Faith, Trust and Analysis in Innovation

It’s the first Friday of March.  My colleague, Mark Murphy brings you a great post about Innovation.  We hope you enjoy it!

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If you are doing something that hasn’t ever been done before, or striving for results that have never been achieved before, you will inevitably encounter plenty of reasons not to proceed.  You will almost certainly, at some point, question your own confidence.  It happens so often that Harvard Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter created Kanter’s Law (http://bigthink.com/ideas/5474):  Everything can look like a failure in the middle.  When you first formulate an idea, excitement peaks.  But the more you study that idea, the more you realize the challenges that lie in front of you.

Innovators must have faith.  Faith in their idea.  Faith in the intuition that was the seed of the idea.  Faith in their ability and capability to see the idea to its fruition.  It’s important to Keep the Faith.  But that faith must not be blind faith.  It needs to be tested. 

Just as innovators must have faith which is not blind faith, it is imperative that innovators have trust that is Smart Trust. Real innovation requires trust in others, but even more importantly, trust in one’s self.  Ronald Reagan said so famously, “trust, but verify”.  Stephen M.R. Covey and Greg Link, in their book “Smart Trust – Creating Prosperity, Energy, and Joy in a Low-trust World”, talk about the importance of “’smart trust’, enabling you to operate with high trust in a low-trust world by minimizing risk and maximizing possibilities.”

Click here to learn more about how trust empowers innovation and creativity

And finally, it’s important, that while you’re keeping the faith and trusting your intuition, you do appropriate due diligence.  The proper analysis of an idea is critical to determining its viability.  Scott Anthony, in his Harvard Business Review blog post of November 17, 2011:  A Few Ideas for Beleaguered Innovators refers to Michael Lewis’s baseball book, Moneyball. It describes how the Oakland Athletics exploited market inefficiencies to compete against baseball teams with more financial resources.  Scott Anthony writes that in the book “there was a discussion between A's general manager Billy Beane and his team of scouts. They were discussing a prospect, a University of Alabama catcher named Jeremy Brown. The scouts didn't like Brown, pointing to his "soft body" and "low energy." Beane's analytical team loved Brown, citing some of his performance statistics. A debate ensued. Beane shut the discussion down with a succinct phrase that summarized his organizational philosophy: "We're not selling jeans here." Brown became the 35th overall selection in the amateur draft.

Beane's point was that he didn't care about a player's physical attributes; he cared about whether the player would perform.  And his philosophy was that statistics provided a better way to identify high performers than a player's physique or mental makeup. In this case, the scouts might have had a point — Brown ended up with a grand total of 11 major league plate appearances (where he did bang out two doubles and a single). Nonetheless, Beane's admonition is a useful reminder that innovation leaders should make sure they are asking the right questions and focusing on the right variables.”

In the end, it all comes down to one question…or three:

• Do you have faith in your idea?
• Do you trust your intuition?
• Did you do your due diligence?

Mark Murphy, FranklinCovey Consultant                

Copyright © 2012 - Mark Murphy _____________________________________________________________

If you are interested in learning more about how FranklinCovey can help impact and increase innovation in your organization, consider setting up an appointment with our online appointment book (top right side of this page.)

Enabling greatness one organization at a time,

John Vakidis

Associate Client Partner | FranklinCovey

214.387.9960 | john.vakidis@franklincovey.com