This is a great article David. William Lam shared it on Linkedin and I found it there.
Thanks so much for the inspiration and food for thought. I appreciate your intention to encourage social sector leaders to adopt innovation oriented mindsets and your application of research to back up your ideas.
Your analysis moved me forward in my quest to understand innovation competencies and brings to mind questions that may expand the discussion and research on other mindsets that can be adopted to expand innovation thinking, doing and outcomes.
Here are some innovation oriented mindsets I’ve found to be productive in the emerging technology research and design space that may be of value to social sector leaders as well. Some of these may align with the mindsets you’ve presented and some may not. I would love to engage you and your readers in conversation about your article and thinking which is my purpose.
Continuous Questioning (Explore)
You write: “How teams mentally approach their innovation challenges can hurt, if not break, any undertaking. This is because innovation depends on a deep-seated tension within the human mind.” (Italics mine)
When I consider this using a socio-cultural psychology (activity theory) perspective, don’t completely understand your point. But I do wonder, what happens when we kick this up a notch to read: “Innovation thinking and doing is sometimes triggered by deep-seated tensions that emerge through conversations within individuals, between people and between people and the things we create.”
I wonder what ‘deep-seated tension within the human mind’ means. Does innovation actually depend upon deep-seated tension in our minds? I think there is much more to the story. Is tension drive? Is tension cognitive dissonance we are driven to resolve without conscious intent? Or, is innovation thinking and doing triggered by applying ourselves to resolving deep-seated tension? Could it be that dependecy isn’t upon the cognitive state but on our ability to perform mental and physical actions that resolve states of cognitive dis-ease? What knowledge am I missing that would cause me to miss the point you are making?
Does it help us to consider that deep-seated tension is just one cognitive state that stimulates innovative thinking? Does the pleasure associated with thinking new things play a role in triggering innovative thinking and doing? What role does satisfaction associated with problem resolution play? What new ideas can we discover and explore when we consider what other cognitive states might function to trigger innovative thinking and doing?
Cultivate Deep and Wide Understanding (Expand)
I’ve witnessed innovative visual experiences emerge out of improvisational play among a collaborative theater group. I’ve witnessed innovative thinking emerge through artist/object interactions during the creation of an innovative musical instrument. Humor and wit sometimes generate innovative ideas seemingly spontaneously. Social need inspires innovation. Emerging technologies inspire innovation. Is deep-seated tension descriptive of a single cognitive state or are there many cognitive states we can be consider using to trigger innovation thinking and doing?
Embrace Complexity and Randomness (Situate Innovation in What’s Real)
Regarding this: “Brainstorming creates great meetings; debate creates great innovations. Debate allows us to interrogate and challenge ideas, which makes the outcomes that emerge both more creative and likely to succeed.”
When it comes to innovation, brainstorming has a purpose, debate has a purpose and making has a purpose. Passions can and do develop and shift within and across people in each type of activity. People develop and shift positions. Ideas evolve.
Innovation thinking and doing exists within and across complex dynamic systems in which randomness is a given and achieving simplicity requires sustained inquiry.
Innovation is lived experience, not a thing (like inspiration) that you can pin point to specific time or generate through repeatable process. Innovation competencies depend upon who you are, your education, your personality, historical context, cultural context, economic context, who you speak with, cognitive development, what you create, your job role…the list goes on.
Eliminate Waste (Recycle)
I’ve often witnessed promising innovations fail because the time frame to develop them is misaligned with how innovation thinking and doing occurs. I’ve seen spectacular innovations in development that were too early for market success and shelved. Often, the work done and lesson learned are lost at great cost. Yes, time pressure can be of value. However, does the freedom to explore emerging questions and findings as they demand deliver more value? Have we measured this?
Mindsets are tools we can use to improve innovation competency without compromising the value of the unique thinking, random conditions and changing contexts necessary for creative breakthroughs to occur. This is what makes your article so exciting to me. Too often, processes and rules are put in place that systematically dull and limit innovative thinking and waste time, money and careers. As you point out this can happen at the level of personal cognition but it happens at the level of organizational management as well.
Proposing the adoption of mindsets as tools for innovation thinking challenges the repeatable process structures approach to innovation. What I see here is absolutely brilliant innovative thinking.
