Innovators share the lessons they’ve learned during 2005

By Chuck Frey

In early December 2005, I posed this question to InnovationTools readers:

What is the most important lesson you learned regarding innovation, creativity or brainstorming during 2005?

Thanks to the large number of you who responded - amazing! Your responses were very thought provoking and inspiring. So here, without further ado, are the insights you've gained about innovation during the last year:

Innovation requires a reliable process

Far from a sporadic creative event, leading organizations must treat innovation as a systemic and systematic process. The world is awash with creativity and technological breakthroughs, available at the click of a mouse via the web. Companies need more than invention and brainstorming; they need a reliable innovation process, just as they have processes governing all other aspects of their business. Innovation, the goal of creating new value from all sources of knowledge, is the antithesis of unreliable, hit-and-miss, trial-and-error, psychological means of lateral thinking. Making effective progress requires more than inspiration. If corporate pronouncements of innovation are to be credible, innovation must be repeatable, procedural and algorithmic. Innovation must, and can, be codified."

-- Howard Smith, Computer Sciences Corporation

Nine innovation lessons

I was so inspired by this idea that I've expanded it and copied it (with attribution of course) on my blog today. Here are the 9 Most Important Lessons (from my list of 25) that relate at least indirectly to innovation:

• There is no defense against disruptive innovation.
• The most important step in any innovation or collaboration project is who you invite, and crafting the invitation so that the right people (caring, knowledgeable, etc.) will accept and show up. 
• Most technology is inexcusably complicated and intolerably dumb. We need to learn that the brain is much more than an information processor and a memory. Technology needs to learn how to learn, to observe, to see patterns, and hence to advise us, connect us, instead of depending on us to spoon feed it. Heuristics: Less matter and more art.
• Collaboration is much more than just coordination or cooperation.
• There's nothing wrong with the education system except for the teachers (we learn best by watching and doing, not by listening), the classrooms (the world is out there, not in here!) and the examinations (they are more likely to tell you what the students already knew than what they learned).
• Complicated "solutions" don't work if the "problem" is complex. Forget root cause analysis, systems thinking, and easy answers. Engage a lot of people in conversations, observe, listen, pay attention, be open, and allow possible approaches to such situations to emerge. 
• Nature is the best teacher. We just need to re-learn how to learn from her, and how to pay attention. Ask and people will tell you what they think is happening. Watch and you will know.
• If you can't imagine, you can do anything. If you can imagine, you can't not do anything. Many people just can't imagine. We live in a world of great creativity but terrible imaginative poverty.
• Things are the way they are (and happen as they do) for a reason. It's not mystical, but it's rarely obvious. Observe, study and understand that reason well before you try to change the way things are.

-- Dave Pollard, author of the How to Change the World weblog

Innovate throughout the product cycle

In creating Get Unstuck & Get Going (a unique brainstorming tool), I spent a lot of time and money, a number of years and 10 prototypes in creating a product. And when it was done, and I had a bunch of them ready to go... I realized that I needed to also be strategic and innovative about the next steps of the journey - marketing and selling it. It reminded me of trekking in Nepal. You spend the day walking up a really, really steep mountain, aiming for the peak. When you finally get there you realize that you've just hit a plateau, and just around the corner is another really, really steep mountain that you need to climb tomorrow. Your creation is only as strong as the weakest part of the system - so you need to innovate all across it.

-- Michael Bungay Stanier, Box of Crayons, author of "Get Unstuck & Get Going ...on the Stuff That Matters"

People are the cornerstone of innovation

My biggest lesson on innovation this year has been the pivotal role played by individuals in all aspects of the innovation process. I am thinking of individuals as human beings, beautiful yet flawed, rather than as stick men on a flip chart. My work on the Orchid Model has played a major role in shaping some of the largest idea management deployments in the world, and recent studies show that this is just the tip of the iceberg.

