CHAPTER 12

MANAGING INNOVATION

Understanding how we create ideas and how ideas spread is critical for efforts to

promote innovation. But there is a third factor that must be considered as well. It

connects idea creation to idea adoption, and it influences each. That third leg of the stool

corresponds to the management of innovation. The intentional, strategic effort to inspire,

foster, support, and direct innovation has become a topic of considerable importance.

Management of innovation includes several related themes, each of which has drawn

considerable attention from scholars and practitioners alike. Collectively, interest in all

aspects of innovation management has unleashed a burgeoning ‘self-help’ industry. A

visit to any bookstore will confirm that there is unprecedented enthusiasm for learning

how to expand innovation and how individuals and organizations can innovate.

Innovation management has gone viral.

One of the prominent themes of innovation management is entrepreneurism. This

topic includes an appreciation of what entrepreneurs do, the attributes of successful

entrepreneurs, and the more general concept of entrepreneurial thinking. A second theme

entails the use of specific strategies and practices that can putatively induce and facilitate

innovation: the entrepreneur’s toolbox. This topic concentrates on what individuals and

groups of individuals (organizations, companies, institutions, etc.) can do to be more

intentional about innovation. A third theme is a focus on context. The target here is a

better understanding of the ‘climate’ in which innovation occurs. It entails understanding

the variables that affect innovation including characteristics of the physical, social, and

cultural environments in which the work of innovation gets done. Based on the plethora

of books, articles, and videos dedicated to each of these themes, it is clear that there is no

shortage of ideas on how best to manage innovation.

Caveat: an abundance of ideas does not guarantee the quality of those ideas. There

is much more about innovation management that we need to learn beyond what we

currently know. As we consider what is known, I suggest a blend of open-mindedness

and healthy skepticism. Just as with all self-help topics, ideas about innovation

management reflect a range of quality: wisdom and nonsense, evidence and opinions, the

tested and the un-testable, and reasonable hypotheses alongside unbridled speculation.

We must beware of snapping turtles!

Clearly, if anyone had all the answers we would know it, and they would be very

wealthy. This is not to say that many among those proffering their ideas are not already

rich. There is a robust market for ideas about innovation management. When hungry, half

a loaf is better than none, and the market of half-loaf ideas continues to expand. In this

context we need to be especially suspicious of the shared wisdom of successful

innovators. To acknowledge and respect the success of someone is one thing; to accept

their own explanation for their success is something else. One of the more important

principles of modern psychology is that we rarely understand our own thinking or the

causes of our own behavior. Introspection is more often misleading than insightful. So,

we should not blindly adopt the advice of successful innovators simply because of their

success. There are, however, some solid ideas about innovation management that are

supported by evidence.

With respect to entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial thinking, the beginning point

here is once again vocabulary. As with the term innovation, the popularity of the word

entrepreneur and its derivatives does little to clarify its meaning. Toss the term at an

unsuspecting colleague or friend and see what they say. When I have asked acquaintances

‘what is an entrepreneur?’ I have typically heard some variant of ‘it is someone who

wants to make money.’ True, many entrepreneurs do seek profits from implementing

new ideas, and the origin of the term is linked to economic activity. As the term has

evolved, however, it has acquired a broader application. Today the word entrepreneur

encompasses much more than profiteering.

For our purposes, an entrepreneur is someone engaged in making an enduring

social change through application of new ideas; i.e., they are seeking to create an

innovation. They may or may not attain a financial advantage, and they may not even

have a desire to do so. It is their engagement with the innovation process that defines

them as an entrepreneur, not the economic consequences of the innovation. That

innovation might involve new software, a new machine, a new drug, or a new way of

parenting, teaching, or running a factory. Interestingly, one of the more robust trends over

the last two decades is the rise of social entrepreneurship. Whether they know it or not,

young energetic colleges students aspiring to make a real difference in the world are

entrepreneurs. So, if you go searching for entrepreneurial talent on a college campus,

know that it will not be found exclusively in the college of business. You might be quite

surprised by what you discover in the college of liberal arts.

Entrepreneurs have played a critical role throughout the history of innovation.

Some have been inventors, but some have never created the ideas they have helped

propagate. Some have been investors, but many have been oblivious to financial gain.

And many among the ranks of successful entrepreneurs are social evangelists who have

campaigned indefatigably for the innovation of their passion. The common attribute

among all entrepreneurs is that in some way they help bring about an innovation through

what they do.

The most successful entrepreneurs have attained celebrity status. From Edison

and Ford to Gates and Jobs, the world has been more than a little enchanted with

successful entrepreneurs. These individuals are revered not only for the innovations they

helped spawn but also the presumed genius or magic responsible for their success. These

celebrity entrepreneurs evoke a caricature. They are often portrayed as visionaries able to

see around corners. Their dreams seem to be a little bigger, a little more imaginative, and

a little bolder than ours. They focus on tomorrow rather than today. They aim at what

could be rather than what is. And they express uncanny tenacity in pursuing their dreams.

They live in the world of how not if. Although they have been shaped by their times, they

transcend the world in which they live, at least a little bit. They do not merely offer ideas;

they provide leadership in transforming ideas into innovations. They change the world.

