Inquiriesofinnovation

Innovation requires thinking out of the box, altering the frame of reference to create previously unconsidered solutions.

Innovation has become more intense with broader content and enriched context. Proactive innovation management and creative problem-solving are necessary in a rapidly changing world. Innovation is not just a restless adventure, but a cautionary tale.

Asking the right questions helps to validate how thorough and deep your thoughts and the psychology behind innovation, as well as processes, methodologies, practices of innovation management.


Are innovators a rare breed, what are you looking to evaluate individual or organizational innovators? Innovators not only think but also do things differently. They ask questions - to themselves, to circumstances, to books, to authorities, to experiences, and to other fellow global citizens, bring up fresh points of views and spur creative ideas all the time. In the bureaucratic workplace, people gradually lose their curiosity because of silo mentality, busy routine, change inertia; they also lose the courage to ask tough questions because they are aware of the consequence when the education or the society favors conventional wisdom.

To build a high-innovative organization, you need synergy and collaborative teams with "liquid" talent flowing to where it’s needed to cultivate creativity and catalyze innovation. Ideally, innovation leaders are innovators themselves, make inquiries about conventional wisdom, belief, or common sense, ask insightful questions to advocate innovation: What is triggering your emotions for doing innovation? What about trust? What about the right innovation climate? Your personal climate, your team climate or your organizational climate? So they are able to assess innovators and evaluate innovation management effectiveness.

Is innovation strategy implementable? Innovation should be included in a strategy; otherwise, the company will fail in the long term. A good strategy will include where the company plans to focus its innovation efforts.An implementable innovation strategy needs to directly support the overall business evolution by building a balanced portfolio of innovation initiatives. Innovation managers should create a sense of urgency, streamline information flow, align talent and resource, and assign responsibility for implementing innovation strategy smoothly.

Highly innovative organizations deploy a range of different management methodologies and technologies and tailor their own circumstances for developing the fitting innovation models and practices. From idea generation to innovation implementation, planning, doing, checking, and acting are not linear steps, but an iterative business continuum.

What elements did past civilizations possess that added to innovation? What’re the outlooks for the upcoming journey to build a more advanced society? Without innovation, there is no societal progress. Intellectual curiosity, learning agility, imagination, courage, optimism, knowledge/experience accumulation, resilience, etc, are all crucial elements to advance human society continually. Genuine innovation is decided by historical impact. We need to learn from our ancestors, learn from each other, learn cross- generationally, cross-geographically, and carry on abundant global art, science, or cultural heritage to continue innovating indefatigably.

The outlooks for the upcoming innovation journey to build a more advanced society depends on how fast we could learn and how skillfully we could explore emerging opportunities or pursue uncovered possibilities. Innovation for the sake of innovating is exhaustive because what would be the purpose? When a new stage emerges in the progression of society, the continued use of the old paradigm, the outdated worldview lens, creates ever-increasing confusion. Environment either encourages or discourages innovation, the ease or difficulties inherent in surviving. So leaders have to be open-minded, refuse to be bound by constraints and limitations, break down outdated rules, demonstrate flexibility, and present resilience.

Innovation requires thinking out of the box, altering the frame of reference to create previously unconsidered solutions. A new paradigm arises out of fitting mindset, interdisciplinary knowledge, deep insight, and personalized solution. Always ask thought-provoking questions and embrace diverse answers. The ecosystem innovation can be orchestrated via seamless collaboration, integration, synchronization, from processes in managing ideas or idea handling systems to idea implementation and promotion to advance human society significantly.

Posted in: Innovation,Leading by Questioning