Leaning Into the Curve

Innovation is like riding a bike. It is! Except that most people know how to ride a bike and most people don’t know how to innovate. Why is that? Is it because we learn bike riding at a young age and not innovation? Perhaps. So, how do we teach bike riding? Do we give people a formula? A checklist? A recipe? Indeed, there actually is a mathematical formula used to describe the act of bicycle riding according to Drusilla Scott.

“In order to compensate for a given angle of imbalance we must take the curve on the side of the imbalance of which the radius should be proportionate to the square of the velocity over the imbalance.”

So, I imagine this is what all of you parents plan to use to train your children right? Of course not. Instead, we mentor, we encourage, we provide safety, guard rails. And we allow experimentation, falling off the bike. And yes, it’s counter intuitive. Lean into the curve? That makes no sense! Exactly. And so, we trust our leaders, we see other people doing it successfully, so we lean in. And we learn. And it’s like magic. Suddenly, we have balance, we have control, we can explore our world in new ways. What joy! What freedom!

And here’s the curious thing about bike riding. Once you learn it, you can’t forget it! Innovation is like that. Well, what’s the essence of innovation? The short answer is; the ability to discover the future and act on it before it happens. All behaviors, all business models, all patterns and processes are grounded in paradigms. But change is constant and those paradigms are always in flux. The ability to innovate requires real knowledge of the past, clear awareness of the present and a sense of the current forces in play that shape the future, forces in business, design, engineering and culture that empower us to see those future paradigms, first with blurry lines, but then, through experiments, through diligent and energetic execution, through knowledge and research, with clear and striking clarity.

How do you learn? We should talk!