The lazy innovator is more likely to come up with one idea and defend it with all the faith in the world that it will be the next world changing winner. “Why go any further when your first is a winner” they ask? Then the lazy innovator, with their one big winner, can happily embark on the voyage of a lifetime to new success and stardom. Only it’s not that big winner…. and the loss of money and time and energy and maybe the most important of all, hutzpah i.e. the guts to take a chance. It’s not like “The Biggest Loser” show where if you lose big you make more points. (Although big, egg on your face failures are memorable learning events.) It is so much easier to lose some money or ego on an idea when it is not your whole bank account and you have more ideas in storage waiting for a try.
That is maybe the most important lesson to learn when starting to innovate. Small efforts, more tries with more ideas is the way to learn and gather momentum and momentum and confidence are so critical when you first launch an innovation effort. Building an innovative company is a marathon and not a sprint so you have to pace yourself and your bank account. You want to be able to afford lots of little failures especially in startup, because that seems to be the way we learn the most. Then you capture the lessons from the efforts you’ve made. That means taking lots of notes, journaling and being organized about filing your discoveries so you can easily recall what you have learned. (This is not like a lazy innovator.) It takes work and courage to learn from your mistakes but that is the way you build your unique knowledge and enable the continuous learning that can one day result in the big idea that really does change the world!
So, spread the risk by insisting on more than 2 or 3 ideas before going to evaluation and market. I like to see at least ten ideas to come from a creative brainstorming because it is really hard to come up with that many without stretching beyond the normal. Good luck!
That is maybe the most important lesson to learn when starting to innovate. Small efforts, more tries with more ideas is the way to learn and gather momentum and momentum and confidence are so critical when you first launch an innovation effort. Building an innovative company is a marathon and not a sprint so you have to pace yourself and your bank account. You want to be able to afford lots of little failures especially in startup, because that seems to be the way we learn the most. Then you capture the lessons from the efforts you’ve made. That means taking lots of notes, journaling and being organized about filing your discoveries so you can easily recall what you have learned. (This is not like a lazy innovator.) It takes work and courage to learn from your mistakes but that is the way you build your unique knowledge and enable the continuous learning that can one day result in the big idea that really does change the world!
So, spread the risk by insisting on more than 2 or 3 ideas before going to evaluation and market. I like to see at least ten ideas to come from a creative brainstorming because it is really hard to come up with that many without stretching beyond the normal. Good luck!
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