The Problem with Innovation Advice

While dropping inspiration on the crowd at the Unpolished Conference this week, Todd Henry shared the above image. After the crowd was done laughing (myself included, that's good stuff right there), Todd went on to compare the shirt with the advice he often sees being dispensed to entrepreneurs. In other words, if you actually dig in, popular entrepreneurial advice often leaves a lot to the imagination.

In addition to agreeing with his assessment, it struck me that the exact same thing is happening in the corporate innovation space (including from me at times, I have no doubt). For example, I just finished reading this post and was about to share, when I realized it's less like a "manual" (as the title suggests: A Manual for Self-Disruption) and more like the shirt above. Don't get me wrong, there are some really good nuggets there, much of which I agree with (which is why I wanted to share), but it leaves a pretty big gap between "we know we need to do something different" and "we have a strategy we can execute that will help us avoid being the next Kodak."

The truth is, there's no "right answer" for how an entrepreneur should build their specific business, or for a company should go about "disrupting themselves." There are definitely lessons we can learn and some rails for the types of approaches and people who have been successful in the past, but each journey is unique. Embrace the uncertainty and the challenge of navigating your path. I can't offer the magic step-by-step playbook (and I'd be leery of anyone claiming to), but if you're looking for an advantage, I can share a tip (that I believe applies equally to entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs). Bringing people along for the journey who have already been there can absolutely help you find shortcuts along the way, and improve your long-term odds of success. They won't have all the answers, but having folks accustomed to (and comfortable with) embracing the uncertainty, and who have experience understanding how to leverage external insights, could be the difference.