Debbie Johnson

Did you know that “introducing something new” is the definition of innovation? I would say the term innovation has become ubiquitous/popular/etc, but innovation itself is not recent. It’s what defines us as humans (the wheel, agriculture, steam train, Tesla…).

We admire people and companies that are innovative, from Apple and Google to Uber or Airbnb. So, too, the City of Austin is getting on the bandwagon. They devote resources in the form of a Chief Innovation Officer (Kerry O’Connor) and a small innovation department to tackle some of our most intractable challenges like traffic, affordability and our educational system.

Innovation can take many forms but there are three principles I learned in a recent workshop given by Humantific, the City of Austin’s consultant in this area. (I took some license with their terminology for ease of understanding.)

1. Imagine the possibilities
When tackling problems, it is second nature to take a negative approach and think of all the barriers we’re likely to encounter. But reframing the issue by flipping the barriers into possibilities has an amazing effect on our ability to solve complex problems. “How might we … ?” is one effective question that accomplishes this turnaround. It helps us defer judgment and instead concentrate on identifying what needs to be solved. For example, if one of the roadblocks to healthier eating is lack of access to healthy foods, one could ask, “How might we make healthy foods accessible to those who lack access?” This reframing opens up the imagination and changes the psychology of the room.

2. Suspend judgment
Have you ever been in a group where truly great brainstorming took place? It doesn’t happen very often. Most of us tend to jump immediately to judging the merits of the idea. Is it practical? Will it cost too much? Is it too hard to accomplish? “Yes, but …” is the kiss of death to effective brainstorming. Being innovative requires that we suspend critique, at least until we get out of the brainstorming phase and onto the next step of converging or processing the list of ideas.

3. Practice makes perfect
Or at least makes for improvement. In the same workshop, as we brainstormed (called diverging) for the second and third time, all of us doubled or tripled the size of our lists and were able to be substantially more creative.

My main takeaway was that, even though I don’t consider myself a ‘creative’, I was able to get better at innovating by using the techniques above. Try it yourself when you’re ready to be open to a world of possibilities.

(Printed in CRII’s Retail & Business with permission from Texas Enterprise:
http://www.texasenterprise.utexas.edu/2015/03/27/innovation/introducing-something-new-where-begin-and-how; Retail & Business is India’s leading retail publication)