Don’t Look For A Great Idea, Find A Good Problem
At the center of every significant innovation is always an idea. Clarence Birdseye’s idea about freezing fish revolutionized the food industry and American diets. Charles Schwab’s idea about flat commissions changed investing forever. Steve Jobs idea about creating a device that could hold 1000 songs in your pocket turned around Apple’s fortunes.
Yet we shouldn’t confuse a great idea with where it came from. Truly useful ideas don’t arise from out of the ether or through fancy techniques like brainstorming or divergent thinking. The best ideas come in response to an important problem and thrive under constraints.
In researching my book, Mapping Innovation, I found that the most innovative firms often aren’t any more creative or even that they are better at solving problems. Rather, it was how they aggressively seek out new problems to solve that made all the difference. The truth is that if you want to create a truly innovative culture you shouldn’t glorify ideas, but problems.
A Young Boy’s Dream
As a boy, Albert Einstein liked to imagine what it would be like to ride on a bolt of lightning. In many ways, it was a typical childhood fantasy. If he were born in another time, you could imagine him learning to speak Klingon or becoming immersed in the lore of the Jedi. Yet…
