Help
While there are no maps, there are attitudes that help. Any good survival training course teaches not just skills, but ways to think. The comparison between innovation and survival is apt; to follow the comparison, here are ways of thinking about paths that can shift the odds.
- Gain self-knowledge. Every tough decision is made in part by how the innovator feels about herself: none of us is as logical as we like to believe. Being aware of the environments or challenges that inspire the best results for your personality helps you make smart path choices. The best business opportunity might be the least interesting personal challenge, and vice versa. Knowing yourself, and your team, is a big advantage and should guide decisions. It’s one of the few uncertainties of innovation that, given time, can always be converted into certain knowledge and used as an asset.
- Reward interesting failures. If you are exploring the unknown, failures will happen. Having a positive attitude about failure is therefore critical (which isn’t to say making stupid mistakes should be encouraged). But any mistake that teaches you, or someone who works with you, something previously unknowable without having done the experiment is a valuable lesson. And it’s this attitude that is consistent among all great inventors. They rewarded themselves for doing experiments and learning from them, rather than exclusively rewarding success.
- Be intense, but step back. Many successful innovators work passionately, but periodically step back and ask, “What is happening in the world that impacts my goals?” or “What else is my work good for?” Innovation is powered by the combination of intensity and a willingness to reconsider assumptions, minimizing the chance of following dead ends and maximizing the potential for finding better paths. Honest friends can lend their perspectives if asked—you just have to be ready to hear hard truths. It’s difficult to bet years on an idea and maintain the courage to question, rethink, and fully commit again in a different direction.
- Grow to size. No patent was written and filed in an hour, and no symphony was orchestrated overnight. Changing the world or revolutionizing an industry is a nice fantasy, but it’s foolish to start with those ambitions because they’re out of any individual’s control. All things equal, it makes more sense to attack a specific problem in a known field; only as successes accrue should the ambition grow. Many world-changing ideas had humble beginnings and started with small questions like, “Can I make this better?” Use ego and ambition to fuel a progression of innovations and not to distract you from the best opportunities, however ordinary, nearby.
- Honor luck and the past. The great egos of innovation have one success story that they repeat (to the misery of their companions) forever. Never having the courage to attempt something new or admit the role of luck, they spend much of the present talking about the past. Honoring luck doesn’t diminish an accomplishment: it’s an acknowledgment to others that you can do everything right and fail, and do many things wrong and succeed. The greatest innovators never failed to acknowledge luck, chance, and the sacrifices of their predecessors. Isaac Newton wrote, “I have stood on the shoulders of giants,”[73] and Einstein noted, “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” Perhaps innovators deserve the most respect for their courage in confronting uncertainty, a fear common to us all.
[73] This quote was almost certainly false modesty. Newton was arrogant, often resorting to childish mockery of his many adversaries.
Learn more about this topic from The Myths of Innovation.
In this new paperback edition of the classic bestseller, you'll be taken on a hilarious, fast-paced ride through the history of ideas. Author Scott Berkun will show you how to transcend the false stories that many business experts, scientists, and much of pop culture foolishly use to guide their thinking about how ideas change the world. With four new chapters on putting the ideas in the book to work, updated references and over 50 corrections and improvements, now is the time to get past the myths, and change the world.
