Innovation | Realizing Empathy

Innovation does not solve problems.
It only has the potential to do so.

Say I produced an innovative vacuum cleaner,
If the problem is a dirty house,
unless someone uses the innovation repeatedly,
problem persists.

Innovation creates unexpected choices we didn’t perceive to have,
Problem solving uses existing choices to achieve an expected result.

Problem solving gets stuck
when we lack the requisite variety of choices
to achieve our expected result.

Thus,
when we’re stuck,
we need to temporarily put aside problem solving
in favor of innovation
to first increase the variety of our choices.

Sometimes innovation even helps us realize
that what we considered a problem is not,
and the problem vanishes

There’s a meme on how lobsters grow
by shedding their rigid shell and producing a new one.

It points out that before it can grow,
a lobster feels stress against their shell.

Thus, the moral of the story is:
1) Treating stress as a problem to be solved is to prevent growth.
2) Stress can be a sign of growth.

What it skims through, though,
is how lobsters need a rock
to protect itself from predators
before it can shed its shell.

So if our client, employee, boss, or partner
seems to be unwilling to let go of their shell,
or to grow & innovate,
the question isn’t “Why are they being so rigid?!”
It’s “Do we have a rock in place?”

Let me know if you’re willing to be a rock.

Irony is when we judge others as lacking empathy

Posts tagged ‘Innovation’