Monday, October 17, 2011


Good article from today's WSJ on innovation / design.

How to Innovate More? Practice, Practice, Practice.

Nearly 100 innovative entrepreneurs and executives were interviewed by Jeff Dyer, a business-school professor at Brigham Young University, Hal Gregersen, a leadership professor at the business school INSEAD, and Clayton M. Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor, to see what makes them tick. The professors' conclusion: In order to "think different," you have to act different.

In their new book, "The Innovator's DNA," they outline five "discovery skills" that they say all innovators possess. Only one, the skill of associating—which the authors define as making connections across seemingly unrelated fields, problems or ideas—is a cognitive skill. The other four—questioning, observing, networking and experimenting—are behavioral skills.

What this means, they assert, is that virtually everyone has some capacity for creativity and innovative thinking. It just requires a change in behavior.

They say the key skill for generating innovative ideas is associating, and they concede that some people generate more associations than others partly because of the way their brains are wired. But they also insist that associational thinking can be triggered by questioning, observing, networking and experimenting—behaviors that innovators embrace.

So why do some people question, observe, network and experiment more frequently than others? The authors say it has to do with courage. The more people practice these skills, the more confident they become. And that is a page right out of the d.school playbook.

— Carolyn T. Geer

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