-- Mark Turrell, Imaginatik

Diversity Rules

In my economics days, we learned about "ceteris paribus," which meant "all else being equal," a particular element of economics would respond in a certain way. Now that I'm in the real world, I know that there is no such thing as "ceteris paribus." Everything is always changing and everything is linked together in impossibly complex ways. That said, and everything else being constant, diversity is king of innovation principles. If you can focus enough diversity of thought, experience, perception, skill and insight on an issue of importance, the chances are great that a solution will be found. The interesting insight from this is that most of our accepted management practices - functional departments, business units, management levels, industry specialization, walls between company and customers and suppliers, geographical dispersion - all reduce diversity rather than enhance it.

Once again, we're reminded that innovation is never "either/or" - it's always "both/and." So, it's not a choice of diversity or organizational efficiency, but it's a matter of how to blend both into the service of innovation and efficiency. How do we bring diverse  thinking into play when we have critical problems to solve or huge new opportunities to address? It should be one of the first questions we ask in any innovation challenge.

-- Joyce Wycoff, InnovationNetwork

Invest time in problem analysis

When we approach a problem we tend to race straight into idea generation mode. It is generally better to invest some time in problem analysis. In my workshops I now use Fishbone Analysis, Lotus Blossom, Why Why or Six Serving Men (creative problem solving techniques) to analyze and prioritize the underlying causes of the problem. We get a visual representation of the challenge on flip charts on the wall. Then we select the most important component and start the idea generation and idea-evaluation stages. Spending time at the front end of the process gives a better shared understanding of the issues and it means that you are aiming at the right target when you come up with the ideas.

-- Paul Sloane, Destination Innovation

Do something unique

Every year I try to doing something very unique. Two years ago it was creating a  multi-dimensional process model. This year it was leveraging corporate information obtained from the Internet and using it to generate new value propositions for our services that resulted in several new client relationships at the C level. The deals were over $100,000. What was unique was that I did not have to travel and meet each of these C-level clients. With access to variety of sources of business/corporate information in near real time, I could gain entry into a number of C-level offices and then present our services. This approach proves you do not have to have face-to-face meetings to generate high-level project sales.

-- Dave Soley

Ask what and why

If I have to choose among all my 20 years long experience as an applied R&D engineer, I would choose those two questions: What? And Why? Everything and every solution are in there. You will find answers in questioning. What is your problem? Why does that happen? Dig as deep as you have to with only those two questions and I'll bet you will find what you have to do. Guaranteed.

-- Jack-Éric Vandenbroucke, ing., MBA, CMfgE, Université du Québec

Design is a key to innovation

Front runners in the field of design provide a very convincing answer to one of the most important forms of innovation: Human-centered innovation. New design methods are a highly powerful tool for a focused, results-oriented innovation process creating tangible results based on real user needs.

-- Lars Jannick Johansen, INDEX

Dialogue is a key to innovation

The greatest insight I had regarding brainstorming comes at the very end of the year. Mindjet has recently begun sponsoring "Powered by MindManager" events. Having attended my first such event, I realized that simply introducing good brainstorming technology is not enough. One way we all get inspired is to listen to smart people talk. But being able to enter into a dialog with speakers can really deepen that experience. While attending BlawgThink 2005, I realized that event organizers need to think seriously about asking speakers to bring their own questions to events. Listening to someone smart talk for 45 minutes is great. Listening to them for 30 minutes, and then having them engage the audience by means of thoughtfully-considered questions would be much better.

-- Hobie Swan, Mindjet

Communicating your innovation often requires innovation

I have learned that the success of an innovation is tied to the context in which it is created. Therefore one of the keys for a successful innovation is how innovative I am to gradually fit my idea into a social system shielded in conventionalisms. In short: Communication of my innovation is an innovation as well.

