Disruptive Innovation is About Following Through on That Visionary Idea

Each year an R&D 100 award is given to the 100 most disruptive innovations across a wide variety of industries worldwide. However, no matter how potentially disruptive a breakthrough idea is, winning an R&D 100 award requires that the breakthrough has made it to commercialization, i.e., been reduced to practice. Without the creation of a productive outcome, even the most visionary, bright ideas remain ideas until they are used to obtain a result of some significance.

Disruptive innovation can start in several ways with actionable knowledge that creates light bulb moments, a new technology approach that enables things that weren’t possible before, a way of combining things that are already known in a novel way, or repurposing of know-how from another industry through benchmarking. If you are in an industry that relies on disruptive innovation for a big win, then the first thing is to be sure your team is primed for it. In their book A.L.I.E.N. Thinking, The Unconventional Path to Breakthrough Ideas, Cyril Bouquet, Jean-Luis Barsoux, and Michael Wade describe the importance of what we pay attention to, how we pay attention to it, how more imaginative thinking fosters disruptive thinking, and how certain practices can maintain an openness to disruptive innovation. A.L.I.E.N. stands for Attention, Levitation, Imagination, Experimentation, and Navigation.

How confident are you that your leadership and team are positioned to create that breakthrough? Here are some questions paraphrased from the book to ask yourself in assessing how open you and your organization are to creating disruptive innovation:

Attention

1.???? Can you recall a time when you missed recognizing something that later turned out to be important?

2.???? What biases or preconceptions do you feel could be limiting you?

3.???? Have you spent enough time being truly mindful of what you are trying to achieve or change?

4.???? Could broader exposure to different people, places, or situations help “enrich” the way you look at problems?

5.???? Are there “fringe” resources or unusual people that you could learn from?

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Levitation

1.???? Can you recall an instance where you stepped back from a problem and experienced unexpected insight?

2.???? When is the best time for reflection?? Is, or can you make it, part of your routine?

3.???? Is there “wasted” time (like your commute to work) where you could find the opportunity for quiet reflection?

4.???? Could you switch up tasks, projects, or other activities to avoid developing a “routine” mindset?

5.???? Is there a trusted colleague that you could bounce ideas off of to gain an outside perspective?

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Imagination

1.???? How comfortable are you asking questions that do not yet have answers?

2.???? How often do you use an analogy to describe a problem you’re working on?

3.???? Have you broadened your search for answers to other disciplines, or search for benchmarks in other industries?

4.???? How would you explain your project or program to a child?

5.???? Have you ever come up with an innovative solution for something outside your area of expertise?? What was the idea that sparked the innovation?

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Experimentation

1.???? In your organization, to what degree does upper management make the pipeline and product choices?? Can you provide experimentation to help inform your businesspeople to “enrich” their judgment?

2.???? How open are you to new possibilities when testing a core hypothesis??? Can you recall an instance where bias (Kool-Aid) and sunk costs impeded your ability to implement corrective actions?

3.???? Do you have sufficient exposure to people who think differently, and challenge you?? If not, look for someone.

4.???? Can you investigate parallel paths/approaches to a problem?? How often do you do this?

5.???? Do you get offended when someone criticizes your ideas, taking it as a criticism of you personally?? Progress is promoted by testing and discourse, not about shielding our ideas from others.? Biology isn’t personal.

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Navigation

1.???? What will make or break your approach?

2.???? How will your solution encroach on other people’s livelihoods, industry position, or turf?

3.???? Can you show/communicate how achieving your disruptive goal will meet an important medical objective?

4.???? Can you recall an instance where you did not get buy-in for an innovative program or approach you were certain had great potential??? What lessons from it can help you win the day the next time?

5.???? Can you foresee multiple paths that you could take towards ultimately achieving full acceptance of your disruptive innovation?

?I’d love it if you’d be willing to share some of your answers and insights in the comments. I’m sure we’d all benefit from it.

Translating your breakthrough potential into reality will hinge on the changing dynamics of your management and leadership as things advance from research through the nitty gritty of product and process development. It will require tapping into additional leadership skills having to do with maintaining motivation and momentum over the long term, prioritization based on a long-term objective, staying earnest and committed to your strategy, and continuing a company culture that fosters further innovation to overcome more seemingly mundane issues in the best way possible.

Therefore, to create that game-changing therapy many hope for, it’s wise to prepare for the full journey by not only assessing where your organization stands on fostering breakthrough innovation using the questions above but also assessing the strength of your and your team’s ability to follow through. I cover several aspects of the latter in previous articles and I hope you’ll give them a read.

Lastly, to be optimal, innovation must be valued and nurtured. Therefore, if you truly want to create ground-breaking innovation, you must invest in it. Individual and group mentoring from a died-in-the-wool innovator can be a valuable part of it. Contact me or book a chat if interested.

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