If you know the right question and answer, then it is not innovation?

A crucial element of innovation in an organisation is to create a culture of continual learning. If you already knew what the question and the answer was, then it is not innovation it is just business as usual. Innovation offers a constant need for exploration and discovery beyond what is known, to go beyond expert opinion to one of questioning what you already know and validating what you have recently learnt. 

Anyone who knows me knows I dislike the use of the word expert. I see the value and importance of expertise in gaining knowledge on particular subjects. In regards to innovation I tend to categorise them in past tense and see them as the baseline for what is ‘known'. Innovation is about looking to the future to explore the unknown and this needs a sense of naivety, not a sense of expertise. You should never forget the past or what is known. You also shouldn’t let it weigh you down. The concept of an expert leaves me with the impression that the individual or organisation knows everything and will fight to vindicate their knowledge, as opposed to being open to continually learn and question what they already know which is a key behavior in any innovation approach. If you say this in terms of an organisation in todays market, being an expert is great market position as your knowledge is an asset. The challenge arises when you only use your knowledge from the past to try and innovate for the future, causing the organization to not evolve with the market by addressing the ‘unknown’. This leaves organisations open to challenge from anyone by not evolving along with the marketplace you leave the door wide open for challenges to ask new questions and find new answers for future customers. W. Cohen and D Levinthal’s article Absorptive Capacity: A New Perspective on Learning and Innovation : detailed this ability to continually learn and assimilate knowledge as the 'absorptive capacity' of an organisation. It is important to highlight it is not just internal knowledge as large organisations often struggle to assimilate and share their own knowledge amongst disciplines but even more crucially external knowledge.

The article details that the assimilation of existing knowledge within an organisation combined with problem solving that leads to the exploration of new external knowledge is crucial in innovation today. They highlight that you can not just explore new perspectives but you have to absorb them into the organisation to effect a change in regular activity or more clearly, exploit new knowledge for new types of growth. The absorptive capacity of an organisation is explored for both individuals inside the organisation as well as the organisation itself. In reality large organisations are treated like factories where there is a huge amount of knowns or tacit knowledge that is underlying in everyday activity. You have all heard the phrase ‘thats just the way we do it’. That underlying or tacit knowledge can in fact be a huge barrier to innovation or as management guru Clayton Christensen puts it ‘your capabilities become your disabilities’. It is important to keep the fires of the business burning for today but organisations must also supplemented that approach by continually learning about the unknowns of the future. 

 I have always enjoyed being the dumbest person in the room as it motivates me to learn but also gives licence to be na?ve and question things that other more expert people deem as obvious. I was one of those annoyingly curious children that always had to ask ‘why’. I get frustrated with the comment ‘that is just the way we do it’. I have been lucky enough to work across a huge amount of industries in different cultures over the years and I have learnt a lot but I try to keep that child like sense of curiosity or naivety to the world around me. I guess I was the kid asking the expert if he / she could teach me a thing or two, whilst questioning them whether they truly believed in what they were saying. This child like attitude is is actually a serious approach for individual or a organisational culture to continual learn, assimilate or absorb new knowledge as it offers considerable amount of opportunities to exploit for future innovation. 

Next time you are looking for new innovative opportunities to exploit turn child like naivety into a more formal process by taking a page out of Donald Rumsfeld’s book and ask yourself three simple questions

What do you know you know ? What do you know you don’t know ? and how can you explore the unknown ?

My focus will always be on exploring the unknown but that is the curious annoying kid inside me, still asking why.