The mantra of the successful entrepreneur could well be Steve Jobs’ famous quote “

People don’t know what they want until they’ve seen it.”1 Entrepreneurs show us what

we want, and they envision what we should want.

Although this caricature might have some validity, it is also somewhat

misleading. Entrepreneurs are not geniuses endowed with super-human abilities delivered

to us at critical moments in history. They are really nothing more than people with a

capacity to see how an idea can change some aspect of the world and a commitment to

seeing it happen.

The foundational source for understanding the basics of entrepreneurism is the

business management guru Peter Drucker. His contributions to the topic of innovation

have been plentiful and insightful, and his is a legacy that continues to influence thinking

about all aspects of innovation. His Entrepreneurs and Innovation remains a classic

reference on the topic. One of the main contributions of the book is the demystification,

de-deification of the entrepreneur. In defining the entrepreneur, Drucker reaches back to

J. B. Say’s 19th Century definition. According to Say, entrepreneurs shift economic

resources from an area of lower productivity to one of higher productivity. Inherent in

this dry abstract notion is the simple idea that entrepreneurs change the world. According

to Drucker, entrepreneurs create; they give us something new or different. Innovation in

the hands of an entrepreneur is a practice; it entails doing. In the end, entrepreneurs

change people’s behavior on a large scale, a notion that fits snugly with how we have

defined innovation. It is not so much about creating an idea as it is about implementing

that idea; although, some entrepreneurs have done both.2

Important to Drucker is that the entrepreneur not be seen as a personality type, nor

are they necessarily investors or capitalists. It is not what they are like but what they do

that matters. And their role is not necessarily financial. Their ideas may generate profits,

but they are more change agents than moneymakers; although, the changes they induce,

the innovations they spawn, may have economic consequences. The personal computer,

including both the hardware and software aspects of this innovation, was not just a cool

idea; it is one that made some people exceedingly wealthy. But the motivation churning

within the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of the world was not exclusively the desire to make

a buck. They were as much about upsetting the status quo, which is the core of

entrepreneurism. Drucker explicitly describes entrepreneurs as people who like to upset

and disorganize normalcy. Economists Joseph Schumpter captures the idea with his

iconic phrase ‘creative destruction.’3 There is no better modern symbol of this type than

Mr. Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg. Not surprisingly, anyone out to upset the status quo

will accrue both apostles and adversaries, and the latter has his own long lists of each.

Drucker’s manifesto is intended to serve as a guide for entrepreneurs; those

willing to search for change opportunities and confident enough to act in order to produce

change. The cornerstone of Drucker’s analysis is the idea that innovation should be

intentional and systematic. In the hands of entrepreneurs, change is sought in systematic

ways. These people do not simply wait for an inspiring idea, nor do they randomly search

for good ideas. Rather, they hunt strategically for idea opportunities. Unlike inventors,

who are creating ideas, or investors, who are looking for existing ideas in which to put

their money, the entrepreneur seeks opportunities to find an idea that can change the

world.

Drucker provides a list of sources that can guide the search for idea opportunities.

It includes keeping an eye out for the unexpected, the incongruous, and what is needed.

One should also be aware of the consequences of general changes in the economy,

demographics, the nature of society, as well as movement in a populations’ shared

perception, mood, and meaning. And it is essential to be constantly looking for new

knowledge. Clearly, successful entrepreneurs have a good sense of the culture, how it

may be changing, or how it could change. Within this dynamic context, entrepreneurs

have their antennae programmed to search for the next Big Idea.

Drucker also offers some prescriptions and proscriptions. The Do List includes

analyze, observe, keep it small, and keep it simple. The Do Not List warns against

pursuing diversity over focus and avoiding any attempt to use what does not yet exist.

Organizations trying to be more successful with respect to innovation strive to implement

many of the ideas that emanate from Drucker’s analysis.

A more recent compliment to Drucker’s contribution is Peter Sims excellent book

Little Bets.4 This succinct resource shares additional insights into innovation

management that form a bridge between attributes of successful entrepreneurs and

explicit strategies they use to succeed. It is a banal truism that successful entrepreneurs

use successful strategies. Echoing Drucker, Sims emphasizes that entrepreneurs are not

born; one becomes an entrepreneur by doing what leads to successful entrepreneurship.

Accordingly, it is possible to learn to be an entrepreneur, which does not imply, however,

that it is possible to teach entrepreneurship. Fostering, inspiring, and supporting

entrepreneurship is one thing; teaching it is something else. As true of creativity, I aver

that it is difficult to teach one to be an entrepreneur; despite the plethora of programs

growing on our college campuses intended to do just that. We will revisit this distinction

later when turning to the relationship between ideas and formal education.

The primordial idea weaving throughout Little Bets, not surprisingly, is the value

of making a series of little bets, which entail actions (things we do) to discover, test, and

develop ideas. This proposition reiterates Drucker’s advice to aim small. No one

imagined what the Apple legacy has become. Jobs and Wozniack did not aspire to create

a technological dynasty that would revolutionize our lives. They began by aiming at a

more modest target: a cheap programmable computer that could be owned and used by

individuals in their home or dorm room. Such a device that would stand in sharp contrast

to the extant bulky main fames that Big Blue was building for universities and other large

organizations. A series of little bets, however, can lead to monumental change; many

small ideas can collate into a Big Idea that matters profoundly.

