What is Innovation?
There are many different definitions and theories about what innovation is, and we believe it is important that you find a definition that you resonate with. This is because that definition will inform how you approach innovation and give you an overall idea of what framework to work with, therefore expanding the parameters of what you might consider possible.
Rather than give you our definition directly, I would like to walk you through the process of how we came about it. Hopefully, that will give you an appreciation of the definition and our understanding of it a little bit more.
So our theory of innovation came about when we were trying to draw parallels between corporates and empires, how they are formed, and how they evolved. It was an oversimplified model but it served its purpose; to identify the necessary steps that had to take place for them to be where they are.
We were basically thinking about the evolution of an empire.
And hence our definition of innovation came from a theory within a theory. The following is a short journey of that process.
1. Secure Resources
At the very beginning of an empire or business, something of value is discovered, a resource eg. water, gold, land, etc. The early pioneers who had either set out to look for these resources or just so happened to stumble upon them have to now lay claim to them.
2. Secure Talent
Typically the pioneers alone don’t have all the skills or abilities necessary to fully exploit these resources and hence more people get invited to the party.
3. Build a community
With more stakeholders getting involved, there was a need now for a system that set the rules of engagement and code of conduct to ensure the continuation of the empire… commonly referred to as culture. However, culture in some cases has to be enforced for the good of the colony, and hence systems of governments were created… the dreaded HR for corporates.
4. Seek Trade
As we all know, no resource is the be all end all and humans need more to survive. Hence trade was established… where empires can trade their resource for other resources they need to survive… for corporates, money.
5. Growth / Innovation
And one would think that it would end there, but humans are always seeking more… and no, I’m not talking about corporates, I’m talking about consumers and civilians. It is in this never-ending pursuit of creating more value for the consumers and achieving growth as a result that we find our definition of innovation.
Innovation is a source of growth, and that growth is driven by the customer's unending desire to seek more value.
There was a time when roads were an innovation that lead to the great growth of an empire when creating a shorter bow that could be used while on a horse helped “beat” the competition and conquer more land… all these were innovations… but what they all had in common was that they were all in service of growth.
TAKEAWAY:
Innovation is a source of growth, and that growth is driven by consumer's unending desire to get more value.
It is important to note that creating new value by itself is not necessarily an innovation, that value has to be in service of growth.
Another way to look at it is, there are 2 perspectives to innovation:
- From a corporation’s perspective, innovation is a source of growth
- From a consumer’s perspective, innovation is a source of value.
Innovation becomes both a science and art when one has to figure out, what is it that the customer deems as value and what’s the best way to deliver it.
Alternate Theory: (Devil’s Advocate/ Limitations/ exceptions):
No matter how convinced we are about our own theories, we usually like to have an alternate theory, a devil’s advocate question, or at the very least understand the limitations and exceptions to our theories.
In this particular case, given that our definition of innovation is a source of growth through the creation of new value…does that apply to organic growth as well? Or is it only to accelerated growth?
Let me know what you think in the comments below, and what your theories are.