-- Luis Alejandro Fernández, Microsoft de Centroamérica

Trust is a prerequisite to innovation

Most of my creative energy over the last year was used to develop the first Rock Ledge Studio's Innovators Institute in July, and prepare for the sequel in September of 2006.  The reason things have gone well was that key players truly connected to the vision - which was to create physical and psychological spaces conducive to group innovative thinking on a Maine island.  No one got rich or famous. Not every moment was "golden." But it worked. There was a trust in the integrity of our own creative process and that of our colleagues. We could freely share valuable insights and connections with each other. Trust is hard to come by these days - but it is the prerequisite of humane innovation.

-- Bob Barancik, The Rock Ledge Studios and Innovators Institute

The right environment can help ideas to flourish

Inciting or stimulating others to come up with "creative ideas" has nothing to do with having more or less of the right or left brain strength. Neither is there the need to have the most intelligence, nor people needing to know one another in order to come together to brainstorm. Instead, given the appropriate relaxed environment, respecting and listening to the most outrageous ideas (wild and out-of-the-box ideas) and questioning how these ideas can be turn from perceived idealism to realism makes my audiences excited..

-- Dr. Michael S. J. Butterworth

"Crazy training" pays off

This is a lesson from one of our contacts at Pixar. They invest a lot of time and energy in what I'd call “crazy training.” They send their people on ballet courses, encourage them to play a musical instrument, train them to juggle, etc. None of it has a direct bearing on people's ability to do their job, but it actually makes a massive difference to their ability to see the world in new ways - which is I believe what innovation is all about. So next year, we'll be encouraging our people to do ballet, learn to draw, hang out at Toys-R-Us, learn Mandarin Chinese, etc.! Here's to a fun 2006!

-- Meldrum Duncan, ?What If! USA

Slow down

The importance of slowing down and making time for emergence (in terms of artistic creativity) is the lesson I have learned. In terms of innovation at work, it is having a problem or need for which I can find a new solution.

-- Heather Ferguson, ICVET TAFE NSW International Centre

Building value in the Stage-Gate innovation processes

The relationship between innovation, new product development and Stage-Gate is the lesson that I take from 2005. Stage-Gate is used by the majority of companies with new product development processes. Bob Cooper has highlighted in his 2004 research that Stage-Gate is not delivering breakthrough projects. The focus has been on the GATE and in 2005 the focus is shifting to the STAGE. GATES (the hand-off from one part of the new product development process to the next) remain as important as ever, however it is the innovation and creativity that occurs in the STAGE that determines the long term value of a project. Better projects, better thinking and better execution are created in the STAGE and ensure that GATE targets are not just met but exceeded. I have worked with many companies with excellent Stage-Gate processes and have run training programs for new staff, especially marketing staff that focuses on how to get your project over the hurdle and through the GATE. There are criteria lists, benchmarks, forms, etc. The lesson from 2005 is to develop the programs that assist people to develop better projects during the STAGE. These programs use all the tools, tips and techniques of innovation that are highlighted on InnovationTools every month.

-- Allan Ryan, Managed Innovation International Pty Ltd

Brainstorming in HR management

This year we decided to give an award to the best businessman in the company. And we started thinking of the method of defining this person. So all the workers of the company gathered in one room and we had a brainstorming session. Very exiting, you know! As a result, this person was recognized and awarded. Though it was very funny, the things that were analyzed and the final result has a great impact on company and its further development.

-- Gregory Zhykov, CS Odessa

Innovation is what you can't predict

Throughout 2005, I took part in the evaluation of spin-offs based on research results and innovative ideas. Some cases adopted all appropriate principles and models for innovation, but after the implementation, results were poor. On the other side, truly innovative ideas for products or services were ignored when presented for the first time. This happens because in most innovative ventures, both the technology and the market are very uncertain. Radical innovations emerge from combinations in science and society that are extremely hard to predict.

-- Nicos Komninos, Aristotle University

Treat innovation as a direction, not a set of metrics

When thinking about organizational innovation, if you introduce innovation as part of your key performance indicators, then you run the risk of setting limitations on your staff and their propensity to perform. Conversely, if you agree a direction and then measure the results, performance is not hindered. One of our global clients in the pharmaceutical industry has a business excellence awards program. In 2004 they received 10 nominations for these awards. Since setting their direction and committing to their innovation initiative in 2005, and by not making innovation a key performance indicator, they have received over 70 nominations for business excellence. That's quite a result and demonstrates the importance of not limiting the imagination, passion and enthusiasm of staff and enabling them to achieve!

