The Five Qualities of the Consummate Innovator

July 27, 2011

Disruptive innovation theorist Clay Christensen is back with a new book. This one, The Innovator’s DNA, attempts to get to grips with the question of who drives the innovation process. HBR is running the first chapter of the book, Five Discovery Skills That Distinguish Great Innovators, in which Christensen and his co-authors outline the five qualities that every innovator needs to possess. Namely, a penchant for:

Associating: “innovative thinkers connect fields, problems, or ideas that others find unrelated.”

Questioning: "We found that innovators consistently demonstrate a high Q/A ratio, where questions (Q) not only outnumber answers (A) in a typical conversation, but are valued at least as highly as good answers.“

Observing: "Innovators… carefully watch the world around them—including customers, products, services, technologies, and companies—and the observations help them gain insights into and ideas for new ways of doing things.”

Networking: "Innovators… actively search for new ideas by talking to people who may offer a radically different view of things.“

Experimenting: "Innovators are constantly trying out new experiences and piloting new ideas. Experimenters unceasingly explore the world intellectually and experientially, holding convictions at bay and testing hypotheses along the way.”

1:42pm | URL: https://tmblr.co/ZLv7dx7atacH
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(Notes: 15)