Note taken from Manager Magazine.
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If there is a path that is not static, it is precisely that of innovation, but how to travel it without losing direction and above all motivation when obstacles arise around time, resources or creativity. Here is a short guide:
1. Innovating is not starting from scratch
What does it mean to innovate: Change to introduce novelties or create from scratch seeking to implement an idea? According to the creative director of the game development company City Jam Colombia, Jairo Nieto, people always confuse innovation with doing something completely new. All human beings have a creative DNA based on the knowledge they have acquired and the learning that is generated with others, for this reason “everything from entertainment to technology is built on the foundations of something that already existed,” he adds.
2. Falling blindly in love with your idea
Passion is a key ingredient when it comes to innovation, but a big mistake innovators make is to fall blindly in love with their business idea to the point of being inflexible.
“Although perseverance and resilience are good attributes of any entrepreneur, that does not mean that they should stubbornly cling to an initial idea and that they are not willing to change it if necessary, ideas must adapt and mutate,” says Santiago Amador, director of Areandina’s Master’s in Innovation.
3. Losing patience on the first try
“There are no good or bad innovative ideas, but perhaps they are being developed at a time when they are not going to emerge and that could be due to many things: because the users are not ready or because the infrastructure is not ready or because there are not enough resources to make it happen then,” says Miguel McAllister, co-founder and CEO of Merqueo.
4. Be ambitious, without losing focus
Companies like Google seek to promote 10 x thinking, which means always thinking about the goals of a project above those that are calculated. However, sometimes you want to execute the idea without having properly identified the problem, because “many entrepreneurs create solutions for problems that nobody has and that ultimately do not generate specific value for anyone,” says Amador. In addition, many innovators believe that diversifying reduces risk, but from the experience of Alejandro González, director of City Jam Colombia: “You can push your state of the art as long as you have a single idea in your head, that’s why you become good at only one thing when exclusively dedicated to doing that”
5. Not generating innovative environments
To develop innovative thinking models, “a method is required and it must reach the members of the company, which means that it must penetrate the entire organization in search of a cultural change that returns new innovative ideas,” recommends 2NV. , consultant in the optimization of processes through technology.
As María Fernanda Argote, Account Manager at Google Colombia for the Government and the Automotive Industry, mentions, innovation does not come only from moments of epiphany but also requires environments that foster a culture that includes key points such as psychological safety that empowers employees to have different ideas and express them, as well as encourage failure to teach employees that trying and repeating the goals are achieved.
