"…one’s ability to generate innovative ideas is not merely a function of the mind, but also a function of behaviors."
- The Innovator’s DNA, page 3
"When engaged in consistently, these actions – questioning, observing, networking, and experimenting – triggered associational thinking to deliver new businesses, products, services, and/or processes."- The Innovators DNA, page 3
To “think different”, innovators have to “act different”. Per their exhaustive research, the authors determined that the broad range of innovators that they interviewed and studied did not differ significantly on personality traits or psychometric measures from typical business executives. What they discovered, though, were distinct and consistent “patterns of action”. Successful innovators, driven by a deep sense of curiosity on all things, systematically:
They simply were much more likely to use these behavioral skills (also called discovery skills by the authors) compared to typical executives; spending on average 50% more time on these activities. Successful innovators also shared the cognitive ability of associational thinking, “linking together ideas that aren’t obviously related to produce original ideas”.
The critical insights of the research clearly demonstrated that it was the combination of these five behaviors and skills that were necessary to create the code for generating innovative business ideas: associational thinking, best triggered and fueled by the behavioral skills of questioning, observing, networking and experimenting, lead to innovation. This alignment of skills, which can be learned and practiced, is what the researchers call the innovator’s DNA.
"The best predictor of excellent associating skills was how often people engaged in the other discovery skills."- The Innovators DNA, page 49
TED (Technology Entertainment and Design) conferences’ greatest value comes from its ability to attract and drive an inspired diversity of participants and presentations. Per the book’s research, successful innovators literally construct a TED in their heads through constantly searching out an intentional depth and diversity of life experiences. This active pursuit of a wide band of new information, ideas and perspectives are the key catalysts for their creative associations. Consider mathematically: as the number of different building-block ideas in our heads grows linearly, the potential ways to recombine those ideas grows even faster, or geometrically. Think Lego pieces.
The Innovator’s DNA devotes individual chapters on each of the major discovery skills of questioning, observing, networking, experimenting and associational thinking. The researchers illustrate how we, like successful innovators, can consistently practice these skills and hone them into guiding habits that extract a formidable range of ideas and information.
"Creativity is connecting things."- Steve Jobs, quoted in The Innovators DNA, page 41
It is inescapable. Almost all studies on innovation and creativity reinforce the simple definition provided above by Steve Jobs. As well, Einstein once called “combinatorial play” the “essential feature in productive thought”. The research in this book further verifies that successful innovators share and continuously develop this cognitive skill which is “at the core of the innovator’s DNA”.
The authors provide a number of tips on how innovators successfully develop their associating skills. These all represent exercises that literally force you out of habitual thinking patterns:
1. Practice forcing associations on challenges by choosing random entries you find in product catalogues, magazine articles or Wikipedia entries.
2. Take on the persona of a different company or respected leader. How would Google or Steve Jobs handle this challenge?
3. Use the SCAMPER exercise of alternatingly using Substitution, Combination, Adaptation, Magnifying/minimizing/modifying, Putting ideas to other uses, Elimination, and Reversal/rearrangement.
4. Build your own curiosity box of odd, interesting objects as they often help in triggering new associations. IDEO (the world’s most successful design firm and innovation consultancy) encourages their people to collect and openly display items in their work areas that refer back to previous project successes, inspirations, or of general interest to cross-fertilize team members.
5. Generate metaphors or analogies with your products or services as “each analogy holds the potential for seeing things from an uncommon perspective”.
Shrouding something in mystery adds to its allure but distances it from wide-scale acceptance and practical usefulness. Such is the world of creativity and innovation. The more we demystify these personal and business forces, the more we can understand, apply and create new solutions to our challenges.
Clayton M. Christensen is the Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. In addition to his most recent book, How Will You Measure Your Life, he is the author of seven critically-acclaimed books, including several New York Times bestsellers — The Innovator’s Dilemma, The Innovator’s Solution and most recently, Disrupting Class. Christensen is the co-founder of Innosight, a management consultancy; Rose Park Advisors, an investment firm; and the Innosight Institute, a non-profit think tank. In 2011, he was named the world’s most influential business thinker by Thinkers50.
