Compassion Is The Key To Innovation
In a 2013 interview, Kaaren Hanson, then vice-president of design innovation at Intuit, was quoted as saying: “fall in love with the problem, not the solution.” That has become a mantra for many in the innovation and product design space ever since. But is it that simple? How do you get the problem right? The key to innovation, for me, is finding compassion for an unmet need; finding that need requires awareness and observations.
Innovation As Defense
The late Clayton Christensen, revered as one of the greatest thinkers on innovation, introduced the concept of disruptive innovation in his 1997 book, The Innovator’s Dilemma. “Disruptive innovation” describes how startups that develop offerings that meet previously unmet customers’ needs can overtake markets. As their new offerings gain traction among customers, these start-ups often end up creating new markets and new value chains that disrupt the ways that older, larger businesses had been working. That puts those larger companies at risk of having their markets and products become less valued by consumers. As a result, companies of all sizes today are constantly looking for ways to watch their backs and develop cultures of constant innovation. Yet what we’ve learned about stress and the brain, which I wrote about in September, makes one wonder, can we really be innovative when we are trying…