Management Perspectives

Now, more than ever, we need creative solutions to the challenges impacting every aspect of our society. But successful innovation involves more than a good idea; more than the proverbial light bulb switching on in one's head. In The Innovation Mindset, we tried to debunk a few myths about the way inventions and new ideas are created and implemented in the business world. Here are some of them:

MYTH 1: Innovation occurs in a dramatic thunderclap of insight.

A scientist working frantically through the night, surrounded by test tubes or a row of blinking computer screens, as he ponders a seemingly intractable challenge. Exhausted, almost at his wit’s end, he suddenly looks up from his calculations.

“Eureka!” he shouts. “I’ve got it!” That is the way invention is typically depicted in movies, novels, and popular culture. It can make for riveting entertainment, but it is a complete myth.

Certainly, some great innovations are the products of a flash of brilliant insight. But that usually only happens after a great deal of thought and effort have gone into it. Most innovations are born from diligence, hard work, and patience. (And unless you are a chemist or a pharmaceutical researcher, you probably do not need all those test tubes.) What all innovations share is that they begin with a problem. And the most successful are ones that offer a solution; a solution that customers are willing to pay for.

MYTH 2: Innovation occurs organically; it does not adhere to a process that can be taught or followed.

The ‘Edison-in-the-lab’ moment gives us another false impression about innovation: that it is random, undisciplined; something that sneaks up on the inventor like a thief in the night. Not true. In The Innovation Mindset, we want to show that there is a process; a proven series of steps you can take to increase the likelihood of success in getting your great idea from inception to market. Hence, my ‘Eight Essential steps’—or ‘Laws’ as we call them — that can provide businesspeople with a stepby-step framework to successful innovation.

Oh, and the most important one addresses the point we just made.

Innovation Mindset Law #1: A successful innovation must offer a solution. Ask yourself, "What's the problem I'm trying to solve?"

MYTH 3: Innovation is the bastion of Silicon Valley gurus working in R&D labs.

This one is a key part of the message I try to deliver as an author, consultant, and speaker: there’s this idea that innovators must look or sound a certain way. Typically, it is a white man, in a lab coat, or a genius nerd sitting in front of a screen in Silicon Valley. Not true: innovation is open to all and can happen anywhere; in any type of organisational setting.

Moreover, game-changing ideas and products are not just the province of white males. My career, as a woman helping to nurture and launch new products for corporations such as IBM, Johnson & Johnson, and Bristol Myers Squibb and many others, is living proof of that—and so are the many women innovators we spotlight in the book.

And of course, the geography of innovation knows no bounds. Readers of this magazine do not need to be reminded of the many great Indian innovators throughout history. I recently learned about Satyendra Nath Bose—the Indian mathematician and physicist best known for his collaboration with no less an innovator than Albert Einstein in formulating a theory related to the gas-like qualities of electromagnetic radiation.

Bose has the distinction of having a subatomic particle, the boson, named after him. Moreover, wrote University of Houston’s John Lienhard, in an appreciation on Bose, “He was a fine musician. He was a great conversationalist. He was also enormously beloved by his countrymen. When he died, whether or not they had ever heard of quantum mechanics, they lined the streets to grieve his passing.”

I am not a physicist, and I do not pretend to fully understand the contributions he made to his field, but they were clearly significant— and I salute Satyendra Nath Bose as a true and stereotype-shattering innovator.

Myth 4: Speed is of the essence! The most successful innovators create solutions and get them into the market quickly.

It is true that we live in a fast-paced world and, that sometimes, getting a product to the market before your competitor can make a difference. But more often than not, innovation is a process that just cannot be rushed.

A problem that I see among so many would-be innovators is the urge to jump to a solution before exploring all the options. They think they have arrived at that elusive (and, as we’ve pointed out, often nonexistent) ‘a-ha’ moment. But what they really have is one good idea that could now be developed into three better ones. Impulsively going all-in on the first idea that pops into your mind is a tempting shortcut. But in doing so, we’re not looking at the problem in all its complexity and richness. We need to think broadly, creatively, and from multiple perspectives. We need to test these solutions, see how well they fit the customer’s need, and importantly, get customer feedback during the selection process.

Myth 5: Customer research can cloud the issue: follow your dreams—go with your gut!

Innovators are dreamers, but they are also realists. Keep your idea as simple as possible and identify your MVP—minimum viable product. A term coined by two Silicon Valley software entrepreneurs to refer to an efficient way to develop software, MVP works as a principle across innovation. The best way to find out if you have a solution that a customer wants to pay for is by translating your promising concept from an idea into a rudimentary design, and then, getting customer feedback.

And yes, there is such a thing as paralysis by analysis; and your gut instincts count for something. But I would submit that what counts more is being able to count to 100: That’s the number of customers you need to speak to. You cannot innovate by sitting in your office—you have to get out and talk and listen to your ‘one hundred’ customers. And, yes, when we say one hundred customers, we mean one hundred customers. Talking to two or three is not sufficient. Too few and you might be simply confirming your own bias; too many, and the agile decision making that innovation requires can become difficult.

Your research may take several different forms: surveys, small groups, and one-to-one interviews, but you need to communicate with one hundred potential customers to confirm that your innovation addresses a problem worth solving and that a customer is willing to pay for it.

So, yes, single-mindedness and confidence in your own judgment are good traits for an innovator. But they must be seasoned by the reality that, while the ideas may be yours, it is the customer who must validate them.

I wish you the best of luck as you seek to create meaningful and profitable change in your business!