3 key elements of real innovation
It seems “innovation” has lost its meaning – it is one of the most overused and abused terms today.
We would like to see ourselves, our company, our job, our employees full of innovation. We want to show this is easy and we do this all day. Eventually the term itself is not a differential factor anymore.
However do we really know what innovation is? In the following I share the most important elements.
- Risk
Real innovators are risk takers. They challenge and transform their organizations, collaborate with others, compete against themselves and stay dissatisfied.
- Failure
Because of the risk there is a possibility to fail. But real innovators don’t be afraid to fail. They learn from each and every result even that was not expected. They know what they risk, what they disrupt, what they might win.
- Different way
One definition of stupidity is “doing same thing and expecting different result”. Innovators answer challenges to do differently. Doing cheaper or better is a good thing, but most cases these are only enhancements serving well some other purposes.
Innovations are facing some barriers. Human society likes status quo. This means everybody knows the tasks and rules. That is why there is natural resistance against changes in the organizations, in culture. We are afraid of new, unknown. Innovators have to fight against these things. Sometimes they have to motivate us to accept changes. Fortunately there are some people they are risk takers and others who want to be the first of using new things. Altogether they can create the critical mass to accept and assimilate innovations. Next big barrier can be the environment that has zero momentum. You can imagine the difference if someone running in a dense forest or swimming with a big shoal. There are many good examples in the past of environment that supports innovation: ancient Greece, Great Britain in XVIII. century, Silicon Valley, etc.
So if you really want to be innovator, look for a supportive environment, do something different and don’t be afraid to fail but look for the successful result.