You’re struggling to innovate in the workplace. What are some common myths that might be holding you back?

Innovation is a team sport not a solo effort; always ensure it addresses something real and not hypothetical. It takes a combined set of different skills to truly innovate successfully.

I categorize innovations into 3 categories, Core, Adjacent, and Transformative. Core innovations use your organizations existing capabilities to create one time value. Adjacent innovations add new capabilities to your organization which add new and reoccurring value. Transformative innovations require significant changes to your organization’s capabilities to pivot your entire business. Some people call this disruptive innovation, but it is really only disruptive to your competitors, it is transformative for your organization. Many innovation campaigns start with the goal of Transformative innovation out of the gate, which is like winning a marathon in your first race. Truth is it takes training, discipline, & experience in Innovation

More than 50 years ago, E. Paul Torrance, developed a creativity assessment that would serve as a counterbalance to the Intelligence assessment (IQ) test. The reason: creative intelligence is every bit as important as traditional intelligence. What's more important? The underlying skills such as divergent thinking and associative thinking are not merely a genetic attribute, they are cultivatable. And while research has found that some people are born 'off the charts' creative thinkers, for the rest of us there is hope to develop our creativity skills.

It starts with spotting what doesn’t work and asking, “what if…?” See it as a joint effort, some spot problems, others come up with possible ways to solve and others make it happen. It’s rare that one person can do it all

I totally disagree with the statement that innovation is only for geniuses. Based on my experience, innovation born from the ability to spot a problem and try to find a solution and sometimes in the easiest way. Of course, some people are born with the ability to innovate, but it does not mean that it can't be practiced.

Hay que tener cuidado con esta afirmación porque resulta ser una falacia en creatividad e innovación. Sí, toda innovación surge cuando una idea es abordada y mejorada en la iteraccion con personas, particularmente en las etapas finales de los procesos creativos, pero esto no quiere decir que en etapas previas no se pueda trabajar en solitario, sobretodo en las previas de observación.

Innovation is a solo act? Could be. The innovative ideas could be born from one person, but the innovation and transformation could only be done with a team work.

I would say innovation is not a linear process but a residual process. You do not know in what day/time the desired result will occur, but as long as you keep doing it, evaluate and adjust it, you are getting closer to your desired outcome. It's not necessarily you implementing a new specific method and framework today, you will get an instant result the very same day, it's a compounding effect from a continuous and collaborative actions.

Rarely is innovation, let alone new ways of working or ideation, a linear process. Fail and fail fast and pivot when you realise the solution does not address the question. But have a relentless focus on what you are trying to address and do not stray from that. How you get there may be different but you will still solve the exam question.

Innovation, as with most things, comes in many guises. What is innovative and disruptive to one may be progression for another. Innovation is about improving something or addressing a challenge for the benefit of others. Not everything has to be disruptive, stay focussed on the challenge you are addressing.

"Disruptive Innovation" is one of the most widely, and incorrectly used words in the corporate world. I've heard it thrown around in meeting rooms casually, "we're all about disruptive innovation!" The truth is most innovation is rarely disruptive. Disruption in the innovation sense means a new solution for a new audience, it's creating something that genuinely addresses unmet needs. So, don't use this term incorrectly. If you're incrementally improving on a process, call it what it is: innovation that leads to an improvement. Value the incrementalists. Value continual improvement. Then you'll appreciate true disruptive innovation when it comes around more clearly.

Innovation is more about failure than success. Think about innovation as walking in a maze. You hit dead ends and need retrace steps all the time. Expect to discover what doesn’t work, and don’t keep on with an idea if it really doesn’t have a future.

I find this perspective amusing. Embracing the difficulties that creativity and innovation often encounter is tough, with a high likelihood of failure for many. However, the key to reaching that 1% success is persistence, continuous learning, and consistent execution.

Innovation is seeing with fresh eyes. That might be the problem or a solution. Always look beyond your industry sectors to see whether others have solved a similar problem that you could potentially adapt and then use. Learn from other by looking up, around and exploring.

Fact #1: Most so-called innovations are concieved without proper stakeholder communication. Innovation, after all, is to add value for someone (usually by inventing something). Usually, customers are the ones who quantify the value we bring (by paying us), but there are other stakeholders who can express the value too (bosses, by letting us continue, for one). If we do not have a dialogue with the stakeholders, all of them, we are not creating innovations. And that is the biggest mistake in most enforced innovation processes.

Traditional brainstorming is (paradoxically) one of the biggest blocks to innovation. This approach has existed since the 1930s when ad-man Alex Faickney Osborn first popularized it in his book Applied Imagination. Osborn proposed that groups could double their creative output with brainstorming, but he placed little emphasis on how to focus creative thinking and refine the quality of the output. The problem is that traditional brainstorming has ignored the huge difference between generating lots of ideas and capturing quality ideas. As a result, brainstorming sessions often leave organizations and teams feeling overwhelmed and directionless. A state referred to as “paralyzed by possibility."

In every single innovation workshop I ever facilitated or participated in, we generated innovative ideas. Every. Single. Time. I could count on one hand the number of those ideas that went anywhere. Why? Because the biggest challenge most organizations face is not innovation, but creating an environment where people feel ready, willing and able to move innovative ideas forward. If you don't have that support in place, then don't start with innovation. Start with supporting your people so they feel fully engaged and ready to stretch themselves. Not sure how, or where to start? Check out Amy Edmondson's "The Fearless Organization" and "Right Kind of Wrong".

Don't overthink it. Like a literary block. Creativity is hard to force. Sometimes it just needs to happen on its own. I think this is a myth, just like the idea you can structure civilization changing innovation and discovery. People can sit around in board rooms and pat themselves on the back as much as they want, but at the end of the day only a handful of humans will live each century who transform the world. Something about them is special, something about their time and place is special, no one can write a flow diagram for how to make this happen. So just relax, no pressure :-)