Innovation Blog

Are YOU an Innovator?  Ten Ways to Tell

By Shlomo Maital

     Faithful reader Yoav Medan (Insightec) directed me to a wonderful website,  www.businessinnovationfactory.com, which includes many excellent short video films about innovation stories.   If you believe you find truth in good stories, this is a rich source of it. 

      Can you recognize an innovator when you see one?  Many CEO’s cannot.

      Here is  Business Innovation Factory founder Saul Kaplan’s list of the 10 ways to recognize the innovators in your organization — the 10 behavioral characteristics that define innovators.   I think the list is also a good way to make hiring decisions.   I have added my own comments in brackets.

 1) Innovators think there is a better way.  (They don’t think,  they KNOW.  They obsessively think of different ways to do things. Many of their ideas are wrongheaded.  But some are not.  You have to encourage wild ideas in order to modify them just enough to make them practical).

2) Innovators know that without passion there can be no innovation.  (Passion is the rocket fuel, the nuclear energy, of innovation.   Without fire in the belly and sparks in the eyes, innovators soon tire. Search for that fire and that spark).

3) Innovators embrace change to a fault.   (Beware: Innovators are not great at running day-to-day operations.  But there are rare people who can do a task with superb excellence, again and again, all the while asking, how can I do this totally differently, or not at all?)

4) Innovators have a strong point of view but know that they are missing something.  (Innovators listen better than they talk.  They know that chances are, someone else has vital knowledge they need; to get it, they have to listen.)

5) Innovators know innovation is a team sport.  (See point 4).

6) Innovators embrace constraints as opportunities.   (Non-innovators whine about constraints and problems.  Innovators see them as opportunities and challenges, chances to prove their abilities and creativity.  Keep whiners off your innovation teams…in fact, off your premises entirely).

7) Innovators celebrate their vulnerability.  (I think this means that innovators are ordinary people, with normal weaknesses, who practice WYSIWYG – what you see is what you get — and freely speak about their failings and  problems).

8) Innovators openly share their ideas and passions, expecting to be challenged. (“Here is my idea — what do you think?  Innovators say this a lot, then listen carefully.  Non-innovators react to criticism defensively, defend their idea, battle for their own point of view — and soon innovation becomes political arm-wrestling, ideas die).  

9) Innovators know that the best ideas are in the gray areas between silos.  (Modern universities are failing to make breakthroughs, because they preserve traditional faculty and department silos, while true innovation comes in the interface between such disciplines.  Ever heard of nanotechnology? ).

10) Innovators know that a good story can change the world.  (Innovators have a personal legend — here is how I changed the world, past tense.  They believe the story, and work to make it happen.  The story is vivid and photographic.  And they are inspired by the great stories of other innovators).