How to Develop and Sustain an Innovative Mindset

There are many fantastic methodologies that have truly changed the way most of think about innovation. Two of the most useful ones are design thinking and lean approach. They are both very intuitive to design and implement lean innovations. There is one little problem, though. Before designing and implementing a lean solution, well, we need to come up with potential solutions. Thus, developing and sustaining an innovative mindset is by far more important than the methodology we apply to test whether the solutions work or not.

Developing and sustaining an innovative mindset require having the deepest curiosity possible. It doesn't really matter whether we are the best designers or lean thinkers. We can learn about those methodologies as we go. But without thick curiosity it won't be possible to come up with great ideas and connections, and see what's invisible to others.

An innovative mindset is critical because it allows us to find those ideas that nobody has ever thought about before. Also, such a mindset is fundamental to finding connection between ideas and things that already exist out there, but that no one has ever connected before. Developing this type of mindset is the foundation of the creation and ideation process that is required to implement any innovation.

The cornerstone of an innovative mindset is curiosity. I believe curiosity is the single most important competency that everyone serious about their entrepreneurial spirit must have. But it happens that curiosity is also a little bit ethereal.

Curiosity is everybody's natural talent. We are all born with it. Actually, according to some research, children between the ages of 2 and 5 ask an average of 40 thousand questions. But, as they grow and conform to the many rules that we impose on ourselves, the curiosity capacity goes to sleep! For some people curiosity remains dormant throughout their lives, but for others it is very much alive.

Nevertheless, to develop and sustain an innovative mindset it is necessary to better organize the way we use our curiosity. In other words, it is essential to give it minimum structure so that we can truly reap all the benefits that result from effectively using our curiosity. This is paradoxical, as by nature curiosity must not be framed by any criteria, and rather it should be free. However, it becomes very useful to have a structure that allows us to take better advantage of our curiosity.

I want to propose the basic model that allows us to better use our curiosity. The model is based on four ongoing and cyclical steps, observation, questioning, learning and connection.

Observation is the simple process by which we keep an open-minded attitude and keen awareness about what's going on around us, without having to label it from the very beginning. Unfortunately, when we are observing the world we tend to spend a lot of time trying to understand it based on our own limited knowledge and biases. In doing so, what we observe loses its original meaning and value and simply becomes an object that has been categorized in our minds. Observation requires us to leave our preconceptions and "expertise" aside and simply... observe. If we truly want to develop and sustain and innovative mindset, it is necessary to first observe, and only after try to understand and explain.

Then we need to question what we observe. Questioning helps us to create the appropriate frame of reference from which we can work and create more ideas. Design thinking and lean methodology are fascinating, but they require us to come up with ideas. If we don’t have ideas, the methodologies are useless. Questioning is critical in developing and sustaining an innovative mindset. Asking questions incrementally becomes more complex and interesting as we observe and learn more. So, observe and then question. Write down your questions, because they'll become fertile ground to plant the seeds of our ideas and harvest innovative thinking.

The third step in the process is Learning... oh learning. We must love learning! The only way in which we can truly innovative is by learning. One of the interesting approaches of the model I’m proposing is that it is cyclical. So, we always come back to the need for learning.

But, what should we learn? Well, everything we can to begin with. However, if we really want to narrow down our list of things to learn and better focus our limited time and energy, we must begin by learning from what we observe and trying to come up with many, many, many possible ideas and answers to the questions that we asked before.

Developing an innovative mindset requires coming up with ideas. Usually, coming up with ideas is easy, but finding the ways to develop and sustain them requires constant learning! Think about it, what if we come up with a great idea, we create our first startup and it fails? Bummer! But if we have created the right mindset, we'll be able to bounce back and stronger, and use the model and mindset again and come up with something else and better. Those who create something and fail, but decide not to try it again don't have this type of mindset that I'm talking about.

The fourth step in the process is Connecting all you have in mind. This includes the results of each of the steps in the model: our observations, questions and answers. What we've learned will only make sense and become a real innovation if we're able to put our ideas together and create something that nobody has ever seen before. Think about the greatest innovations out there right now or at least the most popular ones. A lot of them are so simple and basic that I wonder how we took so long to make them happen.

The final product of each of the cycles described above is that we develop the inputs (ideas) that we need to feed the processes of design thinking or lean methodology. Nevertheless, the most important and everlasting outcome is that we will have a mindset that is absolutely conducive to thinking, developing and sustaining innovations. It doesn't really matter how many times we fail or succeed, we will have the mindset that will take us from failure to success, and from success to greatness. And that is a terrific asset to have!

Follow me on Twitter: @erubio_p
Visit my blog: www.innovationdev.org

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About the Author: Enrique Rubio is an Electronic Engineer and a Fulbright scholar with an Executive Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Syracuse University. Enrique is passionate about leadership, business and social entrepreneurship, curiosity, creativity and innovation. He is a blogger and podcaster, and also a competitive ultrarunner. Visit the blog: Innovation for Development and Podcast. Click here to follow Enrique on Twitter. 

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