One way to regard the impact of what Jobs and Wozniak did, along with the many

others that collectively ushered in the personal computer, is that it afforded democratic

access to computation. They did not just invent a cool device. Previously, access to

computation was restricted to a small minority of people and organizations, and the

purpose of computation was limited to a relatively small number of applications, most of

which entailed mathematical problems. Ideas that matter have consequences that extend

far beyond what can be imagined as possible when the idea first comes to life. Even the

eccentric and intelligent members of the Homebrew club could not have imagined that

their work would one day allow us to run through the park listening to the Beatles on a

device that we also use to call our friends or take their photographs, which we can then

send in seconds to someone else halfway around the globe using the same device. The

real consequence of smartphones and laptop computers, which is opaque to most users, is

that we have access to computation. Further, we are able to use computation for tasks that

previously did not seem related to computation; e.g., watching streaming video or

listening to music. The move from analog to digital is one of the most profound ideas of

all time.

In terms of specific guidelines for successful innovation, Little Bets offers a list of

strategies that reaffirm and extend Drucker’s analysis. For example, we are advised to

approach problems in a nonlinear way, avoid overanalyzing, be playful in our approach,

continuously experiment in an iterative fashion, and embrace trial and error. Especially

important is how we approach error. Successful entrepreneurs do not avoid risk;

although, Drucker cautions that the opposite of risk averse is not reckless. The

willingness to climb a tree knowing the risk it entails is not the same as the delusion that

you won’t fall. It is all about how we balance risk with consequences. The important

point is that in order to innovate we cannot seek to avoid failure. The shared opinion

proffered by those writing about entrepreneurs and innovation is that failing early and

failing often can be a virtue.

This idea has legs that go beyond innovation and is worth a little detour. We live

in an era of ambivalence regarding failure. In some cases we want to insulate our children

from failure as we cultivate their lofty sense of self. Many parents fear they will inflict

irreversible psychological damage on their children through punishment, negative

feedback, or by merely exposing them to the possibility of failure. Even worse are those

advocating unconditional positive regard: bathe them in a constant stream of praise,

irrespective of any standard of performance. At its most wretched, this attitude

contaminates our social values and public policy.

As a personal example of this madness, I watched as both of my daughters

received their trophies for participating in T-ball when they were 7 and 9 years old. Of

course, they never learned any skills of baseball nor do they even come to understand the

rules of the game. If they learned anything it was how to keep score. And they certainly

did not distinguish themselves through their performance, except the day my youngest

walked away from her position in centerfield because she was bored. Nonetheless, at the

end of the season she proudly clutched her trophy as if she had accomplished something.

The idea that doing equals success is pervasive in modern America. But to all you

helicopter parents of college students, I aver that to participate is not to succeed. I am

astonished at the number of students I confront who admit that they have never failed at

any academic task before college. Lake Woebegone, indeed! In contradiction, a popular

mantra of innovation is that failure is not just valuable it is necessary.

An interesting example of that principle is found in Daniel Coyle’s discussion of

the development of talent (The Talent Code).5 In describing how one best builds an

advanced skill, such as involved in excelling at a sport or mastering a musical instrument,

failure is essential. The basic concept is that we need to aim at some performance target

that we fail to reach and then process the feedback from our failure in terms of the gap

between where we want to be and where we are. That is what practice for improvement is

all about. The key to excellence is to narrow the performance gap, whether the skill is

throwing a baseball or playing the violin. Only in that way can we improve. We use our

failure to achieve success. Add to this recipe the critical ingredient of repetition and you

are on your way. To excel, of course, that repetition, practice, will require something near

10,000 hours; a platitude that seems to describe extreme success across a broad spectrum

of endeavors. As Galdwell has popularized in his Outliers, real success takes real effort.6

So I ask, if successful innovators have reached success by embracing and

experiencing failure, rather than by fearing and avoiding it, and if our general cultural

attitude is to protect our children from experiencing failure, then how will they ever

become comfortable with the advice to fail early and fail often as adults? It is

questionable whether we can teach one to be a successful entrepreneur, but there is no

disputing that it can be learned. And part of learning to be an entrepreneur entails our

exposure to risk and failure. Perhaps we need to rethink what best prepares children to

manage failure. A starting point might be the realization that to fail at something is not to

be a failure.

What is needed is the right attitude toward failure; one that fuels perseverance.

That point leads into another important attribute of successful entrepreneurs emphasized

by Peter Sims: the right motivation and outlook. For this topic we can benefit from the

contributions of two prominent contemporary psychologists: Martin Seligman and Carol

Dweck.7 Their research has significantly influenced the emergence of what is now called

positive psychology, an area of research that includes a variety of topics psychologist had

here to fore ignored, including happiness.

Seligman’s contribution involves optimism, which is best defined as an

explanatory style that we apply to ourselves. Optimism is not a fixed quality or

personality trait. Rather, it is more like an outlook on life that is especially important for

how we regard and modulate our own behavior. We differ in the stories we tell ourselves

about ourselves. The optimists seem to hold the advantage. While individuals differ along

the optimism-pessimism continuum, it is important to appreciate that optimism can be

learned. We can, with effort and the right strategy, become optimists. It is much like

choosing to exercise or diet.

