Montaigne’s innovator mindset

As he travelled 16th century Europe with a small entourage of servants, secretary and family members polishing their education, Michel de Montaigne regretted the absence of… his cook.

Such attitude was typical innovator mindset.

Creativity starts with copying

What do these two paintings have in common?

While Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) is world-famous, The first communion, painted 12 years earlier, would only be recognised by experts or serious connaisseurs.

Learning innovation in the Digital Natives age

I recently returned to Marc Prensky’s Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants landmark article, which features a now-classic example of learning innovation: creating the Monkey Wrench video game to get mechanical engineers to master a complex computer-aided-design software. While we can’t build a video game for every bit of teaching we need to do, there are some simple underlying lessons that we can draw from Prensky’s observations.

Innovation is more likely to thrive in trial-and-error cultures

INSEAD and Logica surveyed two hundred CxO level business leaders across Europe, about their views on innovation and what factors may foster it or hinder it.  One of the critical factors the survey highlights is the attitude towards mistakes:

“UK workers are most likely to learn from their mistakes with 50% of business leaders saying they encourage their organisation to do so. France achieved the lowest rate at 20%.” See http://www.logica.com/insead/400017425

Having lived 10+ years in each country I believe that the difference runs deeper than just the attitude towards mistake; it sits right at the heart of the learning model.