Seven Habits of Highly Effective Innovators

"How can I become a successful innovator?" is the most asked question to me off-stage, after keynoting on innovation. Most of you are well aware that your organisations are not able to stand still in this fast paced business environment. But a lot of people struggle with making time available for innovation, wondering how to get great ideas and are confronted with internal resistance. Are you? Innovation is difficult to master. That's why I like to share with you seven habits of highly effective innovators. I base them on inspiration from ten famous innovators, mixed with my 30 years of experience as innovation speaker, author, facilitator and manager.

I have studied famous innovators on what makes them successful innovators: Steve Jobs (Apple), Shigeru Miyamoto (Creator of Super Mario), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Desmond Tutu (social innovator), Elon Musk (Tesla), Richard Branson (Virgin), James Dyson (Dyson), Larry Page and Sergey Brin (founders of Google), Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA). They come up with things like: "Be authentic". "Be critical and speak out". "Never give up". "Be committed to perfection". "Say no to 1.000 things". "Work 80-100 hours a week". "Pick the right team". "Know when to grow". "Don’t take yourself too seriously". "Listen to your inner voice". "Be curious". "Use new technology to solve common day problems". "Make the perfect product". "Have a big dream". "Break the regular value chain". "Spend time with customers". "Step outside of comfort zone". "Mix business with pleasure". "Take calculated risks". "Break the pattern". "Simplify". "Persist".

A highly effective innovator is a curious, creative, courageous, convincing, persistent, open-minded human being.

Based on their stories I like to describe highly effective innovators as curious, creative, courageous, convincing, persistent, open-minded human beings. A definition like this leaves room to improve for all of us, doesn't it? Or, are you there yet?

I love to share with you seven habits to become a more successful innovator.

1. Don't accept the status quo. 

There's a wonderful quote of George Bernard Shaw: The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. Innovation often starts with something that both annoys you and is relevant for you. Something you personally really want to change, because you want to, or you need to. Don't accept the status quo. Innovation starts the moment you want to change the present. It's the WHY for innovation. Be sure to think BIG!

2. Follow your passion.

It's really important for your organisation and you personally to find something you can excel at. It will make your work intrinsically motivating. And it will make you passionate about your innovative work. When you follow your passion, by starting new things today, it will bring you closer to your dream tomorrow.

3. Focus, focus, focus.

Seneca, the Roman philosopher said: "If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favourable.' So first of all pick a point a the horizon. Focus your innovation efforts to get a clear direction and make your efforts more effective.

4. Take the customer's perspective.

Winning new concepts give potential customers a concrete reason to change. It will solve relevant problems of customers. If you want to create innovative products or services start with discovering relevant customer frictions to solve. There are several ways to discover them, like observation, personal visits, focus groups, or other design thinking techniques.

5. Innovate together.

You can invent alone, but you can't innovate alone. Innovation is transforming ideas into invoices. How many people do you need to get from idea to market introduction? Be sure to connect a lot of them to the start of your innovation process, as ideas need a lot of fathers and mothers to be able to survive a corporate culture.

6. Experiment.

Everything looks great great on paper, but does it really work? Be sure to start experimenting on a small scale as early as possible. Confronting real customers with a minimal viable product is the best way to learn.

7. Be quick.

Keep a high pace in your innovation project, otherwise it becomes long-winded and boring. In a corporate environment it gets killed when it takes too long without any progress. And as a startup you might run out of money.

I hope these 7 habits will stimulate you to improve your own innovation skills and processes in practice and your success rate! Wishing you lots of succes on your innovation journeys.

ps. Are you looking for a proven innovation methodology, combining design thinking and business thinking? Check out this 6-day training as innovation facilitator of the FORTH innovation methodology. Have a look at the map.

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