What is Self-Innovation And Can We Use It To Improve The Future Of Work?

Innovation can be defined in many ways, from being more creative to think outside of the box. The more I go along my journey in life; I believe that innovation takes form from a self-awareness perspective.

I will not define self-awareness or innovation because it's unclear to pinpoint one clear purpose.

What I would say is that I don't think that innovation solely belongs to technology.

For the sake of the future of business, it cannot always be thought of in a technology sense.

If we have a business world where most venture capital has poured into one cup, it might displace the survival of humanity in the future.

I am sure you have seen the film Terminator 2, which is a great film and possibly valid for our future as humans. The film details how machines take over the planet and that they become the force - not us.

It may be a difficult concept for some to accept. But, the reality is that innovation should belong more so in our inner selves, not necessarily investing in vast amounts of technology.

What do I mean by that? Well, surely we need to be a lot more creative to safeguard our minds. Further, we know that mental health has taken a massive focus since covid. And that's been a great movement. For example, I have shared all my life experiences regarding trauma online to help others and raise awareness.

However, that will not create a better society that is ready for the future of work.

We will need better, more creative managers and leaders to solve problems like the other world crisis, climate change.

From my humble research, there is not enough creativity that fuels innovation in our education systems. And with the new hybrid model of working underway, there is even more pressure on all management.

I keep saying we are having a reshuffle around different industries where some have lost significant numbers in employees like the restaurant game.

And although this might sound harsh, I think that the way industries are losing their market share is good.

This originates from the idea that we all need to invest more in our innovation practice.

Unlike leadership, where there are many concrete theories, innovation works very differently. But, unfortunately, we only have past successful case studies to identify what innovation is.

Some may ask the question, can innovation be taught directly to one human to make that person stronger in all different kinds of skills. The answer is yes, of course.

And there you have it. I have given you some glimpse of what self-innovation is - the ability to improve one's skills. But, hold on a minute, steve - you're saying that self-innovation is just simply investing in more skills development in our own lives. Yes, I am saying that.

However, I am also saying, as indicated in some of one poll's that I have put out - between 40-50 in the last week - people know that innovation is about having more creativity - but they do not know how evenly innovation should be spread.

Think of when you make a sandwich and use a knife to spread the butter over the bread nicely. It's not rocket science, and for some, it's even fun making your sandwich - but the point is you pretty much know how much butter you want in your sandwich.

Now let's take that example and apply it to the concept of the problem of self-innovation. While indeed we can all learn to be more creative, which is great, we do not know how to use creativity ALL the time, 24/7, to solve the world's problems. I mean here that we can join forces with other countries and create a better planet through joint climate change initiatives. But, what we can't do is measure the exact amount of innovation it takes for each person to solve that broader problem.

We know that the more innovative we are as individuals, the more we can solve problems either by working on small projects or bigger ones. Thus, self-innovation should become more of an investment plan for us all. You could call it just the ability to invest time to improve our skills - which does take creativity that again fuels innovation and creates a better you.

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In summary, the outcomes are the same for performance management, leadership, management, technology and many other practices that drive business development. But, the method of the game changes to focus more so on developing our inner thoughts, feelings, skills that drive our self-innovation.