Just to get a hang of how few of my acquaintances feel about innovation, and debate around potential to be disruptive, I decided to present a few takeaway points I gathered from the excellent book The Innovator’s Dilemma. The thoughts, ideas, historical facts laid out in that book are indeed brilliant, and I must say the ideas in the book are the primary reasons I could articulate some of my own internal thoughts.
Most the points got through my friends easily. At some points I felt I had to explain using few examples. But in essence, many of my friends did show an appreciation of tendencies, signals that cause disruptive innovations to take seed. One of them also pointed me to a recent paperback Inc. article which did a take on debunking the myth on innovating.
Ok, first off I believe the presentation went OK. While I still improve on that, I must say something triggered in the back of my mind during the last 50 minutes which I feel I need to answer for myself. I find that there is basic disconnect in what we term innovation is, and who are innovators.
Let me say that first of all I acknowledge the fact that many ideas from The Innovator’s Dilemma are essentially the author’s opinion of what factors underpin an innovation to take seed and grow. The author’s ideas are indeed convincing, have a sound basis of data interpretation, and are in fact simple to fathom if you think about history of innovation seriously.
What I takeaway in hindsight is that these ideas are not supposed to be taken as answers literally. It will be a fallacy to blindly follow all principles from the book verbatim with little or no serious effort into really absorbing the ideas. That is probably what the Inc article on debunking myths around innovation seems to do.
Second, the whole buzz around innovation is not about getting rich quick, getting rich smart. In fact, I go as far as saying that getting materialistic gains is never the primary point of innovation! It’s more of a side-effect that follows, but is never inherent to notion of innovating. Innovation to an innovator is more personally engaged in that it results generally becoming acceptable to others than just the innovator alone.
Most of the innovations are never about getting innovation to become successful. Instead I believe innovation is about personal sense of achievement, confirming (reinforcing) the innovator’s belief that whatever their dream they set out to achieve ultimately became a reality. In many ways, I tend to consider innovating as more along the lines of pioneering spirit. As Kim Woo-jung correctly quotes in his brilliant book Every street is paved with gold, the innovator does not work hard for a few coins, because he/she can make money anytime. The whole idea of innovation is never about justifying success as a means to an end. Instead innovation is all about innovator achieving his/her fullest potential in this short span of worldly existence here amongst us. To that comment, I do greatly respect entrepreneurs who give young aspiring entrepreneurs the invaluable gift of believing in your dreams.
Third, innovation treated from a perspective of ‘known’ facts is like generally trying to fit round pegs in round holes. Again quoting Kim Woo-jung (and the same comment is aptly coined as an innovator’s dilemma) – when you try to do something better than other’s, then you will be only as successful as other’s could have been if they chose to follow you. What makes an innovator different is repeatedly attempting something that an innovator believes only an innovator can do. If an innovator cannot begin to see beyond what the environment offers, then the innovator is merely a smart businessman looking to get lucky. An innovator if determined can make it possible to fit a square peg in a round hole.
Pioneers, businessmen are both essential for innovation. Some want to be rich, famous, while some seek meaning, a sense of higher purpose in their life. I believe innovators seek such purpose and a meaning. The rewards with each innovation attempt are of a value greater than innovation itself. I once quoted an excellent phrase I heard which says it takes courage to see the dreams which only you can see.
It is my humble advice to fellow innovator’s, and aspiring entrepreneurs – Seek to evolve yourself beyond what you thought is possible for you now. Seek to answer, rather than looking for answers. Innovate and disruption will follow.
Adapted from a book Outliers – The Story of Success by Malcomm Gladwell
Around page 150, the author mentions about a young man – Borgenicht, a Jew immigrating to New York – who decides to make a living by sewing aprons, frocks, and is able to sell off his first 40 aprons by putting all he had – $12 life savings – into it. He, together with his wife Regina, cut and sewed day and night. He was able to sell off what he made, which was the start of a new business for him.
Some paragraphs ‘click’ my attention,
“Borgenicht says he had only $200 in the bank, but already he was in charge of his own destiny.”
…
“What Borgenicht was getting in his 18-hour days was a lesson in modern economy. He was learning market research. He was learning manufacturing. He was learning how to negotiate. He was learning how to ‘plug’ himself into popular culture.”
…
(Here comes the most important paragraph that rhymes with my own thoughts)
“When Borgenicht came home at night to his children, he may have been tired, poor and overwhelmed. But he was ‘alive’. He was his own ‘boss’. He was responsible for his own decisions and direction. His work was complex; it engaged his mind and imagination. And in his work, there was a relationship between effort and reward: the longer he and Regina stayed up at night sewing aprons, the more money they made next day on the streets.
Those 3 things – autonomy, complexity, and effort-reward connection – are 3 qualities that work must have to be ‘satisfying’.
It is not how much money we make, but it’s whether our work fulfills us. Work that fulfills is ‘meaningful’.
When Borgenicht came home that night after having the idea to sew child’s apron, he danced. He hadn’t sold anything yet. He was still penniless and desperate. He also knew that to make something of his idea was going to require years of backbreaking labor.
But he was ecstatic, because the prospect of labor then never seemed like a burden to him. Hard work is a prison sentence only if is does not have meaning.
Once it does, it becomes the kind of thing that makes you grab your wife around her waist, and dance.”