Seligman became interested in optimism as a result of his research on learned

helplessness, a phenomenon he pioneered. For the latter he was interested in placing

organisms, originally rats but eventually people, in situations in which they could not

predict environmental events; situations in which their behavior had no consequence. For

example, an animal might be placed in a situation in which it would experience some

noxious event, which it could either terminate by its own actions or not. The critical

finding is that for those animals unable to predict and control the noxious situation, they

would then fail to learn a subsequent task in which they could predict events and exert

control. They had learned to be helpless. As Seligman and colleagues extended the

research to humans, they began to notice that not all participants were vulnerable to

learned helplessness manipulations. Some people just continued to persevere even after

exposure to a situation in which they could not assert control. These were the optimists.

Where optimism matters most is in how we react to challenges, uncertainty, and

especially our failures and setbacks. How we react to the consequences of our

performance influences future performance. Optimists are simply better at managing

adversity, and the advantage of that tendency extends beyond performance. For example,

optimists tend to live healthier lives, recover from illness more quickly, are less prone to

depression and other mental health problems, and do better in school.8 In general, they

suffer less at life’s unexpected pitfalls. Perhaps most important, optimists adopt an

explanatory style that supports their future success. They react to failure differently; they

treat failure as a motivator. Rather than fearing failure and worrying about setbacks,

optimists tell themselves stories that promote greater effort and stronger confidence.

Optimists believe that they can overcome failure and that success is always possible.

Successful entrepreneurs are optimists, and persistence is part of their DNA.

Seligman’s book, Learned Optimism, describes numerous research findings on the

nature and implications of optimism. It also describes a survey that is designed to

distinguish optimists from pessimists, and it delineates a process by which one can attain

an optimistic explanatory style. So, perk up; you can become an optimist, and you would

be well served to try. As just one example of the kind of impact optimism has, consider

what you would do if you failed to perform on some task as well as you had expected.

Your next chance to perform would differ depending on whether you are an optimist or a

pessimist. Imagine you attempt to swim 50 m as fast as possible. Your coach then gives

you a false time, which is slower than you actually swam. When given the next

opportunity to swim, a pessimist will swim even slower, but an optimist will swim faster.

Seligman describes actual evidence of just such an outcome involving Olympic swimmer

Matt Biondi, who had scored high on the optimism scale while at the University of

California-Berkley. His coach provided him a false time, and the next time he swam he

recorded a much faster time. Pessimists, regardless of skill level, did the opposite.9

Carol Dweck is another psychologist who has made important contributions to

understanding why some individuals will embrace the mantra ‘fail early and fail often’,

while others will run screaming from the idea. In some respects her conceptual

framework is similar to Seligman’s optimism, but she arrived at her view differently.

Rather than rats suffering from a nothing-I-do-matters syndrome, Dweck came to her

concept of mindsets through her early research with children. She presented a series of

progressively more difficult puzzles to kids. As the problems became more difficult,

some of the children were unable to generate solutions. Her critical observation was that

the children reacted differently to this situation. Some became frustrated when the

puzzles became too difficult, and they were discouraged by their failure. Others

approached the greater challenge as an opportunity and were undaunted by their failure.

Based on many subsequent studies of the phenomenon, Dweck developed the concept of

contrasting mindsets.10

Those who posses a Fixed Mindset believe that their qualities, their talents, are set

or fixed. These individuals seek validation and strive to prove themselves through their

performance. When they take on a challenge it is to confirm their ability, which they

often regard as superior to that of others. They are not necessarily seeking to compete,

unless they can win. Accordingly, they avoid challenges that exceed their ability or

threaten their egos. When they do engage a challenge they often inaccurately assess their

performance, especially in acknowledging their mistakes or failures. And they also avoid

sheer effort, being unwilling to risk energy that could expose them to failure or a public

display of incompetence. Many of our ‘highly talented’ university students operate from

this mindset; they are annoyingly more concerned with expressing their academic

superiority than with the intrinsic benefits of learning and personal development. If they

should fail, which in their mind might be to receive a B, they are deeply wounded.

In contrast, those with a Growth Mindset believe that they can and should

cultivate their qualities. They see nothing as fixed or innate; their talent is not a gift. They

have a sincere passion for learning and are driven to improve themselves. They more

accurately assess their performance and know their own strengths. They persevere

through difficulty and approach performance as an opportunity to grow. These are

individuals willing to stretch, willing to extend effort, and willing to encounter failure.

Given what was already said about successful entrepreneurs, the Growth Mindest

seems to describe the ultimate high achievers. In her book Mindset: The New Psychology,

Dweck goes on to describe the ways in which mindset matters to academic performance,

sports, physical and mental health, parenting, business, and many other endeavors.11

Particularly illuminating is her analysis of case studies linking Fixed Mindset to major

failures in business. She also describes success stories in which the value of the Growth

Mindset is revealed. As with Seligman’s optimism, the inspiring take on mindset is that

we can change; we can adopt the Growth Mindset and reap the advantages. An important

implication to this claim, that our beliefs about our own abilities and potential can

profoundly affect our performance, reflects one the more profound ways in which ideas

matter. In terms of entrepreneurism, if you want to be a successful entrepreneur, then

grab a little Growth Mindset for yourself.

