Innovation to pioneer, innovation to disrupt

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.