-- Angela Edwards, Managed Innovation International Pty Ltd

Innovation and knowledge

Innovation is driven by a knowledge creation cycle between questions and solutions.  Innovation is the act of answering collective questions at the cutting edge of knowledge.  Innovation cannot occur without first confronting the relevant questions in the knowledge context of a problem.

-- Bruce LaDuke, Instant Innovation, LLC

Thinking and Laughing are Not Mutually Exclusive

For anyone who has brainstormed in a group setting, the idea that laughing can lead to some very interesting ideas should not be foreign. As a creativity facilitator, I had noticed this connection between laughing and creative ideas. I always worked hard to take the funny ideas that people threw out there and build upon them. An interesting effect I noticed was that, when people initially threw out the funny idea, they were  embarrassed by it. This is more noticeable in business settings where creativity isn't the main focus. As I worked with groups and encouraged their wild and funny ideas, they loosened up and more ideas started coming out. Laughing and joking instead of distracting the meeting actually provided a stimulus that increased the quantity of ideas. Not only did the quantity of ideas increase, but also their quality. Through laughter, the associative barriers came down and interesting idea combinations were formed that frequently led to breakthroughs. The lesson I (re)learned this year is the real importance of this concept. It always surprises me that people are so reluctant to embrace laughter and joking in a professional setting. Only after proving  to them the effects of laughter will they open up to the idea that thinking and laughing are not mutually exclusive. This has become the catch phrase for the creativity game I invented, MetaMemes.

-- Kes Sampanthar, MetaMemes

Small innovations have value, too

Innovation is not always a corporate tag. Some of the best ideas are the ones that help in small ways, such as the ones that help people (for example, a simple idea to help an 80-year-old manage the key to his front door, as his frail hands are trembling, or an idea to prevent little children from jamming their fingers in the doorway). There's more to creativity and brainstorming than the portals of the corporate world. The world's best mousetrap is still on my drawing board.

-- Sharath Bhat, CopyDesk India

Making real innovation happen

Two things: the massive disconnect between senior managers and what needs to be done to make real innovation happen. It's not just the brainstorming but the follow-up as well and the fact that those same senior managers really believe that they are innovative because they wrote an email declaring that innovation was a corporate goal or that simply holding one brainstorming meeting makes them innovative. 

-- Andrew Sims, Tyco Healthcare

Creativity and innovation in day-to-day work

There are many things I want to share but most important lesson I learn is to make people understand the importance of creativity and innovation in their day to day work and how they benefit with this both in their personal/professional life. Often, people are so busy that they feel this activity is not so important. Secondly to bring people of all walks of life to one platform (people of different nationalities, culture, ethnic) and synchronizing their ideas because they are the ones who make an innovation a success or a failure.

-- Altaf Khan, Continental Freight

Learning and innovation are two sides of the same coin

A really acute definition of innovation is learning beyond knowledge, learning beyond what we currently know or understand. Thus, without rapid and continuous learning, we'll never achieve any breakthroughs in ideas. Further, successful innovation requires learning before output. That is, understanding the behaviors of a particular innovation in all its dimensions before its launched into market. If we don't learn before output, then there may be trouble ahead. To accelerate learning before output, one must accelerate feedback from both tests in the lab and trials in the market. To do that, one must accelerate the design-prototype-test (DPT) feedback-cycle by investing DPT productivity tools and processes. As the DPT productivity increases and the cycle-time shrinks, so feedback is amplified and learning before output accelerated. Thus innovation cannot exist without learning and learning cannot exist without eventually yielding innovation. In other words, innovation and learning are two sides of the same coin.

