In the December issue of Harvard Business Review, Jeffrey H. Dyer, Hal B. Gregersen, and Clayton M. Christensen discuss the five "discovery skills" that make true innovators stand out from the crowd.
They say: "Perhaps for this reason, we stand in awe of visionary entrepreneurs like Apple’s Steve Jobs, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, eBay’s Pierre Omidyar, and P&G’s A.G. Lafley. How do these people come up with groundbreaking new ideas? If it were possible to discover the inner workings of the masters’ minds, what could the rest of us learn about how innovation really happens?"
Attempting to find some answers, the trio undertook a six-year study to cast light on the origins of creative and disruptive business strategies in especially innovative companies, putting entrepreneurs under the spotlight to examine how and when they came up with the key ideas.
Studying the habits of 25 innovative entrepreneurs and surveying more than 3,000 executives and 500 individuals who had started innovative companies or invented new products, Dyer, Gregersen and Christensen discovered that senior executives of the most innovative companies (15% in the study) do the creative work themselves rather than delegate it.
The research also pinpointed five "discovery skills" that distinguish the most creative executives.
The authors explain: "We found that innovative entrepreneurs (who are also CEOs) spend 50% more time on these discovery activities than do CEOs with no track record for innovation. Together, these skills make up what we call the innovator’s DNA. And the good news is, if you’re not born with it, you can cultivate it."
These five discovery skills are...
Questioning: Innovators can break free of the status quo and open themselves up to new possibilities with a questioning attitude.
Observing: Innovators can observe others and detect small details in the behaviour of customers, suppliers and other companies. From those observations they can work out new methods of practice.
Experimenting: Innovators are experimental in nature and are constantly trying new experiences and exploring new ideas.
Networking: Innovators can gain radically different perspectives by networking with individuals from diverse backgrounds.
Associating: Innovators can use the four patterns above together to help them associate and cultivate new insights.
The Innovator’s DNA
Jeffrey H. Dyer, Hal B. Gregersen, and Clayton M. Christensen, Harvard Business Review, December issue
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