A pre-conception that to innovate we need to deviate too far from the norm and from what we do in our regular jobs is not entirely true. If our actions are often leading us to collective and collaborative reactions like – “Gosh, I never thought about it this way” then the chances are that we are already on innovation journey.
During conversation with one of my former MBA classmate on cross-pollinating well-known management frameworks towards enabling customer success and paying attention to subtle actions leading to ’ aha’ moments that usually lead to better customer satisfaction and acquisitions, a realization hit that the same is true when any proposed solution (idea) to a problem (customer need) leads our internal/external customers to react – “Gosh, I never thought about it this way”. When this happens then the chances of collective and collaborative innovation happening become much higher than from just ‘yes’ (see picture below). We all can do it anywhere, in any situation, irrespective of the constraints, structure, and biases.
