Innovation occurs where productivity exists

If innovation were sold at a store, from a catalog or on the Web, it would be one of the most popular products in business. The fact is, innovation is difficult to define, to design and often difficult to divine.

Scott Berkun wrote “The Myths of Innovation” in 2007 to help people understand innovation by recognizing what it is not. Assumptions and stereotypes color the concept of innovation. There is a mystery to innovation that some people want to think of as magical. Others want innovation to be a mechanical process, something tangible that can be reliably repeated when necessary.

Done well, innovation produces something productive and substantive. But it has to be done every day, not just once in a lifetime. Everyday innovation, Berkun argues, is like solving a jigsaw puzzle. Each piece is important, but only by placing the last piece in place is the creation complete and visible. So the last piece becomes the story – the “epiphany” – while the previous 999 pieces were equally important but not as sensational.

Isaac Newton, for example, didn’t discover gravity by getting hit on the head with an apple, even though that’s the story that has been passed down through generations. Newton worked for 20 years to explain gravity, but a long arduous journey of intellectual curiosity isn’t as juicy as that apple.

“It’s entertaining more than truthful, turning the mystery of ideas into something innocent, obvious and comfortable,” Berkun wrote. “Instead of hard work, personal risk, and sacrifice, the myth suggests that great ideas come to people who are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. The catalyst of the story isn’t even a person: it’s the sad, nameless, suicidal apple.”

Innovation happens because an individual or an organization is willing to try lots of ideas. It can be reduced to a simple equation: The more productive you are, the more ideas you can try and the faster you’ll find that idea that works.

In order to get going, though, individuals and organizations must adapt to a world where change is constant. Welcome to the new “normal,” where you must expect tomorrow to bring different challenges than today.

If you apply Darwin’s theory of evolution to innovation and leadership, you understand that it’s not necessarily the strongest or the smartest that survive. It’s the organism (or individual or organization) that can adapt that will survive.

After all, change is inevitable but progress is optional.