There is hardly a business in the competitive world that wouldn’t want to push for more innovation, since innovation is a strategic necessity for every kind of business. Defining innovation can be really hard. Innovation can mean different to different people – it has a range of explanations – it can concern improvement in the existing business idea or an entirely new idea to revolutionize things.
Innovation occurs though a process of idea creation, exploration and experimentation
A simple process can transform into innovation when a business creates something in consultation with its customers or when a new value-addition idea is formularized with new insights and patterns.
Innovative thinking doesn’t come naturally to most of us, and this is the simple reason we mark innovation lookdifficult. According to various researches, humans are efficient and quick thinkers; but since laziness is deep routed in our systems, we are not open to challenging ideas. However, to be innovative, people simply need to take their thinking to a higher level – and there innovation will cease to seem as hard as it does otherwise.
Thinking different and at higher level is emotionally difficult
Fear is one emotion that comes naturally to all of us. And out of fear of looking bad, fear of failure and fear of rejection we do not intend to try to think out of the box.
Failure and rejection are an unavoidable parts of innovation process. One cannot be innovative without the willingness to try. And in trying, there will be times when you’ll fail yet will stand to learn. This means– to innovate – you need to change your perception towards mistakes and failures.
It is sad, most organizations do not inculcate the habit of innovative thinking. A reason, employees cannot overcome the fear of failure. In such organizations, failures and mistakes are looked down upon. It’s a big problem – to innovate, one must have the liberty to make mistakes and learn, and then innovation will not be as hard as it may seems.