COMMENTS
BY Cynthia DuVal
ON July 21, 2015 03:31 PM
This is a great article David. William Lam shared it on Linkedin and I found it there.
Thanks so much for the inspiration and food for thought. I appreciate your intention to encourage social sector leaders to adopt innovation oriented mindsets and your application of research to back up your ideas.
Your analysis moved me forward in my quest to understand innovation competencies and brings to mind questions that may expand the discussion and research on other mindsets that can be adopted to expand innovation thinking, doing and outcomes.
Here are some innovation oriented mindsets I’ve found to be productive in the emerging technology research and design space that may be of value to social sector leaders as well. Some of these may align with the mindsets you’ve presented and some may not. I would love to engage you and your readers in conversation about your article and thinking which is my purpose.
Continuous Questioning (Explore)
You write: “How teams mentally approach their innovation challenges can hurt, if not break, any undertaking. This is because innovation depends on a deep-seated tension within the human mind.” (Italics mine)
When I consider this using a socio-cultural psychology (activity theory) perspective, don’t completely understand your point. But I do wonder, what happens when we kick this up a notch to read: “Innovation thinking and doing is sometimes triggered by deep-seated tensions that emerge through conversations within individuals, between people and between people and the things we create.”
I wonder what ‘deep-seated tension within the human mind’ means. Does innovation actually depend upon deep-seated tension in our minds? I think there is much more to the story. Is tension drive? Is tension cognitive dissonance we are driven to resolve without conscious intent? Or, is innovation thinking and doing triggered by applying ourselves to resolving deep-seated tension? Could it be that dependecy isn’t upon the cognitive state but on our ability to perform mental and physical actions that resolve states of cognitive dis-ease? What knowledge am I missing that would cause me to miss the point you are making?
Does it help us to consider that deep-seated tension is just one cognitive state that stimulates innovative thinking? Does the pleasure associated with thinking new things play a role in triggering innovative thinking and doing? What role does satisfaction associated with problem resolution play? What new ideas can we discover and explore when we consider what other cognitive states might function to trigger innovative thinking and doing?
Cultivate Deep and Wide Understanding (Expand)
I’ve witnessed innovative visual experiences emerge out of improvisational play among a collaborative theater group. I’ve witnessed innovative thinking emerge through artist/object interactions during the creation of an innovative musical instrument. Humor and wit sometimes generate innovative ideas seemingly spontaneously. Social need inspires innovation. Emerging technologies inspire innovation. Is deep-seated tension descriptive of a single cognitive state or are there many cognitive states we can be consider using to trigger innovation thinking and doing?
Embrace Complexity and Randomness (Situate Innovation in What’s Real)
Regarding this: “Brainstorming creates great meetings; debate creates great innovations. Debate allows us to interrogate and challenge ideas, which makes the outcomes that emerge both more creative and likely to succeed.”
When it comes to innovation, brainstorming has a purpose, debate has a purpose and making has a purpose. Passions can and do develop and shift within and across people in each type of activity. People develop and shift positions. Ideas evolve.
Innovation thinking and doing exists within and across complex dynamic systems in which randomness is a given and achieving simplicity requires sustained inquiry.
Innovation is lived experience, not a thing (like inspiration) that you can pin point to specific time or generate through repeatable process. Innovation competencies depend upon who you are, your education, your personality, historical context, cultural context, economic context, who you speak with, cognitive development, what you create, your job role…the list goes on.
Eliminate Waste (Recycle)
I’ve often witnessed promising innovations fail because the time frame to develop them is misaligned with how innovation thinking and doing occurs. I’ve seen spectacular innovations in development that were too early for market success and shelved. Often, the work done and lesson learned are lost at great cost. Yes, time pressure can be of value. However, does the freedom to explore emerging questions and findings as they demand deliver more value? Have we measured this?
Mindsets are tools we can use to improve innovation competency without compromising the value of the unique thinking, random conditions and changing contexts necessary for creative breakthroughs to occur. This is what makes your article so exciting to me. Too often, processes and rules are put in place that systematically dull and limit innovative thinking and waste time, money and careers. As you point out this can happen at the level of personal cognition but it happens at the level of organizational management as well.
Proposing the adoption of mindsets as tools for innovation thinking challenges the repeatable process structures approach to innovation. What I see here is absolutely brilliant innovative thinking.
Best Regards,
Cynthia DuVal