antipattern

Innovation powers the modern world. You can argue whether that is good or bad, but if you are interested in how innovation actually works, it becomes quite murky quickly.

We can easily see how something is innovative, but how did it actually happen? Who are the people behind the innovation, and how did they do it?

The American culture of innovation subscribes to the existence of a hero. You likely heard the names of Edison, Einstein, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs in this context. These are the guys that somehow, through some unique “brain quirk”, came up with something really useful and valuable to humanity.

(I pause for criticism.)

OK, so if we want an innovation, we need an innovator. A good one. Where do we find one?

This is of course question a lot of companies ask themselves, and are often willing to spend a lot of money on, especially if they are large and looking for more revenue streams, cool new products, and mind share.

Now finding an innovator to do your bidding (hey you, start innovating for me!) is a really major problem.

The truth is that good innovators are not easy to find. There are simply not that many. You are probably talking about a very very small fraction of a percent of the world population. There are some attempts to identify innovators, and the 30 under 30 type lists immediately spring to mind.

OK, so your company search for an innovator “just for you” is likely going to turn up short very fast.

The reality is that most innovators are innovating already, and probably doing it quite successful all by themselves, without you bringing your own demands into the equation.

Basically, innovators are not interested in your company.

OK, so now what?

Well, you can lower your standards. Maybe you don't need a Steve Jobs, just someone from the second or maybe third tiers of innovators, that is willing to do your bidding.

Sounds doable, right?

Well first you will need a way to identify these innovators. What criteria should you look for?

I think most would agree that innovators need to know a lot of stuff. Knowing a lot of stuff means somebody that has learned a lot of stuff, and done a lot of things themselves. They keep up with the latest stuff by reading.

Actually, if you dig deeper behind the “established” innovators, you will find that they are all life long learners, and spend an extra-ordinary amount of time reading.

Often reading all sorts of topics they are interested in. Essentially it means more than just reading the New York times every day.

I think you would also agree that your personal innovator will have to spend a lot of time thinking. The idea has to come from somewhere, right?

Good so far. We need somebody that always learns and also thinks a lot.

Of course, your personal innovator will need to think about things that are relevant to you and your business. So the best is to have someone that knows your business, and so the innovator will probably need to spend a lot of time talking to folks in your business. To get the lay of the land, so to say.

OK, we are getting there. We need an avid reader, thinker and talker.

What else?

Oh, the innovator should be able to “sell” the idea to management! Should be pretty convincing and solid presenter, otherwise no-one is going to do any of it. Come to think of it, the innovator better be really good at that, because my company is pretty old-fashioned and new ideas typically get shot down. So the person probably needs to have a thick skin.

So now we have reader, thinker, talker, presenter, and sales person.

Probably an older person with some gravitas, I would say. Oh, it seems I forgot to add experience. Not too controversial either, because we don't want more crazy people, come to think of it.

Right!

Reader, thinker, talker, presenter, sales person, gravitas, older, experienced, and relatively normal.

Anything else?

Best be able to take some direction from others, since a person like this can go onto all sorts of tangents that could be very disruptive. And I could look bad if that person is mucking things up for everyone, or heaven forbid screws up the quarterly report.

Reader, thinker, talker, presenter, sales person, gravitas, older, experienced, relatively normal, and a follower.

(Pause.)

We can go on and on like this. We can think of all sorts of criteria for the job. Everyone has an idea what this person should be.

Good luck writing the job description.

Your personal innovator is like Robocop that got programmed with all sorts of contradictory sh*t at the factory and then goes berserk when helping an old lady across the street.

HR will laugh at you.

But lets be optimistic. You finally found your guy or gal!

Now your innovator sits in the corner office just thinking and talking, and doing stuff that nobody knows about, and everyone is really getting pissed off that this guy is actually paid to do that. He is just reading blogs and stuff. Sometimes just stares at the ceiling a really long time. Its been going on like that for 3 months now!

Who the hell came up with the idea to be innovative in the first place?