-- Chris Harris, author of "Hyperinnovation: Multidimensional Enterprise in the Connected Economy"

People are key to innovative organizations

Innovation programs from the top down have a great deal of value if done right. They show an interest in innovation from the corporate entity and those in a leadership position. But, without each individual who makes up the organization possessing a habit of innovation, there is little hope that the organization can truly be innovative. It's the people, one at a time, who are the key to an innovative organization.
 
-- Jim Canterucci, author of "Personal Brilliance"

Adapt innovation to your own circumstances

This year I was involved in helping the small- and medium-sized companies of Latin America to innovate, and I learned that the models, tools and examples I have being using with bigger companies do not work with these smaller firms. The entrepreneurs of small companies don't have much time or resources, and they don't relate very well to examples of innovation from IBM, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Intel, etc. I discovered that I need to take down the innovation concepts to the reality of these companies if I wish to have any impact at all.  Although I see the worldwide trend world toward more recognition of the need for innovation, today many companies, large and small are still not aware of it. I also learned that the way to sell or do innovation in my country is different than other parts of the world, and I need to adapt all the "best practices" and "examples" I read to the reality of the people who I work with.

-- Mario Morales, Aura Interactiva

Don't become cynical about innovation

My main insight (more a confirmation of gut-feel, actually) this year was that successful innovation is very sensitive to initial conditions. If the environment isn't right, you get less than you started with, because the people become discouraged and cynical. And don't think you know all the rules of the game, even while you are playing it. So, the more questions you ask, the better your chances of a worthwhile result.

-- Ian Grant

Treat it with care

In 2005, I re-learned a lesson I've learned before: Novelty frightens people. I learned again that I really have to put myself in the other person's shoes, if I am to help them gain the benefit of the innovation I'm bringing or suggesting. To be sure, innovation has a life and power of its own - but it can be fragile, and it must be introduced with care and consideration.

-- Joel Orr, Cyon Research Corporation

Get the other person's buy-in

This is not a story but more an experience I'd like to share.  When I work on case studies during ASIT training, people sometime react this way: They listen carefully to the problem; they accept it, asking for details to make sure they understand it properly. They work on the problem to solve it (first without ASIT). When I propose an alternative solution, people become very critical and stop listening. Funny enough: The fact that the solution is real, has been implemented with success a million times is not important - they "consider" it to be a bad solution. The fact that the problem is stupid or not realistic is not an issue. Any problem is adopted immediately, as any solution is criticized immediately. So, if I want another person to adopt my solution, I don't propose a solution but I propose a problem. For example, if one find a solution A to problem B, and just have to solve minor issues to implement it, he/she can say: "I was about to solve the problem "B" by doing "A" but another problem occurred. Can you help to solve it?" Then the person will adopt your solution because it became a problem.

-- Pascal Jarry, Solid Creativity

Be more aware

Ending 2005, I'm reflecting back on just important "process" is to the process. There is a fine balance between setting my eyes on the prize - some future reality, event, deliverable - and looking around at where I am right now. Taking this into 2006, I'm excited to say that I'm slowing down in an effort to speed up. Notice what I notice, to notice more of that!

-- Jason W. Womack, M.Ed., M.A., "Working Out While You're Out Working"

What have we learned about innovation?

The fuzzy front end conferences and innovation conferences are overloaded with stuff we already know and learned from the last huge corporate cycle of this 25 years ago. I am astounded at how much learning has not happened, though there has been some in the areas of total organizational participation and not letting internal R&D totally drive the process. The ignorance of what we learned about the people side the last time with regards to styles and differences (that can be measured and used proactively) and the over-emphasis on "team playing" is incredible. When you want innovation, you do not want everyone thinking alike, not do you want to be talking primarily to your current customers. You want to be talking to who may replace them, and that requires disciplined tools (TRIZ, for example) that organizations are reluctant to use. It is still too much fun to use the guessing and extrapolation approach.

-- Jack Hipple, Innovation-TRIZ

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Published on 12/16/2005

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