One of the biggest misconceptions, or non-truths, in business is the idea that there is an agent of innovation. There is no individual innovator, an innovative business, an innovative group that is the cause or source of innovation. There is no agent capable of manufacturing innovation.
That’s a bold statement from someone (me!) who used to put “innovator” on his business card and hold email aliases at companies innovator@company.com. Yes, I used to think I was a source of innovation. Somewhere deep inside of me there was a well of not just good ideas but radical execution.
I was wrong.
Innovation’s cause is selection by consequences. No individual nor business innovates. The environment – market, cubicle group, building, peers, media – selects “innovative” products, methods and behavior. Individuals and businesses we consider innovative tend to survive and thrive (earn more media attention!) because the market selects them and their more innovative behaviors. As these entities’ innovative behavior is reinforced, they increase those behaviors.
Innovative behaviors??!??! That phrase usually references a new or unconventional approach. A behavior consider outside its context or environment is not inherently innovative. When the market (environment) selects (recognizes, buys, talks about…) the uncommon behavior (method or product) above all others, we call it innovative.
Just as a behavior can be innovative by the market selection, that same behavior may be non-innovative, standard or status quo in a different market (time, money, people, weather change a lot!).
Herein lies the difficulty in bottling up innovation and xeroxing it into individuals and companies. Innovation is not anything. It is not an object. It is not a property of an individual. It is not cause of success nor failure.
Anyone who has an exact prescription for innovation is a fraud. Anyone who claims to be able to predict market conditions for innovation is a fraud.
The only thing we can do as businesses and individuals is behave. The rate of your behavior gives you the best chance to “innovate” – to uncover that method or product the market will reward. The more you behave (or DO STUFF) the more the market can reinforce or extinguish.
Again, though no prescription for behavior exists we can categorize businesses and individuals by their rate of behavior. Google, Apple, IBM, HP, Gentech, Glaxo…. all these companies have enormous rates of behavior. Robin Williams, Cohen Brothers, Steven Spielberg, Barack Obama, John McCain, Michael Criton, Ian McEwan… all outbehave their counterparts. These entities all have increased chances at success (market selection) because of their huge repertoire and rates of behaviors. Need proof? go look up the number of press releases, new products, new hires, changes to websites, additions to catalogues, documentation and compare to “less innovative” competitors. Consider the people in your life you call innovative, what’s different about them? what were they doing when they got their “break”?
Are these not the icons we turn to for “innovation”? do we not write endless books about their approach, in search of the magic formula?
Stop the search for innovation. Just do. Not just something. lots of things.
(yes, of course, I’ll talk about “focus” at somepoint. Focus is another baggage word thrown around.)
~Russ
Social Mode 