Take any great idea and you can find no shortage of people who think they had it first. And it’s quite possible they did. History is full of examples of nearly simultaneous discovery. David Hilbert discovered general relativity at about the same time Einstein did. Alexander Graham Bell only narrowly beat Elisha Gray to the patent office. Yet the debate ...

“Try to give up one of each of these behaviors for the 20 remaining weeks of 2015 and I guarantee that you will be more successful and much happier.” Many things that we value in life are the result of accumulating stuff; experience, wealth, and education all come from adding more to what we have. By contrast, the act of ...

Most Americans don’t even come close to getting enough sleep. The average in the USA is 6.8 hours, and in my anecdotal experience, many people working in high pressure, ‘innovation on demand’ jobs probably get considerably less than that. But a couple of studies suggest very strongly that sleep may be even more important for innovators than for most other ...

No one and no organization has a perfect record when it comes to releasing new products into the market. Failures are frequent — around 40% or so depending on the industry — and they happen at small companies, big companies, and experienced companies, including Pepsi. In this interview, you’ll learn a simple and profound concept that every product manager and ...

In front of me sit 40 six sigma “black belts,” appraising me warily, all squinty-eyed and knit-browed. I’ve been asked to give them an introduction to design thinking. I don’t have a six sigma belt of any color. I fully admit that I wouldn’t know the difference between a six and any other number sigma. I have decided to tee ...

Neuroscience explains it, but psychology offers the fix During a recent creative strategy session, I witnessed what psychologist Carl Jung referred to over a century ago as “an inner critic or judge who immediately comments on everything.” I had given a team of young executives a thought challenge as a right-brain warmup exercise. Although they were unsuccessful in landing on ...

If you don’t have time, how can you learn? We are in need increasingly, of faster understanding, to quickly learn or resolve an immediate need, or we have this determination or essential requirement within our innovation role to deepen our knowledge and understanding of innovation. These are usually split into two parts, called are “micro or macro learning opportunities”. Have ...

Being aware of what you’re doing wrong isn’t enough to change. These four steps are… We’re all works in progress, trying to grow and change. But there’s no way around it, we carry with us good habits and bad ones. Often those bad habits are pretty well entrenched; not likely to be dislodged by even a direct nuclear hit. Many ...

Aristotle maintained that “all men by nature desire to know.” He was referring to human curiosity. Samuel Johnson called curiosity “the first passion and last.” Why? Because curiosity seeks what is different, without regard for whether or not it’s of benefit. Tell someone not to do something, and it creates an instant temptation to do whatever they’re being asked not ...

It was once said that the solution to any problem lies in asking the right question. Here are three.