Want to understand innovation?

Innovation...the latest corporate buzzword. Crutch of the tired 21st Century organisation-under-pressure or founding principle of the visionary? As subjective as it is flimsy, to the ill-formed or cynical it can intimate a spectrum of activity from pointless pontification at one end to profitable production at the other. Creating the latter, and avoiding the former is clearly the key for any innovator...after all, everyone has good ideas but only the best get them to market in winning form.

One strategy to understanding how to create a winning idea is to understand the Theory of Obliquity. A philosophical theory first proffered by leading economist John Kay (http://www.johnkay.com/2004/01/17/obliquity), it shares many traits with the Chaos theory. Not to be confused with the meaning of Obliquity in scientific terms (which indicates the degree of axial tilt) the Theory of Obliquity essentially suggests that the most effective way to achieve one’s aims is through indirect, rather than direct means. Those who race directly toward a functional and singular aim often are the least successful...the companies who seek solely to be the most profitable rarely are; likewise, people who aspire to being the happiest they can be are often, privately, the most unhappy.

As a theory for creative and commercial innovation, it's a good one. Often, the fastest and most sustainable route towards a goal is not to fight directly over your competition, but to step left, circumventing their own direct actions and power ahead towards your goal, with the same ambition but differing solutions to your competition. What you end up with is simple, proprietary, protectable and tough to compete with.

There are endless case studies proving this theory works ranging from achieving corporate stardom right the way through to, more randomly, proving for a US National Parks Fire Prevention team that the best way to control the risk of fire, was not actually to put them all out. If you can free your mind from wanting to grasp hold of logic and force you toward the obvious solution, instead letting your imagination run left and then harder at your target in an innovative way...you'll always be more successful.