For several years my favorite quote regarding innovation is one attributed to Nicholas Negroponte the founder of the MIT Media Lab. I had the opportunity to hear him speak a decade ago when is book Being Digital was relatively new. That quote is, "Incrementalism is innovation's worst enemy." Over the years I've seen that to be true as creative people and their sometimes off-beat ideas were dismissed as being "out of scope," "too outlandish" or "good, but, too hard to sell." Instead a tweak here or a modification there often was thought to be good enough. The often used example is of what users would have suggested when asked for a better way to make copies of documents rather than the radical idea of a photocopier applies here.
I recently attended a webinar where the author of the new book Courage Goes to Work, Bill Treasurer made a comment that moves to challenge Negroponte's quote at the top of my list. Treasurer said something to the effect that innovators have to be heretics. Very cool.
Heretics are usually associated with religion. Galileo and Copernicus are often thought of a people of science who steered away from the "truths" of the church and were attacked for their beliefs even though Galileo's sins were more about insulting the Pope than his beliefs. The point that Treasurer makes is that often at the beginning of some innovation was someone who dared to disbelieve the prevailing truth and launch off in a different direction. This person or organization was willing to place reputation on the line and to courageously face those who maintained their orthodox beliefs and to push forward to the next great thing.
Some business innovations revolve around some decidedly "unsexy" concepts. Wal-Mart became a giant by employing innovative thinking to its supply chain. Dell computer innovated in providing a customized computer by mail with just-in-time inventories to limit the negative impact of inventories in a rapidly changing technology market and I already mentioned the photocopier. In the high tech world innovation seems to be just part of the day-to-day definition. Advances in new materials for integrated circuits and advancements in manufacturing techniques are too numerous to list. Sexy or not, things identified as innovations clearly change the world.
I once heard Edward de Bono, the author of The Six Thinking Hats discuss how easy it is to track decision trees backward from the outcome to the starting point. The reverse, however, is not the same. Moving forward, the forks and decision points don't offer that same clarity. It is hard to know when you are dealing with a heretic with the next great idea or just a lunatic.
