Forget Innovation, It's Something Else

Why all the resistance to innovation? I kept asking myself this as I was preparing to stand up in front of a few dozen people trying to excite them about creating new ideas and developing new markets. You'd have thought this would be something people desperately wanted considering the current market conditions. So why is it all so hard sometimes?

I think the reason is something which underlies innovation - resistance to change. Innovation is all about new ideas and changing what has gone before. For many people this is uncomfortable, and in fact is part of how we think. Normally, our propensity to find a system that works and stick with it is good for us. We don't want to have to try every way of travelling to work every day, or the numerous ways in which you could make coffee. We find the best way for us and stick with it.

But this resistance to change deeply restricts innovation. The solution is to use another part of our brain that is equally adept in its own area. We love to make connections and find new routes to information. In fact, this is the basis of most of our comedy with the punch line providing the unexpected connection.

Change acceptance (and the innovation that comes from it) can all be done in a targeted and focused way using innovation techniques, but it needs two things:

1. The willingness to recognise we get comfortable with our normal ways of thinking and need to step back, pause, and try something new.

2. The ability to engage a different part of our brain in a structured way at set times to make sure we make it part of our routine. Strangely, once we do this and it really becomes the norm it will difficult to do something else (for all the reasons above).

So it is all a matter of understanding how your mind works and using those aspects that work best at the best times, and planning it all to become part of the process.