What is Innovation? Geoff Nicholson Explains

Hello Everyone!  Recently, I have been thinking about the topic of innovation.  Specifically, why some companies are innovative, while others are not.  Here are a few of the questions I have been asking myself.  What is innovation?  How do companies innovate?  How does a company foster and build a culture of innovation?  By researching this topic, the 3M corporation came up on my radar.  They are widely recognized as one of the premier innovative companies in the world.  But, how does 3M build and maintain its culture of innovation with almost 85,000 employees?

Answering these questions could take a long time.  To start the conversation, here are a few videos from Geoff Nicholson, (the guy credited with creating post-it notes.)



Here are a few quotes from the video I enjoy from this video and find interesting:

"It is important to provide leadership, and then people know they can practice innovation. Which is going to involve failure."

"That is part of the problem, people are afraid of failure."

"Failure is not failure, but a learning experience."



This is another great video where Dr. Geoff Nicholson explains his view on what innovation is and how it lives in a corporation.

"Research is the transformation of money into knowledge. Innovation is the transfer of knowledge back into money."

"Innovation takes three things: commitment, confidence, and courage."

Conclusion

I hope you find value in these videos.  I love listening to people with much more real world experience then me.  It's interesting to hear the opinions on a topic from someone who has been thinking and observing the subject for most of their career.  The other interesting topic discussed in the videos was one word... believe.  This word did not go unnoticed and will be the subject of future writings.  Until next time... I leave you with these questions:

What does innovation mean to your business?

Do your employees, leaders, or investors BELIEVE in the vision of the company?

If belief or innovation is not present... how can you really build that into the culture of your organization?

 Until next time... have a great day!

Thanks,
Jer