I\u2019ve been thinking a lot about whether you can teach people how to be innovators.\u00a0 As North America and EMEA slowly loses production and manufacturing work to countries like India and China, what is left behind is the design and innovation work that is the starting point before production can shift to those other countries.\u00a0 Problem is that countries like India and China are turning out highly qualified engineers at a faster rate than the U.S. turns out graduates in any area.\u00a0 However, what countries like the U.S. have as an advantage is that we\u2019ve been at the forefront of innovation for much longer.\u00a0 Somehow, I believe that innovation can to some degree be taught.<\/p>\n
I start with a comparison between competencies required for consulting and innovation.\u00a0 As a consultant, I consider the amount of actual intelligence and knowledge a good consultant has to have to be about 20% of the equation \u2013 not much.\u00a0 The other 80% is all about the consultant\u2019s approach to looking at and working through a problem.\u00a0 You\u2019ll notice that all consultants have the same basic approach \u2013 current state analysis, future state analysis, business case.\u00a0 But how the details of those basic steps is applied can be very creative.\u00a0 The next degree of success for a consultant is how they are able to apply the 20% of knowledge and intelligence and 80% of approach to a flexible offering that works for their client.\u00a0 In essence, the successful mix is mostly about approach, but the higher volume you have for each part of that mix, the better off you\u2019ll be.<\/p>\n
In contrast, I believe the exact opposite for innovation.\u00a0 The mix is approximately 20% approach and 80% intelligence and knowledge.\u00a0 You see, for someone who is innovating, it\u2019s about how their brains are wired.\u00a0 When they see something that is wrong, the fact that it is wrong has to \u201cbother\u201d them.\u00a0 They have to have a deep desire to fix what is wrong.\u00a0 On top of that, they have to be able to see multiple (often many) objects at a time and understand the connection points between them.\u00a0 Innovators can see many things, put them together in different ways to solve complex problems.\u00a0 Unfortunately, I don\u2019t think you can teach 80% of this equation \u2013 the smarts and how the brain is wired side.\u00a0 The last 20% is approach, and I think you can teach this part.\u00a0 You can put people in a place where they have a higher chance of success by teaching them a structured way to look at problems and analyze possibilities.\u00a0 However, if the innate ability is lower, then you can only make someone a proficient innovator, not a great one.<\/p>\n
I think that there are lots of learning organizations out there who are training people for knowledge, and of course we have talent mobility programs out there that are moving people around to give them the right experiences.\u00a0 But I don\u2019t think we\u2019re thinking enough about making people into innovators, yet this is where the future of countries in N.A. and EMEA lie.\u00a0 I\u2019m not against some competition, but I am against getting utterly squashed by India and China.\u00a0 Let\u2019s start teaching innovation principles within our learning programs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019ve been thinking a lot about whether you can teach people how to be innovators.\u00a0 As North America and EMEA slowly loses production and manufacturing work to countries like India and China, what is left behind is the design and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1564,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45,8,44,12,49,25],"tags":[126,454,124,125],"class_list":["post-1326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-collaboration","category-strategies","category-innovation","category-learning-management","category-talent","category-workforce-management","tag-design","tag-innovation","tag-learning","tag-training"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1326"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1565,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1326\/revisions\/1565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}