Innovation

It’s always important to assimilate all relevant information, analyze them from different perspectives within different contexts, and transform them into the unique insight which ignites creativity or fuels innovation.

With VUCA” new normal, increasing pace of changes and frequent disruptions, business professionals must have a greater awareness of the intricacies of the complex business ecosystem. The existing business models or best practices are outdated sooner than ever and the best practice is no longer working anymore when the circumstances change so frequently.

Being a professional will need to be good at the art of creating differentiating value; focus on the commonalities that exist between people. Also, look at innovation from a business context to build a competitive advantage.

Innovation is all about disrupting outdated thinking and old ways to do things: Each individual has limited cognitive capabilities; conventional wisdom tends to be what everyone with experience in the topic can identify as known knowledge. But the pace of change is increasing and knowledge is outdated sooner than what you thought about. People shouldn’t get stuck in the “we always do things like that” mentality, but need to tear down the mental barriers they have, apply creativity to arrive at a useful new box and figure out an alternative solution.

Being innovative means being open to embrace the difference even at the seemingly “polar opposite” viewpoint. Individuals will be more innovative if they are encouraged to think creatively, demonstrate the courage to leave inside box thoughts and standards to seek additional resources, update knowledge, and embrace alternative solutions. It requires you to keep your eyes open and keep your mind off the box, liberate imaginations, break down conventional understanding, actively seek out new patterns wherever you can discover them, and tap into their inherent abilities to solve problems with intentional novelty.

It is quite nice to see divergences of views come together to catalyze innovation influentially: Usually organizations or societies are divided by silos, constraints of knowledge, conditions of capacity, etc. Conventional mindset is too rigid in the outlook; too judgmental in managing hyperdiversity; too static to sense the change; too silo to think the big picture, and too linear to fit in the non-linear digital world. It’s important to find commonality in a variety of differences; abstract rules behind all shapes and sizes; integrate science & art; and apply creativity to generate something delightful and solve problems innovatively.

Innovation is simply about mixing something old with new, and developing a better way to do things. Innovators are “skeptical” with a pair of scrutinized eyes, which tests everything and only accepts that is backed by reason and evidence. When things connect in this way, both horizontally and vertically, any entity wishing to negotiate a successful innovation journey has to understand what the implications of hyper-connectivity mean to them, and how to build innovation capability of the organization.

Innovating via philosophical reasoning is abstract to converge the divergent information for bridging the understanding gap: Business transformation is evolutionary. Philosophical minds are inquisitive to gain multidisciplinary knowledge and insight about innovation; abstract the quintessential from complexity, discover the root causes of problems. Philosophy takes on problems of knowing and knowledge.

Philosophy helps to see the reasoning in actions. And then, when you have seen the reasoning in actions, you've got an example of what philosophy is, how to leverage it to see problems from different angles, define the right problems and solve them smoothly. Philosophy is always important to “better understand evolution and harness its power to serve human purposes”; not only allow you to reason the visible, but also perceive the invisible elements, contributing to solving problems via interdisciplinary understanding.

With the increasing pace of changes and frequent disruptions, the best practices are outdated sooner than ever and conventional methods are no longer working anymore when the circumstances change. In the depth of the individual and sociological funnel of expectation and group pressure, it might be hard for a person to see with another pair of eyes, tuning the tunnel vision, or cross the linear thinking. It’s always important to assimilate all relevant information, analyze them from different perspectives within different contexts, and transform them into the unique insight which ignites creativity or fuels innovation.

Posted in: Innovation