Updating The Innovator’s DNA — How Adaptive Intelligence Is Changing The Way We Innovate
Updated May 2022. When we look at the desired skills in the work place nowadays, the term ‘innovator’ plays front and centre stage. Everyone wants to have innovators in their midst, in an ideal world cooperate trained, disruptive enough but not too disruptive to the business processes. Nice. Thus, I have been asking myself, what makes somebody ‘innovative’? What are the skills required today and is there a magical sauce to this?
The Innovator’s DNA
This is a concept developed in way back 2009 by Hal Gregersen, Clayton Christensen and Jeff Dyer in a collaborative eight-year study and published in the book ‘The Innovator’s DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators’. They interviewed about two hundred founders and CEOs of game-changing companies to uncover the origins of innovative — and often disruptive — business ideas. Amongst the interviewed were entrepreneur icons such as Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs, bearing in mind that in 2009 Elon Musk had yet to climb the considerable heights he is at now. Their main question was “If it were possible to discover the inner workings of the masters’ minds, what could the rest of us learn about how innovation really happens?” According a summary article in the Harvard Business review, there are 5 elements to this, which are ultimately driven by the need to discover. 10 years on, I will add a sixth one at the end of the list, called ‘Adaptive Intelligence’ or AQ or plainly ‘Adapting’ as one of the new skills, making this list more current, alluding as to why it is essential to have this skill.
The first of the original five skills is ‘Associating’, the ability to “successfully connect seemingly unrelated questions”, according to Gregersen, Dyer and Christensen. I would also add, that ideas which are working perfectly on their own, can be connected to make a new one. Perhaps that is just another way of phrasing it. A good example here is the connection of the world of software license keys in digital subscriptions (think Netflix) with physical products and physical delivery mechanisms (think Argos). Something that about 10 years ago was not connected and now is intrinsically linked, with the example of Amazon’s products subscriptions from washing powder to baby cream.
The second skill is ‘Questioning’. I am certain you know of a person in the room that always asks ‘Why?’. The proverbial tw*t in the room. In isolation, that could be perceived as annoying but in the context of driving a business forward, it is a helpful skill. It is gutsy to ask questions in a room full of people that may take it the wrong way isn’t it? But more than just asking ‘Why’, where the power of provocative questions really lies is “never to find the right answers, it is to find the right question” according to 20th century American author and management consultant Peter Drucker. The right problem, well defined will lead to a great solution.
The third discovery skill of the Innovator’s DNA is ‘Observing’; The ability to take in your surroundings and watch for changes in peoples’ behaviours and minute fluctuations in the environment. It is most certainly one of the more intricate traits as it requires a mind that has space to dwell, letting observations sink in. To me, it is one of the traits I personally like the most. It helps me to create new ideas, almost in my sleep as described here.
Next up, the concept evolves around ‘Experimenting’, the drive to try new things and see how they play out. The three authors state that it is not to be confused with “scientists in white coats or of great inventors like Thomas Edison. Like scientists, innovative entrepreneurs actively try out new ideas by creating prototypes and launching pilots.“ Being able to create and fail and reiterate is crucial to make a product or idea successful is a trait that requires a lot of resilience and stamina.
Lastly, we have ‘Networking’ as a skill. It is described as “Devoting time and energy to finding and testing ideas through a network of diverse individuals gives innovators a radically different perspective.” If I may translate this, going to conferences, summits, bouncing off ideas with others that are not too vetted to your field of play is an important factor. To me it is not so much of a skill, it is a necessity to make sure you don’t just live in your own head. A place that is all too comfortable for many.
Adapt or die
So that makes it five neat skills. But there is something missing. Thus, I am going to add a sixth skill to the discovery set, ‘Adaptive Intelligence’ or ‘AQ’ or just ‘Adapting’ to stay in the terminology of the DNA. It’s a concept floated as recently as 2018 as a subset in the AI space. Here it “helps in delivering the most contextually relevant output whenever required, by training.” And according to Cioreview “is concerned not just with collecting and analysing data but also providing plausible solutions.” It means, making sense of the vast volume of data that has been accumulated by AI systems and making decisions based on learning and not just deriving insights.
However, there is also an increasing view that this can be transferred onto humans and I dare to make this connection too. According to an essay by the marvellous Robert J. Sternberg, published in August 2019 ‘A Theory of Adaptive Intelligence and Its Relation to General Intelligence’, Adaptive Intelligence, is “intelligence that is used in order to serve the purpose of biological adaptation, which, for humans, always occurs in, and hence is mediated by, a cultural context.” I would like to argue that this can be translated to a discovery skill of the ‘Innovator’s DNA’, making it the sixth skill.
Our environment is moving so fast that we can only truly innovate if we are able to adapt to changing circumstances within the context of our perceived boundaries. Technology dictates a lot of this but it is not just that, clearly. That would be too easy. Ever more unpredictable political and economical factors play a big part as they influence how we interact human to human. The pandemic has shown this. Thus, it is to be looked at from a situational point of view. What happens in a situation of having to convince people of an innovative idea but they are focused on their survival and where technology is scratching on the interpersonal skill sets? You need to be able to adapt to that situation. And only then the other 5 skills can come into force. Without the skill of ‘Adapting’ there can be as much observing and associating as one wants, one is likely to run into walls. Imagine a project where your thinking has led you down a certain path, however environmental factors dictate a change of course. You have collated all the data, the factors, the milestones, you’re the king. But how easily can you let go and ultimately keep your project, perhaps even your dream going? Can you make a decision and still be able to innovator and be happy with what you are doing?
In conclusion, all the above skills are important to be able to innovate. The DNA needs updating though to reflect new research and technological progress. And there are techniques to acquire them, some of them are described here. But it can take time and experience. You can get your 5 skills assessed here (for a fee). Lastly, watch Jeff Dyer explaining the concept and helping you to assess your DNA on Linked-In’s learning platform Lydia here. Unfortunately, the creators of this concept have yet to adapt to the 6th one; See what I’ve done here?
Ps: All views and conclusions expressed here are my own.
Pps: I have resisted the temptation to put the hateful light bulb as an image for ‘innovation’. Innovation so much more than just having an idea, it is follow-through as well, which is the hardest.