Beyond the significance of optimism and mindset for entrepreneurism, there are

also important general implications of the ideas developed by Seligman and Dweck. The

tenet that optimism and mindset can be acquired or adopted connects to our general

understanding of talent and success and what these ideas mean for society. Over the past

several decades, the social sciences have been reevaluating the nature of talent. The

consequences of this research extend far beyond scholarly curiosity. How we regard

talent has a significant implication for education, parenting, socialization, criminology,

and a host of other phenomena relevant to improving society, including entrepreneurism.

Accordingly, it is worth a slight detour to considering the critically important idea of

talent. Whether we are concerned with the development of future entrepreneurs,

scientists, writers, musicians or other professions the changing perspective on talent is

important.

The received view of achievement, especially academic achievement, has been

that it is based on talent, and talent in turn has been regarded as an innate quality. Talent

is something we posses, something you are born with, something that is immutable. This

view of talent resonates across pop culture. We constantly hear claims of the type, ‘you

can’t teach that,’ as we witness astonishing achievements. Further, talent is not only

something you have, it is mysteriously created, and unpredictably distributed. Some have

more than others, for reasons we do not fully understand, and those with the most are

randomly spread across society. Those individuals with talent are lucky to have it, and

those without it or have less of it, need to accept their limits and aspire accordingly. Great

students, athletes, or artists are born to be great. Accept your fate! Accordingly,

entrepreneurs are born not created.

This approach to talent is one of those old and very big ideas that continue to

matter a great deal. The strength of conviction that talent is something we have,

something we are born with, varies according to the particular talent in question. For

example, some may believe with great certainty that musical genius is in-born, but they

may be less convinced that entrepreneurial talent is fixed at birth. Interestingly, talent

associated with educational achievement is frequently regarded as a gift. For example,

Thomas Jefferson in a letter to John Adams opined for a policy of broad access to formal

education in which society should seek to ‘rake the geniuses from the rubbish’ (the

masses); a rather jarring expression of the principle that academic talent is to be found

anywhere not merely among the land-owning aristocracy.12 For Jefferson, that conclusion

justified investment in public education. You just never know where talented minds

reside, so it is prudent to open education widely. Of course, others arrive at a different

conclusion, despite also believing that educational talent is innate. Contrary to Jefferson’s

view, many argue that academic talent is not randomly distributed. Rather, we should

expect that the offspring of the most talented among us are more talented than the

offspring of the least talented: talent runs in families. So, we should selectively educate

and train. If your parents are talented, we assume you are as well, and it is your birthright

to be especially well educated.

One of the most controversial aspects of the innate talent position has focused on

the topic of intelligence, especially interpretation of differences in IQ scores between

groups. The general question here is whether intelligence, as a specific form of talent, is

innate and inflexible or whether it is something that is acquired and modifiable. Do we

merely express our fixed intelligence or can we become smart?

The mind sciences have been ambivalent regarding that question. On the one

hand, for much of the 20th Century the discipline of psychology was dominated by an

emphasis on learning, most acutely expressed by behaviorists such as John Watson and B

F Skinner. These were the days of tabula rasa; what we are and become is based on

learning, experience, and the nature of the environments in which we live. Watson

provided the mantra: “Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own

specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train

him to become any type of specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-

chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants,

tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors...”13

Notice that Watson does not deny the possibility that talent comes preformed.

Rather, his position is that we need not be tethered to our endowed qualities; we can

compensate and overcome our endowment with appropriate environmental experience.

This position aligns with the American penchant for espousing self-determination and the

belief that you can be anything if you concentrate and work hard. This perspective did not

necessarily disagree with the idea that talent is fixed; it merely suggests that one’s talent

level need not fix ones achievement level. You may be innately less talented, but there is

more to success than talent. It is also possible to discern the subtle distinction Watson

expressed in implying that intelligence is not the same thing as talent. In other words, you

can learn to do smart things even if you are not inherently smart.

The alternative viewpoint is unambiguous. It not only assumes that intelligence or

some portion of it is innate but also that intellectual talent determines achievement and

success across a wide spectrum of activities. Intelligence is the bedrock of all mental

talent. Accordingly, if entrepreneurial talent is based on intelligence, then entrepreneurs

are to be found not created. Statistical analyses of IQ scores have been used to assert that

there is some innate dimension to intelligence that is beyond the influence of

environment.14 Further, the consequential influence of intelligence is apparent in the

correlations between IQ scores and various measures of achievement including

educational attainment, professional accomplishment, and economic success.

