The Innovator's DNA

The Innovator's DNA

1. Associating

   • The four patterns of action together help innovators associate to cultivate new insights.
     • “Medici effect,” referring to the creative explosion in Florence when the Medici family brought together people from a wide range of disciplines – sculptors, scientists, poets, philosophers, painters, and architects. As these individuals connected, new ideas blossomed at the intersections of their respective fields, thereby spawning the Renaissance, one of the most inventive eras in history.

2. Questioning

   • Questioning allows innovators to break out of the status quo and consider new possibilities
     • Challenge common wisdom. Ask “Why?” and “Why not?” and “What if?”
       • Always disagreeing with what I’m being told and taking the opposite position, and pushing others to really justify themselves
     • Embrace constraints: Ironically, great questions actively impose constraints on our thinking and serve as a catalyst for out-of-the-box insights.

3. Observing

   • Observing, innovators detect small behavioral details – in the activities of customers, suppliers, and other companies – that suggest new ways of doing things
     • Innovators carefully, intentionally, and consistently look out for small behavioral details – in the activities of customers, suppliers, and other companies – in order to gain insights about new ways of doing things.
       • “You see something and ask, ‘Why do they do that? That doesn’t make sense.’”
         • Discovery-driven executives produce uncommon business ideas by scrutinizing common phenomena, particularly the behavior of potential customers.

4. Experimenting

   • Experimenting, they relentlessly try on new experiences and explore the world
     • Like scientists, innovative entrepreneurs actively try out new ideas by creating prototypes and launching pilots
     • Experimenters construct interactive experiences and try to provoke unorthodox responses to see what insights emerge

5. Networking

   • Through networking with individuals from diverse backgrounds, they gain radically different perspectives
     • Innovative entrepreneurs go out of their way to meet people with diff erent kinds of ideas and perspectives to extend their own knowledge domains.
       • They also attend idea conferences such as Technology, Entertainment, and Design (TED), Davos, and the Aspen Ideas Festival.

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