Innovation: The Who's Where's and How's

There are many reasons I wanted to start an Innovation practice (in the new lexicon: Innovation Lab) inside a large corporation that is at the front end of dealing with the digitally-based disruptive onslaught. The initial co-founder and I suggested such a practice to our management in response to a lunch we had with an Innovator from Nokia back in 2006 and the pre-iPhone era. (Yes, the same Nokia that is now fighting for its life.) There are huge lessons learned just from that lunch that may explain why Nokia finds itself in the situation that it is in. I will expound on that lesson at a latter date, for  now to the subject of this post. I wanted to learn and feel what it would be like to go against the grain, delve into emerging new ideas and to institute new thinking. In retrospect this is what I had always done in my career and thus wanted to put those abilities into a "legit" environment where that was "the" job. Now in its 6th year, the practice has chan...

We all know the feeling of uncertainty and how it can affect our behaviors and way of being. What is more tragic, in my view,  is the inability of those with power to reduce uncertainty and to not do so because of their individual emotional and/or ideological perceptions. As they say: "most see the world as they are and not as it truly is." This ailment seems be even more pronounced in those with power, I guess because they have more to loose. So what happened to empathy, searching for common good, collaboration, vision, passion? It seems like we are at the end of doing things the old way so when will these qualities and attributes kick in and be recognized for what they can bring to the World?  I don't have the answers but one thing is for sure, we need for this to happen sooner rather than later and for those of us with these qualities, we need to force ourselves into environments where we can effect positive change and reduce uncertainty. One way to start is to s...