Reprinted Article from November of 2009

Innovation in tight times is always hard. It can be especially difficult in the tough economic times we face now. To be the innovative person/business now is like being Noah facing the task of building an ark in the middle of a desert. You can compare it to the Wright brothers taking their first flight, and the preparations they took in the 1800’s to their inaugural flight of 1903. You could even make the argument that even the person who invented the idea of the ‘pet rock’ was innovative, while a huge stretch. What are you mad!Innovation not only takes time and dollars, but also a grain of insanity and a number of pennies to throw into a wishing well along with your prayers. All in the hopes the idea you created with will be successful.

It is interesting how Innovation, like Leadership, has become a “sexy” term in business.

In times of difficulty, strife, cloudy markets and unpredictable work environments; business is beginning to preach “Innovation” as a silver bullet to all our ill’s.

However, Innovation - like Leadership - is a term and practice that is often not set in stone.

There is not often a ‘formal way’ to make an ‘informal practice’… formal.

Trying to formalize an informal process is like trying to tell a rock to fly.

Innovative ideas are much like evolution… they happen and show progress in their own time.

“You cannot plant a seed then dig it up everyday to see how it is doing!” - often you just need to give it what it needs to grow and then allow it to grow!

Innovation does not come from one or the many. Innovation comes from the fusion of one with the many.

While creativity, genius and organization are important in the contribution to Innovation this does not necessarily mean that you have to be the most creative, ingenius or organized person for innovation to take place… you simply need to act on the question “why”

Charles Leadbeater discussing Innovation

Brian Cox on Innovation

All of us have had to face a problem that has forced us to look at a situation, the problem and the process in a different way. This change of perspective is important. The chaos also allows you to focus more on solving the true issue rather than knowing you have plenty of time to put it off until you put it off again.

This scene in Apollo 13 expresses the core of problem solving. The C02 leak caused the whole team from the mission commander to the front line engineers to  focus on the real issue. It is the unfamiliar and unwanted that, at times, becomes the needed chaos to force you through innovation.

The Apollo 13 “problem” was one of the single greatest problems the NASA space program ever had. This event allowed for a new way of thinking about how they planned, build and dealt with disaster situations and preventing them from the potential of them happening again.

When is the last time you accepted and wrestled with chaos and allowed that chaos to change what needed to be changed?

How did your greatest disaster allow you to become great?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNDuGuerpf8