Random Quote for the Week of December 17th, 2007:

“A man’s errors are his portals to discovery” – James Joyce

Finding Mistakes to Make "Conceptlet":

In order to be a great innovator, you need to go out of your way to find mistakes to make.  Okay, so your goal isn’t really to make mistakes, but to take enough risks so that you learn enough from the mistakes in order to recognize a successful new idea. 

Sometimes, the mistakes are in how you manage your innovation program.  Here are some common innovation missteps:

• Limiting, or trying to control, the scope of innovation projects too soon
• Establishing rigid processes that are not flexible enough to change based on the problem or desired approach
• Establishing too many processes or controls that limit the innovator’s choice of direction
• Trying to equate innovation programs with “business as usual” which results in a one size fits all approach
• Setting the wrong kind of goals or setting the existing goals too high
• Failing to recognize and reward innovators for their help and ideas

Other times, the mistakes are in how you learn from mistakes.  These don’t even have to be mistakes you personally have made.  You can also learn from the mistakes of others.  For example, here are some “lessons learned” from a few of my clients in post-engagement surveys:

• You need to have your best people working within your innovation program
• You need to separate how you have done things in the past with how you are doing things now with how you should do things in the future
• You need to allow a generous amount of time for innovation programs, ideas, prototypes and strategic plans to mature.  Too many of our past initiatives were killed prematurely due to nothing but simple impatience.
• You need to separate the “what you do” from the “how you do it”

 I think this quote really sums up what you are striving for when searching for mistakes to make:

“Ignorance is a great place to start, but a terrible place to stay”

Have a GREAT week!!!