2 Types of Innovation

Made any innovations lately?

When we hear “innovation”, we immediately start thinking about technical advancements and clever new things.

But oftentimes, the best innovations available to us are less shiny:

A fancy new phone system may be the future, or it may be an elaborate way to avoid calling people back yourself. The “innovation” is the shiny new system. Perhaps the innovation worth pursuing is the discipline of getting better at having great conversations with people on the phone.

An advanced new web platform may be great, or it may be full of bugs for the early-adopters to weed out. The “innovation” is new-fangled unproven tech. Perhaps the innovation worth pursuing is the reliability that comes from battle-tested tech coupled with battle-tested operating procedures.

If innovation means bringing meaningful advantage to market, that’s often at odds with the stereotypes of innovation.

Are you innovating, or are you “innovating”?