Innovation Beyond Results: Embracing the Artistic Process
Innovation is about the process, not the outcome. This is a statement that everyone might not agree with, but let’s explore the idea and see what happens.
Whether you are branching out and launching products in new categories or focused on driving incremental growth to your business, innovation and developing unique ideas is fundamental to the process. But identifying the ideas that resonate with consumers and motivate them to purchase your products is not easy. If it were, every company would be thriving, investing little to nothing in innovation. It takes work, and that work can sometimes look hazy while looking down on it.
Many companies fixate on end results, expecting transformational ideas without investing in the very process that births them. You can’t simply ask for the next big idea and have it appear in front of your eyes. And you definitely can’t expect your team to have a 100% success rate in generating revolutionary ideas. Innovation is a creative act, and creativity is about exploration. It’s about diving into the unknown, not sure of where you are going to end up, or the stations you’ll stop along the way. The problem in the business world is that these unknowns make leaders uneasy about investment—they want a return on their money and to see immediately tangible results. Telling them you aren’t sure what is going to happen when you embark on this creative process is not what they want to hear, but it is true.
Don’t get me wrong, there is definitely a recipe for setting yourself up for success during the creative problem solving process. For example, understanding your target consumers, identifying their behaviors and pain points, articulating a clear problem to solve, and then generating ideas that answer those problems is a solid formula. But each step requires the faith that, in your exploration of the unknown, you will find something. And you will, assuming you design your experiments the right way, allow yourself the space to think differently, and aren’t afraid to go where no one else has gone. Because if you think the same way as your competitors and explore the same topics as them, you will arrive at the same ideas as them.
Let’s take a step back from the business world for a second and consider the life of a musician. If you throw an artist into a recording studio and demand they make 10 chart-topping songs, you would be hard-pressed to find an artist to successfully accomplish that objective. But if you create the right environment for that artist and tell them to explore different sounds, experiment with different techniques, and enjoy the process of making music, the records coming out of that session are much more likely to resonate with listeners.
The same is true of innovation—by putting your team in the right environment, providing the right stim, exploring different perspectives and understanding your consumers, you are more likely to arrive at product solutions that solve an unmet need. Explore then exploit. Understand the landscape, and once you find a spark, make the most of those resources to make your customer’s day better. Just don’t let the unknown of exploration hold back the creativity of your team, or the creativity of the process. Because creativity is more than just a means to an end. It is a dynamic journey—a process of exploration, experimentation, and iteration.