Wednesday, January 21, 2015

What’s the Emotion Behind Innovation

The foundation for innovation has to be grounded in one’s “vision;” which has to be linked to “hope,” and seeking justice or, discovering"truth."

Historically, innovation would seem to have emerged with an instinct for survival. Basic tools for hunting and gathering. So there's a connection, with emotional equivalents, with surviving each day. Greater leaps are found with agriculturally based societies; whereas, nomadic groups seem to have remained static, having adapted through trading. Environment either encourages or discourages innovation, the ease or difficulties inherent in surviving: too easy? Too difficult? What elements did past civilizations possess that added to innovation? And how can innovation continue to drive the progress of human race? Now we are moving forward from an industrial age to the digital era, what’s your vision, emotion, and inspiration to connect the innovation dots?


The foundation for innovation has to be grounded in one’s “vision;” which has to be linked to “hope” and seeking justice or discovering "truth." This causes conflicts because even though we might all have similar guideposts for our inner wholeness, which we do because of universal knowledge, but we don't have the same grasp of truth unless we can accept similar wholeness of our inner self. The interaction between what is within us (the self), and how we project to the exterior world is the bridge to achieving wholeness. The constant negotiation between our essence and our projection what leads to growth and human evolution.


Innovation is to improve a state of improvement (process, person, product etc). Digital innovation has “soft touch” as well, such as creative communication or culture/leadership innovation. Improvement itself and the desire to improve comes from within. Innovation leads us to understand the wholeness, since innovation, the practical application of creativity is essentially about problem-solving at various levels, and to solve a problem implies a wish to make something, or everything, as perfect as possible. That, in itself, seems to lead to a wish for understanding the wholeness and trigger the combination of emotions to harness creativity.


The true conflict in innovation is self-imposed by trying to make our “visions” reality. Just as we find energy is released from one steady state to another, we find innovation from our outer realities attempts to change to the steady state of our inner self. This energy is called innovation. The conflict can come from an internal conflict or a conflict with the outside world. The most difficult part is to transform the conflict from within to a productive life cycle. This is about understanding the wholeness. If you have a stable internal process and you can even help others then innovation with the outside world will be the next challenge. So your emotional well-being has an impact on innovation but what is triggering your emotions? What from the outside world has an impact? What about the right innovation climate? Your personal climate, your team climate or your organizational climate? All those are the soft touch of digital innovation management.


There is an emotion life cycle in an innovation management life cycle! The kind of emotions within a person that triggers an improvement/innovation process can be numerous and most likely will be a combination of emotions! Certainly when you think that every rational thought is linked to emotions and creates a feeling. This is an ongoing process just like the feeling to improve and to create. For example, we need conflict to initiate, but after initiation, there should be a debate to create! After the debate, we need passion to advocate innovation; after the passion, we shall keep calm and be persistent to manage innovation step by step… So different kind of emotions is involved to truly become innovative.


Innovation is the light every business is pursuing, compare to its historical root, digital innovation is expanding its horizon, from incremental innovation to radical innovation; from hard innovation to soft innovation; from open innovation to hybrid innovation. Yes, the emotion behind it is still a catalyzer -to make our “visions” reality. Be positive, be passionate and be persistent.

Digitalization is like a flywheel, and Digital Masters are the one riding above it. Surf more Information about Digital Master:





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