“Great companies, from an innovation standpoint, are the ones that are able to make their mental models—their mindsets—clear to the world,” Dr. Evans Baiya said.
Session 2 of the BBB Greater West + Pacific Innovation Academy 2021 did not hold back. The cohort of 24 met with their coaches for the first time in April to discuss the previous month’s homework and gear up for a huge swath of information presented during Session 2—the technical understanding of what it means to have the Innovator’s Advantage.
The secret? People and mindset.
“Almost every book written about innovation talks about ideas plus execution,” Dr. Baiya said. “Almost nobody talks about the people side, and yet it’s the multiplier. So we say you can never have truly sustainable innovation if you don’t get the people equation right.”
Almost 70% of successful innovations are attributed to the people factor. Understanding the role people play requires an innovation mindset. Remember, everyone is an innovator. But employees often don’t realize they are innovating or know how to best apply their talents, skills, and passions in the innovation continuum. For the cohort, this meant understanding the kinds and types of innovation, and where they fit in the Six Stages of Innovation, so that they could relate it to their work and daily lives. Dr. Baiya and Ron’s equation makes it clear: Innovator’s Advantage = (Purpose + Pathway) x People.
During the session, the BBB team was divided into four small groups and took time to answer questions about their favorite pastimes, giving them real-world examples of innovative mindsets: When you first began your hobby, what was your purpose—was it a specific goal or target? What was your pathway to attain the skills and resources you needed as a beginner? Which people did you enlist to help and what was their role?
From sports to baking, weightlifting to jazzercise, the cohort shared inspirational stories and in doing so realized they had been following the equation of Purpose, Pathway, and People all along.
“If we go back to what the definition of innovation is—the creation of value—every one of these stories reflected that,” Ron said. “Oftentimes, innovation is happening, but it is invisible. You’re doing it, but you don’t realize you’re doing it. Too often we think that it’s got to be this high-minded, complicated thing when we were built to innovate. You didn’t come to this Academy so that you could become an innovator. You came here as an innovator.”
The BBB cohort is on the path to an innovation mindset. With so much information in one session, they left with plenty to think about before their next coaching sessions—including team homework assignments. Luckily, with six more sessions to go, there is plenty of time to hone their innovation skills.
Chief Innovation Officer Dale Dixon said all he’s learned in the past year from the Innovator’s Advantage system and COVID-19 comes back to mindset—especially what Peter Diamandis calls a Moonshot Mindset. This mindset means “you understand that most people are focused on incremental (10%) growth, but you seek 10x Moonshot growth. You desire tools and techniques that enable you to select and implement your Moonshots.”
According to Dale, this is the mindset that’s going to push organizations like the BBB down the road to progress further and faster—and it’s truly an exciting time to be at the organization.
“There’s this adage—if you ride motorcycles or bicycles, you know this to be true—what you look at is what you hit,” Dale said. “You’re riding your bicycle down the trail and there’s a big rock in the trail. If you look at that rock and say, ‘I’m not going to hit that rock, I’m not going to hit that rock, I’m not going to hit that rock,’ what do you hit? You hit the rock! You will always find what you look for. So be careful what you look for. Mindset is so important.”
To read more about the BBB Greater West + Pacific Innovation Academy 2021, click here. And if you want to learn more about how your organization could benefit from hosting an Academy, click here. | Header Photo by fauxels from Pexels.