Where the controversy became quite provocative was in assertions that human

groups, primarily races and ethnic groups, differed in IQ scores as the result of innate

factors. Advocates of innate intelligence hold that the data are unimpeachable. They

argue that although there may be some environmental influence over intelligence, there is

also an undeniable and significant innate component, which limits what we can expect of

environmental experience. It may not be the way we want it or the way it should be, but it

is the way it is nonetheless. If you sample IQ scores from a mixed population, average

IQs for various groups will differ. On average the IQ of Group X might be lower than the

average IQ for Group Y. Admittedly, the distributions of the two groups might overlap;

some in Group X might have higher IQs than some members of Group Y, but on average

the groups will differ and much of that difference is beyond remediation.15

The two positions collided with an enormous public reaction beginning in the

1960s. Psychologists such as Arthur Jensen, Richard Herrnstein, Hans Eysenck, and

Philip Rushton asserted the hereditarian position.16 Books such as The Bell Curve by

Herrnstein and Murray brought the innate IQ debate to the public (but note how little of

that book actually deals with innate intelligence.).17 Opponents of the hereditarian

position relied on two ideas: (1) human intellectual ability is acquired, and (2) the

concept of intelligence, as grounded in psychometrics, is otiose. Scholars such as Steven

J. Gould, Richard Lewontin, Steven Rose, Leo Kamin, and Richard Nisbett unleashed

critical assaults on the hereditarian position.18 Steven Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man

provides the counterpoint to The Bell Curve.19 The environmentalist assailed the

deficiencies in the IQ concept, methodological flaws that produced spurious data, and

logical errors of interpretation of available evidence. There were even claims that

research on the question should not proceed because of the putatively harmful social

consequences of heredtarian conclusions. During my tender years as an undergraduate I

witnessed a sociology professor use his teaching assignment as a bully pulpit to castigate

scholars for studying the issue, which was a rather disturbing introduction to the status of

free expression of ideas in academe.

The IQ debate was (is) intense. Some of the arguments focus on data and

statistical issues pertinent to psychometrics, but much of the discussion is polemical.

Aside from extremists who deny the data, the argument is not as much about whether

there are differences in IQ scores among different groups as it is about why that might be

so and what might be the social implications of that fact. Answers to those two questions

were frequently linked to arguments emanating from the more general nature-nurture

debate of which the IQ controversy is but one theme.

Modern psychology has reached a kind of truce on the broader nature-nurture

debate by advocating that our behavior is a bit of each. We are products of both nature

and nurture and the two forces perpetually interact. This compromise position obscures

what was a long and acrimonious history; one that featured such controversial topics as

Eugenics and Social Darwinism. It also ignores the various contours of our public policy

and social mores that continue to be tacitly anchored to one pole or the other on the

nature-nurture continuum. The specter of the eugenics movement always lurks around

any discussion that appeals to nature. The reflexive denial of the possibility that IQ scores

may have some innate basis was fueled by the extant belief in human equality,

Americans’ preoccupation with fairness, and the idealistic notion that with equal

opportunity all can excel.

I speculate that the public remains confused and inconsistent on the matter of

whether talent resides within us or is acquired by what we do. Ideology often influences

beliefs on this topic. Liberals are very uncomfortable accepting the implications of innate

intelligence, except when it comes to their own children. If you believe your child is

gifted and belongs in the tax-supported giftedness program at your daughter’s elementary

school, then you are in the same conceptual camp as those who advocated the innate

intellectual inferiority of American’s with black skin. Ideas matter because they divide

us, but ideas can also unit us. It is fascinating that when we have the courage to look we

often discover some surprising intellectual bedfellows.

Again, there is something peculiar about the intelligence debate that distinguishes

it from the broader discussion of talent. Many are willing to concede that the flexibility of

intellectual talent is debatable, whereas other forms of talent -- great artists, musicians,

poets, football players, and entrepreneurs -- are obviously innate.

More recently, an alternative perspective on talent has emerged that differs in

several respects. First, it does not discriminate intellectual talent, as measured by an IQ

score, from other forms of talent. Second, it exploits a broader social science perspective

in using more than psychometrics. For example, case studies and historical analyses of

high achievers is part of the evidence. Third, it references more evidence from cognitive

science about how minds actually work, especially with respect to the validity of the

concept of intelligence. For those who believe that our minds were created through

natural selection, which did most of its work millions of years ago well before

civilization appeared, there is no reason to expect minds will work differently among

groups on modern tasks (e.g., the modern intelligence test) based on functional design.

Equally important is the claim that the mind reflects multiple intelligences, rather than a

single omnibus intelligence. Finally, the new approach dismisses the nature-nurture

compromise in arguing that that dichotomy itself is vacuous and misleading. It is not that

both nature and nurture contribute their share, but that human development is always a

dynamic process in which our genetic inheritance constantly interacts with environmental

influences, and each influences the other. As one author states it, “This new paradigm

does not herald a shift from ‘nature’ to ‘nurture.’ Instead it reveals how bankrupt the

phrase ‘nature versus nurture’ really is and demands a whole new consideration of how

each of us becomes us.”20

The last point comes from David Shenk’s book The Genius in All of Us, which

presents an evidenced-based argument that is best summarized by his subtitle: “Why

everything You’ve Been Told About Genetics, Talent, and IQ Is Wrong.”21 Gladwell’s

Outliers is another example of this new approach.22 His case studies illustrate the value of

effort, the influence of opportunity, and role luck plays in determining success. Talent is

often an ascription we use to explain the success we observe. The new approach regards

talent, any kind of talent, not as a ‘thing’ fixed by either genes or the environment, but

rather as a process; talent as verb not noun. It is less about what we are and more about

how we train; what we do rather than what we have. Daniel Coyle’s The Talent Code

mentioned above is another representative of this approach.23

An important implication of the talent debate is that there is now even more

support for the idea that one becomes an entrepreneur through experience, as Drucker

originally speculated. Entrepreneurs are not born they are created, and there is an

opportunity to self-create. Not only can we become optimists, not only can we adopt a

growth mindset, but we can also become successful entrepreneurs. The question is how.

