Monday, July 17, 2006
Innovation is an Art but it is the People that Matter Most
I first came across the book The Art of Innovation, by Tom Kelley with Jonathan Littman, some time ago and found it a very interesting read. I had been reading all sorts of books on innovation, creativity, idea generation, new product development etc., got my PDMA new product development professional certification (NPDP), worked on some innovative and technically difficult projects, and I was beginning to form ideas in my mind as to the ideal environment and mentality that leads to great innovative activities. This book and the follow-up from Kelley, The Ten Faces of Innovation, reinforced my belief that if you surround yourself with people that have great creative skills, open minds and a bucket full of knowledge about how creativity is nurtured and killed, that you may well be able to achieve great things that are above and beyond the unprepared and unenlightened minds.
Is it the ability to solve problems that works? Is it that we have a great problem solver on our team? Is it that we have a great CEO with an excellent vision? Well, I think the CEO and the rest of the team must be in it together and it is the team as a 'collective force', all of them with the same mentality concerning innovation and creativity, all of them with a hunger for new things and an insatiable appetite for fun. Yet, if the members of the team have the same ideas on innovation, they should have disparate skill sets, technical backgrounds and/or cultural backgrounds, as it is these types of diversity that often leads to very creative ideas. This is more commonly known as innovating at the interface. This interface can be between cultures, disciplines, languages etc. Ideas happen at interfaces. This is also, probably one of the reasons that US industry is so innovative; they have a very disparate society, it is a giant melting pot of cultures and ideas and a willingness to give them a place in 'reality'.
Getting back to Kelley's books, they are loaded with examples of past successes, making clear all of the right things to do and most importantly the things that are very wrong to do. The human element of innovation is ever present these two books and they promote practices that are widely reported as ideal in a bulk of the literature available on the subject.
If managing the human side of innovation is what you find difficult at your place of work, these two books will certainly show you another way of handling people and their ideas that will empower you and revitalise your spirit for innovation. It is when your creative juices start to flow that you can inspire and revitalise others spirit for innovation. Innovation is infectious and everyone in your organisation must catch it. These two books will definitely be a good start.
Recommended Reading
Kelley T., Littman J., 2005, The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO's Strategies for Beating the Devil's Advocate & Driving Creativity Throughout your Organisation, Currency Doubleday.
Kelley T., Littman J., 2001, The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America's Leading Design Firm, Profile Books.
Is it the ability to solve problems that works? Is it that we have a great problem solver on our team? Is it that we have a great CEO with an excellent vision? Well, I think the CEO and the rest of the team must be in it together and it is the team as a 'collective force', all of them with the same mentality concerning innovation and creativity, all of them with a hunger for new things and an insatiable appetite for fun. Yet, if the members of the team have the same ideas on innovation, they should have disparate skill sets, technical backgrounds and/or cultural backgrounds, as it is these types of diversity that often leads to very creative ideas. This is more commonly known as innovating at the interface. This interface can be between cultures, disciplines, languages etc. Ideas happen at interfaces. This is also, probably one of the reasons that US industry is so innovative; they have a very disparate society, it is a giant melting pot of cultures and ideas and a willingness to give them a place in 'reality'.
Getting back to Kelley's books, they are loaded with examples of past successes, making clear all of the right things to do and most importantly the things that are very wrong to do. The human element of innovation is ever present these two books and they promote practices that are widely reported as ideal in a bulk of the literature available on the subject.
If managing the human side of innovation is what you find difficult at your place of work, these two books will certainly show you another way of handling people and their ideas that will empower you and revitalise your spirit for innovation. It is when your creative juices start to flow that you can inspire and revitalise others spirit for innovation. Innovation is infectious and everyone in your organisation must catch it. These two books will definitely be a good start.
Recommended Reading
Kelley T., Littman J., 2005, The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO's Strategies for Beating the Devil's Advocate & Driving Creativity Throughout your Organisation, Currency Doubleday.
Kelley T., Littman J., 2001, The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America's Leading Design Firm, Profile Books.
