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3 Myths About Innovation That Need To Be Debunked

Innovation. We’re certainly hearing a lot about this topic in the association arena. If it’s on your radar, I believe there are three myths that need to be debunked:
  1. Innovation requires creating something from nothing. Most innovation is evolutionary, not revolutionary. (Even the revolutionary products such as the iPod or iPhone evolved from other product categories.) 
  2. Innovation is easy. If you think long enough and hard enough, you can innovate, right? Actually, it’s much more difficult than “thinking up” new ideas. It requires a lot of listening, creating, experimenting, and recalibrating. Those who follow a set process may be able to innovate more easily, but it’s still not “easy.” 
  3. Innovation leads to success. Failure is a large part of innovation. To minimize the risk, consider changing your internal terminology from “failure” to “discovery opportunity” or “learning experiment.” Creating a culture that values learning agility makes it more likely that innovation will occur within your organization.
To learn more about creating an innovation mindset, see Google’s 9 Principles of Innovation.

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