Can we teach or train someone to be an entrepreneur? Can the skills of entrepreneurship

be acquired auto-didactically? Is it like learning to be an engineer or a surgeon? Is there

an analog for entrepreneurship to the deep practice principles Coyle describes for

mastering physical skills? These are questions that are currently being pursued. Despite

the availability of many answers among the innovation management self-help resources,

there is still much to learn. And beware of the emergence of educational programs

springing up at colleges and universities. We have a better sense of what it takes to be a

successful entrepreneur than how to become one. Drucker and Sims are good places to

begin.

Beyond entrepreneurism, there are two additional themes critical to the

management of innovation. One is the need to understand the nature of the environment

in which all innovation occurs (the ecology of innovation), and the other entails

organizational strategies and techniques that might promote innovation. Both themes are

extremely important to the economics of innovation, and the stakes are quite high. There

is money to be made in winning the innovation competition. There is no longer much

patience to wait for a clever idea to appear from nowhere. Passive delight in watching

progress emerge has given over to aggressive pursuit of the future. Ideas have never been

in higher demand, and the breadth and intensity of the race to innovate is a defining

attribute of the 21st Century.

The ecology of innovation concept was briefly examined in Chapter 7, so I will

concentrate here on efforts to manage innovation. Perhaps the best illustration of how one

can think about intentional control of innovation is found in a popular strategy termed

‘Design Thinking’, which I briefly mentioned in Chapter 3. It is an approach to idea

development that has been employed quite successfully by the celebrated design firm

IDEO, from which many of the popular ideas for managing innovation have emerged.24

This multi-faceted strategy is typically used to guide research or design teams seeking

creative solutions to discrete applied problems; although, it has much broader utility

beyond business. Design Thinking offers a systematic alternative to reliance on random

acts of creativity. Rather than waiting for inspired individuals or geniuses to step forward

with the next Big Idea or solution to a vexing problem, it is possible instead to exploit

collaborative thinking.

An excellent comprehensive introduction to Design Thinking is found in Tim

Brown’s Change By Design.25 The cornerstone of the strategy is collective intelligence.

The mantra is “all of us are smarter than any of us.”26 But it is not just Group Think. One

critical ingredient of the strategy is the selection of appropriate team members. Members

are chosen for what they bring to the table, unlike committee formation at universities

that relies on constituent and demographic representation. Design thinkers are there

because of their minds not because they happen to be a particular kind of person or fit a

demographic profile. The function of the group also differs. University committees sit

around and wait for members of the group to solve a problem, whereas design thinking

groups aim differently. It is not so much about finding the solution or the perfect design.

Rather, the project is placed in a much larger, richer context; one that attempts to match

human needs and resources. It is adamantly opposed to the contention that there is only

one best way.

There are two primary pillars to Design Thinking. First is the goal of bringing into

harmonious balance three overlapping spaces along the innovation continuum:

Inspiration (the source or impetus for the project), Ideation (idea creation and

development), and Implementation (application of ideas, which might entail an incipient

innovation). Thinking moves iteratively across these spaces in an open-ended, open-

minded fashion. It is not a unidirectional, linear, stepwise path from beginning to end,

but a much more dynamic process of reaching forward and backward at the same time

and heading in multiple directions concurrently. It is not like solving an algebraic

equation. There is some top-down guidance, but it is more coaching than management.

The real energy derives from a team operating from the bottom up. A key attribute of the

process is freedom, including the freedom to take risks and experiment.

The second pillar entails a strategic, intentional attempt to bring three competing

constraints into harmony: Desirability, Viability, and Feasibility. The emphasis on these

constraints relates to Pink’s appeal to magnify the human touch by searching for ideas

that respond to empathy, elegance, and esthetics.27 Not just any solution will do. In that

regard, it is easy to read Design Thinking as a truly pragmatic strategy; one that William

James would heartily endorse.

Experience of the team members is another critical factor, especially with respect

to the collective thinking of the group. Accordingly, experience influences how team

members are selected. To get the right team, one must assemble a group with diverse

experience. Multidisciplinary perspectives are essential both with respect to team

composition as well as the attributes of individual team members. A more effective team

member is one who contributes a broader intellectual perspective by virtue of his or her

own education, background, and lived experience. College students listen up: General

education and breadth of experience matter!

