There is an i in team

There is an i in team. I am referring to the i of innovation. When we think about innovation, we like to think about those individual geniuses that have entered into the history books. Archimedes in his bath tub (an invention, not an innovation, I admit) or Steven Jobs with the latest i-something. Innovation seems to be the realm of extra-ordinary people, and so there are books and training courses to think like Steve Jobs. I am not sure how many innovations occur thanks to training courses in innovation …

A whole different view of innovation was presented in a recent blog by Samuel Bacharach, summarizing an interview with Jef Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon. Bezos describes his innovation process as follows: "In my experience, the way invention, innovation and change happen is [through] team effort. There's no lone genius who figures it all out and sends down the magic formula. You study, you debate, you brainstorm and the answers start to emerge. It takes time. Nothing happens quickly in this mode.”

Three critical elements to innovation, that are in fact in direct opposition of the stereotypes.

1. It’s about a team, not a genius. It’s a group process.

2. It’s a process (not a light bulb) with debate, brainstorming,  and playing with alternatives.

3. It takes time. You can’t force creativity by scheduling an innovation meeting on Tuesday morning (or any other day).

That is exactly the reason the Action Learning process very often delivers innovative and creative ideas to complex problems. In an Action Learning session, the team asks questions to understand the problem in all its aspects, not to jump to (incomplete) solutions. Action Learning is the perfect team process as it includes reflection on the learning that is taking place. And in fact, although innovation cannot be sped up, the Action Learning session’s structure and intensity ensures that within a couple of 2 hour sessions, significant breakthrough solutions have been developed.