Today's most dynamic thinkers and innovators live and
operate ahead of the curve every day. So how do they think and how does the “Innovators' DNA”
work?
Harvard Business School’s “Creativity at Work” conducted a six-year study surveying 3,000 creative executives and also a further 500 individual interviews.
Professors Jeff Dyer of Brigham Young University, Hal
Gregersen of Insead, and Clay Christensen of HBS further explored this topic in
an article which will appear in the December issue of Harvard Business Review.
During the study they found five "discovery skills" that distinguish the creatives.
The first skill is what they called "associating." It's a cognitive skill that allows creative people to make connections across seemingly unrelated questions, problems, or ideas.
The second skill is questioning – an ability to ask
"what if", "why", and "why not" questions that
challenge the status quo and open up the bigger picture.
The third is the ability to closely observe details, particularly the details of people's behaviour. Another skill is the ability to experiment - the people they studied are always trying on new experiences and exploring new worlds.
And finally, they are really good at networking with smart people who have little in common with them, but from whom they can learn.
So which of these skills is the most important?
The team found that questioning can “turbo-charge”
observing, experimenting, and networking, but that on its own doesn't have a
direct effect without the others. Overall, they assert that associating is the
key skill because new ideas aren't created without connecting problems or ideas
in ways that they haven't been connected before. The other behaviours are
inputs that trigger associating--so they are a means of getting to a creative
end.
All of the skills noted could be described in one word: "inquisitiveness." That was the big common denominator with leaders. It's the same kind of inquisitiveness you see in small children. How do the innovative entrepreneurs studied differ from average executives?
All the executives in the study were asked to describe how they came up with a strategic or innovative idea. That one was easy for the creative executives, but surprisingly difficult for the more traditional ones. Interestingly, all the innovative entrepreneurs also talked about being triggered, or having what might be described as "eureka" moments. In describing how they came up with a product or business idea, they would use phrases like "I saw someone doing this, or I overheard someone say that, and that's when it hit me."
Executives are very smart, so why can't they, or don't they think inquisitively? There may well be far more discovery-driven people in companies than anyone realises. Fifteen per cent of executives are deeply innovative (meaning they've invented a new product or started an innovative venture). But the problem is that even the most creative people are often careful about asking questions for fear of looking stupid, or because they know the organisation won't value it.
They invite us to consider the average 4 year old, constantly asking questions and wondering how things work. But by the time they are around 6 years old they slow down asking questions because they quickly learn that teachers value the right answers more than provocative questions. They comment that high school students rarely show inquisitiveness and that by the time they're grown up and are in corporate settings, they have already had curiosity drummed out of them. 80% of executives spend less than 20% of their time on discovering new ideas. (Unless, of course, they work for companies like Apple or Google.)
Most innovative entrepreneurs were very lucky to have been
raised in an atmosphere where inquisitiveness was encouraged. They told stories
about being sustained by people who cared about experimentation and
exploration. Sometimes these people were relatives, but sometimes they were
neighbours, teachers or other influential adults. A number of the innovative
entrepreneurs also went to Montessori schools, where they learned to follow
their curiosity. To paraphrase the famous Apple ad campaign, innovators not
only learned to think differently early on, they act differently – and
even talk differently.
Unfortunately all this means that there are the haves and the have-nots in this area, which just goes to prove that you have to choose your parents and your school very carefully!
Source: blogs.harvardbusiness.org
Image: Burt Clifton
The discovery is a real good innovative way to make people analyze how they differ from other so called creative and dynamic thinkers. Thanks for sharing this lucrative post.
Posted by: Corporate Drumming | October 01, 2009 at 08:26 AM