Equally important is that team members need to ‘inhabit’ the real lived space in

which the project is framed. They need to come to know the problem domain by touching

it, so to speak. Erudition is insufficient. The worm's eye view espoused by Peter Sims is

celebrated in Design Thinking.28 The caricature of traditional approaches evokes the

image of committee members meeting in an office rationally discussing abstract

principles. Picture General Westmoreland pondering military strategy for Viet Nam from

behind a desk in an air conditioned trailer. Design Thinking, in contrast, relies heavily on

team members getting their hands on the stuff of the project. Tim Brown offers the

example of team members getting admitted into a hospital in order to get a

comprehensive patients-eye view of hospital operations in order to help design an

improved health care process. The goal was to achieve operational efficiency but in a

way that captures essential esthetics.

Brown’s book articulates many other important aspects to Design Thinking

including an organization's culture of innovation in which the team functions, the role of

optimism, and the value of sharing ideas in real time. Virtual meetings are fine, but they

do not yet present the rich communication context found in face-to-face exchanges.

Freedom to play is also critical, but as Tim Brown emphasizes “relaxing the rules is not

about letting people be silly.”29 As the process progresses, the team seeks to create a large

pool of ideas without rigid managerial supervision and without personalizing the thinking

process; who offers which idea is irrelevant. It is all about the collective discovery of

ideas with the greatest buzz. The goal is to generate candidate ideas that are both

functionally relevant and emotionally pleasing. Serious play, prototyping, collective

intelligence brainstorming, story telling, visualization, and, yes, mind mapping are all

additional elements of the process. I was especially impressed that Brown printed a

mindmap for Design Thinking on the inside cover of his book. Clearly, Design Thinking

aligns well with Daniel Pink’s view of the requisite kind of mind and kind of thinking

needed to succeed in the current ecology of innovation that defines the Conceptual Age.30

There are many more invaluable nuggets of advice to be gleaned from Design Thinking.

Regardless of your vocation, I encourage you to read the ideas contained in Change By

Design. Beyond the concrete tools of innovation, there is some general wisdom to be

found here that enrich your life.

Whereas Design Thinking entails an explicit strategy, there is also the question of

how general attributes of an organization’s structure and operational characteristics

influence the management of innovation. There is an extensive literature on this topic

well beyond the scope of my project.31 I will mention only one resource, which offers an

excellent introduction to that topic. Tom Kelly’s Ten Faces of Innovation is one of the

more credible self-help references currently available. Kelly cleverly diagnoses

innovative organizations in terms of ten personas; the combination of the kinds of talent

needed and the functional roles that are critical to an organization's success. Innovative

organizations create environments that foster continuous positive change and creative

renewal. The old bromide that if you are standing still you are falling behind comes to

mind. Some organizations are much better than others at inspiring creative thinking and

in asserting openness to new ideas as a core value. As Kelly states it, these places support

“people creating value through the implementation of new ideas.”32

Kelly’s ten personas divide into three categories. The Learning Personas include

the Anthropologist, who is a keen observer of human behavior; the Experimenter, who

excels at prototyping new ideas and enlightened trial & error; and the Cross-Pollinator,

who translates ideas across different domains. These personas provide the essential raw

material for innovation: creative ideas. The Organizing Personas manage the competition

among ideas. These personas include the Hurdler, who overcomes obstacles; the

Collaborator, who brings eclectic groups together; and the Director, who gathers and

manages a talented cast. Finally, there are the Building Personas. The Experience

Architect designs compelling experiences, the Set Designer sets the work stage and

manages the physical environment in which innovation process occurs, the Caregiver

addresses customer needs with a smile, and the Storyteller creates legends that capture

internal morale as well as external awareness.

Kelly goes on to describe explicit ways in which successful collaborative

innovation emerges. He has a particular affinity for sports metaphors. He tells us that

coaching matters more than control, we should celebrate passing and do less dribbling,

and let everybody touch the ball. He also offers prescriptions for successful

brainstorming such as the need to withhold judgment, the value of initially emphasizing

the number of ideas rather than their quality, switching gears when needed, getting

physical (it is not just about talking), getting immersed (touching the problems being

solved), and using the physical environment in which the brainstorm unfolds. The latter

relates to the public’s fascination with the unusual work environments offered by Google

and Pixar; places dramatically different from the old regimented factories or board rooms

of the 1950s.

Obviously, the ten personas are not explicit positions for which one might read a

job listing. Rather, they represent the kinds of human capacities that contribute to

creating an atmosphere of innovation within a creative organization. Independent of

expertise and focused talent, members of a team or organization bring styles of thinking,

attitudes, and social intelligence to the collaborative enterprise. There is an important

implication here for the recent job-seeking college graduate. It is not merely what you

know and which skills you have mastered that counts in the Conceptual Age. How you

think, how you interact with other thinkers, and in Kelly’s terms, your persona matter as

much if not more than your GPA and transcript.

If there is one image that captures the contrast between traditional thinking and

thinking required in the conceptual age it St. Jerome In His Study by Antonello da

Messina, completed in the 15th Century and currently housed in the National Gallery in

London.33 The painting copied in Figure 2 portrays a lone scholar isolated in his silent

study, holding a book, and deeply engaged with his own thoughts. Thinking in the

Conceptual Age demands something different. And the critical question is can formal

education, a highly conservative institution resistant to paradigmatic change and still

enamored with the St Jerome model, adequately prepare the kinds of thinkers demanded

by the 21st Century.33

Figure 2.