A Mindful Approach to Innovation

Innovation is largely an exercise in common sense. You can’t build a business on business principles alone, but you can grow your business with solutions that leverage your organization’s unique strengths and culture to explore new opportunities. This is the art of corporate innovation.

What matters most to a successful innovator is not what you know, but how you plan to use that information. It’s the difference between having a plan and executing a plan. It’s understanding why Porter’s Five Forces matter. It’s spending less time trying to guess what your customers care about, and more time asking them what they care about. It’s approaching complicated problems with simple solutions. It’s common sense.

In terms of innovation, common sense boils down to mindfulness. The MSTC program at the McCombs School of Business armed me with an arsenal of principles to defend important business decisions, as well as a practical understanding of those principles, which I’ve taken with me to cultivate a mindful approach to corporate innovation.

These are some of the lessons I’ve learned, and continue to learn, in my post-graduate career as a corporate innovator.

Innovate With Purpose

Focus on the things you can control. If you want to make an impact, you’re much better off focusing on what you can do, what value you can create, what problem you’re solving, etc. Stop trying to tear down mountains and start building tunnels.

I was first exposed to this concept shortly after graduation. Thinking I had all the answers because I had a degree to back them up, I wanted to fix all of my employer’s problems. After all, I thought, innovation starts with a problem that needs solving. As it turns out, people aren’t principles; they have emotions and motivations and other things beyond your control, and presenting a laundry list of problems is not a great way to convince corporate leadership that innovation is the answer.

After failing to incite immediate change, I realized that targeting operational problems like some sort of organizational bounty hunter isn’t very productive. The answer wasn’t to impose my opinion (educated or not), but rather to work with company leadership to build an innovation platform that contributes value to the organization and also happens to address the challenges I saw in a constructive way.

Change is usually good, and so is innovation. But innovating for the sake of innovation can easily fall flat. Before jumping to innovation as a solution, take some time to reflect on how and why innovation is the answer. Oftentimes, simple organizational fixes will be just as effective, and far less resource intensive, than developing an innovative solution.

Understand the Problem You’re Solving

Let’s say you’ve identified a problem, and you’re going to pursue a constructive solution that addresses that problem. Great!

Why are you targeting that problem? That’s the important question you need to be asking, and it’s a doozy. In order to answer that question properly, you need to understand every facet of the problem, which means you need to be prepared to answer a bevy of supplemental questions. Who is experiencing the problem? Do they view the problem as a problem? What caused the problem? What sustains the problem? So on and so forth…

The good news is that it’s unrealistic for anyone to understand every facet of a problem (see Perfection is a Myth below). What complicates matters is that problems evolve, sometimes wildly. That’s what you really need to understand about the problem you’re solving.

“The only true wisdom is knowing you know nothing”, Socrates. I’ve found this mantra to be quite powerful in the pursuit of innovation.

Time spent learning more about your problem is time invested wisely, but assuming you know everything there is to know about your problem is tunnel vision. Always be willing to question your assumptions and continue learning. The easiest way to avoid tunnel vision is to remain open to new perspectives and seek feedback from anyone who will give you their honest opinion. Speaking of which…

Listen

Listen to your customers. Decision makers. Colleagues. Champions. Detractors. Mentors. Subject matter experts. Listen to anyone who’s willing to offer an opinion about your innovation.

Everyone has an opinion, and every opinion has value. A subject matter expert on blockchain technology may not give you the same caliber of feedback as your grade-school nephew, but perspective is a broad spectrum and a wide array of opinions across that spectrum gives you a more vivid understanding of your innovation.

That said, some conversations are worth more than others. I was taught, and absolutely believe, that customer feedback is crucial for understanding your innovation and your target audience.

You surely have a lot of great ideas and solutions as well, but you’re not your audience. They are. If you’re able to actively listen to what they’re willing to tell you, it’s astounding how much of the burden of innovation their feedback will take off your shoulders. 

Perfection is a Myth

Don’t strive for perfection. Spare yourself the maddening practice of smoothing out every conceivable wrinkle and attempting to preempt the unpredictable. Once you’ve launched a new innovation, brand new complications will arise. And that’s great. That’s direct feedback, it’s challenging your assumptions, and it’s inevitable.

When you’re in the process of developing an innovation, at some point, you have to be able to tell yourself that good enough is good enough. As an innovator, you’re taking it upon yourself to explore virgin territory, so you must comfortable with the unknown. You can prepare yourself for what you think is beyond the horizon, but you’ll never actually know what’s out there until you start moving.

So “fail fast”, “nothing ventured; nothing gained”, “[insert risk metaphor here]”. Just remember that there is no such thing as true perfection. Figure out what your MVP looks like early on, and avoid gold-plating it. Having a network of candid advisors can be a great help in holding yourself accountable here.