Innovation isn’t what you think it is

First in the “Managing Innovation” essay series

This essay is one in a series of essays inspired by two decades of experience as an innovation professional, spanning domains from academic to corporate, technical subject areas ranging from consumer electronics to high altitude ballooning, and organizational structures from small teams and startups to fortune 100 companies. I’ve had successes and failures, launched and killed projects and companies. I’ve had the privilege of working with amazing teams, colleagues, and mentors. As a consequence of all of this I’ve learned a lot. In this essay series I explore innovation leadership and innovation culture from the perspective of in-the-trenches lived experience. After all, why should you repeat my mistakes when there are so many interesting new mistakes to be made?

introduction

As an executive innovation consultant, CEOs and business leaders come to me for help in setting up innovation labs, fixing broken organizational process around innovation, or building innovation teams. They have dreams of turning their organization into the next Apple or Bell Labs. There’s just one problem with their innovation dreams: they’ve got the concept of “innovation” all wrong.

What is innovation? If you think innovation is simply making something new, you are missing a central, terrifying idea. The long history of innovation has proven time and again that innovation isn’t about making something new, it…