Innovation Orbits and the Perils of Success
Like it or not as we grow doing what we do we create orbits around us.
If one is working in Innovation one must take tangents to learn about Innovation management and the latest thought provoking ideas on how best to design our enterprise systems and people. While in this tangential process of discovery one realizes that there is so much we don’t know that needs to be explored and in this journey one creates an orbit of like-minded people on the same mission and with the same intentions. Or, are they?
At the risk of using a cliché, all is connected and there are many relevant intersections to learn from. For starters there are economic, organizational and leadership theories. Further, there is psychology and brain research. There are also human nature theories and political economic theories. In short, there is lots of fertile ground to intersect and interact with via conferences, books, exec training, research papers, one-on-one meetings, videos, etc…
Engaging in this process is quite thrilling, thought provoking and to some extent addicting. For some of us this can become a life mission: and why not? The process of anticipating the new and from there uncovering reasonable ideas that one can package and create a product or service that is marketable, is an immensely complex process fraught with many hurdles and challenges.
So, there are a lot of positives from the orbit that one creates during the journey (any journey for that matter). But unfortunately, there is the negative side as well, mostly driven by the human element and its primitive emotions lying dormant in our reptilian minds.
I think they call it “the perils of success”? Once a certain success is achieved, there is never a shortage of people that will take credit where there is none or discredit one’s progress without provocation and justifications. We all know this happens in all circles be it enterprise, academic, political, etc…The interesting thing about human nature is that its governance is indiscriminant to fields of endeavor, and if not managed correctly can derail the success of an innovation project.
It will be awhile before we humans evolve into non-ego centric leadership models and our brains evolve to support true collaborative eco systems. Until then, we must guard against these developments by being aware of the orbits that are created in the pursuit of an idea and one must have a plan to deal with the negative spin offs.
More importantly, one must leverage these perils to once advantage in the pursuit of an idea and project success….And, herein is where the trade secrets lie…
If one is working in Innovation one must take tangents to learn about Innovation management and the latest thought provoking ideas on how best to design our enterprise systems and people. While in this tangential process of discovery one realizes that there is so much we don’t know that needs to be explored and in this journey one creates an orbit of like-minded people on the same mission and with the same intentions. Or, are they?
At the risk of using a cliché, all is connected and there are many relevant intersections to learn from. For starters there are economic, organizational and leadership theories. Further, there is psychology and brain research. There are also human nature theories and political economic theories. In short, there is lots of fertile ground to intersect and interact with via conferences, books, exec training, research papers, one-on-one meetings, videos, etc…
Engaging in this process is quite thrilling, thought provoking and to some extent addicting. For some of us this can become a life mission: and why not? The process of anticipating the new and from there uncovering reasonable ideas that one can package and create a product or service that is marketable, is an immensely complex process fraught with many hurdles and challenges.
So, there are a lot of positives from the orbit that one creates during the journey (any journey for that matter). But unfortunately, there is the negative side as well, mostly driven by the human element and its primitive emotions lying dormant in our reptilian minds.
I think they call it “the perils of success”? Once a certain success is achieved, there is never a shortage of people that will take credit where there is none or discredit one’s progress without provocation and justifications. We all know this happens in all circles be it enterprise, academic, political, etc…The interesting thing about human nature is that its governance is indiscriminant to fields of endeavor, and if not managed correctly can derail the success of an innovation project.
It will be awhile before we humans evolve into non-ego centric leadership models and our brains evolve to support true collaborative eco systems. Until then, we must guard against these developments by being aware of the orbits that are created in the pursuit of an idea and one must have a plan to deal with the negative spin offs.
More importantly, one must leverage these perils to once advantage in the pursuit of an idea and project success….And, herein is where the trade secrets lie…
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