goals or a plan is shamed, because this means that you are a 100% discretionary soul, and apparently, that’s a bad thing.
In innovation, companies whose budgets are 100% discretionary are said to be the most mature. It means that they have enough of a grip on themselves to have well-thought-out discretion and do not require the pre-planning or guard rails to keep them in check.
So why is it that when it comes to humans, the ones with the most dedicated agenda are the most mature? Why is it that those who allow themselves to be limited in their wandering movements are the ones with their heads on straight?
I’ll quote a personal example here to describe this even further. I consider myself a heavily task-oriented and goal-oriented being. I like to know what my top 3 priorities are for a day, week or month, and allow myself to be guided by their significance in my actions and intentions. I’ve never thought of this as a bad thing, and as all those management books and life coaches say, I considered myself on the right track.
But then something unpredictable happened. I began crushing my goals. I began ticking things off at a pace I hadn’t foreseen and my dedicated segment was beautifully coloured in. Now that I was done with what I had planned to expend my energy and time on, similar to how an innovation team spends on the initially prioritized line-items, I had space to play around and do as I had found relevant in that moment. It was exciting and unnerving all together. What even was my discretion? What was it that I wanted to do with this white space? Were they in line with my initially thought-out goals and ambitions?
Similar to the innovation agenda, sometimes they were, and sometimes they weren’t. Sometimes they involved doing absolutely nothing, and perhaps preserving that energy for more dedicated priorities down the road. Sometimes they involved getting a head start on upcoming goals, on things I foresaw as important in the coming months. Sometimes I spent my energy and focus on scratching my head and wondering if I’d done anything wrong by crushing my goals and leading myself to this vacuum.
Ultimately, I think that it’s important to have guard rails to keep us from falling off our intended paths, but not to the extent that they govern our every move. We should still be able to respect the discretionary components — the time that we’ve been given to create, explore and in true form, wiggle. In a time where we’re taught to set prior goals and have well-intended actions, little weight is offered to the innovative aspects of our lives, where we are allowed to be whoever we want to be, or try being someone apart from what our goals permit.
How much of a discretionary component do you possess?
