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Commerce
Dertlef Reis
How can we learn from Christopher Columbus, Pablo Picasso, Aristotle, King Solomon, and John
Rambo to succeed in an innovation project? We have to adopt their mindset to guide our thinking at
the right stage of an idea project. Today, I invite you to study the Five Plus One Mindsets of Innovation that
we use at THINKERGY to guide our clients through our proprietary X-IDEA Process.
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CREATIVITY Un-Ltd.: The fiveplus-one
mindsets of innovation
1. The Explorer: The first innovation mindset you
need to adopt is that of an explorer. Curiosity, mental
flexibility, ambivalent thinking and courage are the
prime characteristics of an explorer. Not too long ago,
many parts of the world were terra incognita, unknown
territories. It was the job of an explorer to travel into
the unknown terrain, gain new insights about the
territory, and on returning home, share information
so that a new, more accurate map could be drawn.
Similarly, exploration is the start of every idea project.
Begin your explorer’s journey by firstly expressing
your initial understanding of the business challenge
that you are facing. Then express what you know
about the project and - more importantly - what
you do not know yet about the situation (i.e., map
out the familiar terrain and the knowledge frontier).
Thereafter, explore the ambiguity of your unfamiliar
knowledge terrain by using exploration tools to
gain novel insights. Finally, after having acquired
a better understanding of the situation, you are
able to express your final challenge statement.
22. The Artist: As you move into the Ideation stage,
it is time to step into a new mental role: the artist.
An artist in its closest definition is a person who
produces paintings or drawings. Artists indulge their
imagination and creativity and also show courage to
suggest wild ideas. Now please imagine looking at a
masterpiece of your favourite artist right in front of
you. While you recall its beauty, don’t forget that in
order to arrive at this final masterpiece, your beloved
artist first produced many, many sketches and
detailed studies. The vast majority of those sketches
and studies were later discarded. When you ideate,
follow a similar production process and focus first
on creating many, many, many raw ideas. They will
be your vital input material out of which you will
compose truly good ideas.
33. The Alchemist: According to myth, an Alchemist
has the power to transform something common
into something special. Transforming common
raw ideas into special real ideas is exactly what
we aim to achieve in the development stage.
To do this job, we fall back on key principles of
alchemy: discovery and experimentation based on
trial and error. “Discovery consists of seeing what
everybody has seen, and thinking what nobody
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has thought,” noted the Hungarian Nobel Prizewinning
biochemist Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi.
We first need to discover intriguing raw ideas
and then transform them into real ideas through
experimentation and the help of special Idea
Development Tools. This might take some time
and effort - so recall the advice of the legendary US
inventor Thomas A. Edison: “Genius is one percent
inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”
Also note that a great alchemist first and foremost
relies on a highly developed intuition and follows a
radiant, experimental and creative mental process that
differs significantly from the sequential, systematic
and logical thinking of a scientist.
Innovation, how can it be defined?
A convenient definition of innovation from an organizational
perspective is given by Luecke and Katz (2003) who wrote:
“Innovation . . . is generally understood as the successful
introduction of a new thing or method . . . Innovation is
the embodiment, combination, or synthesis of knowledge
in original, relevant, valued new products, processes, or
services. (p. 2)”
Don Sheelen also placed innovation at the pinnacle of
modern business stating that:
“Innovation is the lifeblood of any organization.” Sheelan
emphasizes that “without it, not only is there no growth,
but, inevitably, a slow death.”
volume 2, 2013