Innovation is practice, practice, practice

‘Strategies, ideas and projects’ seems to be the core of innovation for most people. True innovation however, is aimed at capability, mindset and transformation of yourself and that of your organisation. Ideas, strategies and perhaps even scale will follow. First, one needs to practice.

The anecdote of the image below is about Mischa Elman a famous violinist from the early 1900’s. After a disappointing concert he was walking home down the streets of New York. A passer-by asks him “How do I get to Carnegie Hall”. Mischa answers without looking up: “Practice, practice, practice”. 🤗

And Mischa is right! This is also the crux of innovation! Innovation is the practice to change, practice to discover and practice to recognize new opportunity. It has little to do with new technology, future business goals and gadgets, or even halo projects and putting A.I. in everything but the kitchen sink. You could do that, but the focus should be: How do I get better at this? How can I see my next S-Curve and the one after that? How can I expand my perspective so I can learn more, new things?

How you have changed after your many failed and half-assed projects is key. “We learned a lot” is a common euphemism of startups, after they disbanded the teams and popped the bubble of their stakeholders. Persevering should be the core of a ‘innovation strategy’. ‘How you learn’ after failure, rage quitting and market mismatch is truly the highest yield of innovation. Incorporating said learnings into the DNA of your identity, mindset, approach and future interests is in fact Innovation.

Aiming your projects to maximize learning, do away with the misconception of viability of innovation, embrace and capture the awkwardness, pain, smiles, inspiration and despair is your Innovation strategy. Don’t make a strategy of your technology goals, make a strategy how you will enable the future you, how they have changed, how they see more, change faster and be better.

If your innovation project succeeded, either your ambitions are too low, focussed on the wrong things, or you didn’t try hard enough. After a success you have learned only what you can do, what you are and most likely what you have been for a while. Innovation is aimed at what you could do and what you should do, and even what you should be.

Only one way to get there: Practice, practice, practice!