The paradox of innovation

Innovation is difficult to define, but in most definitions is the concept of “novel” -> this being something that is “interesting and new”.

To develop something that meets this criteria you cannot simply follow a known path - as this will lead you to a place that you can easily anticipate. Subcategories exist such as sustaining and disruptive innovation - but here we are looking exclusively at the high level definition.

To make something truly new you have to do things differently, try things, and this process by its very nature cannot have structure. The problem is that if left to its own devices this process will never end - there will always be some other avenue to try in the search for novel.

As a business you need to manage the push and pull of innovation. Giving enough space for the creation of the new, but with enough bounds to prevent being overwhelmed with choice (and never finishing).

This is harder than it sounds, the longer you leave innovation running the more likely you are to eventually find something novel, but the length of time is unknown. If you control innovation too tightly you will end up with marginal improvements only.

Managing this process involves understanding what resources you have, what time you have to allocate, then adjusting the levers you have to give balance of exploration vs the need to deliver a result.

The search space for innovation is basically infinite, as a leader you need to crop that down to a manageable level without stifling the process. But this is a catch-22 as if you knew in advance which areas yielded better results that wouldn’t be a novel place to search.

You need to deal with imperfect information, think in bets, and manage the unmanageable.