Innovation: Think Outside of the Box

Why does innovation not come easy for many companies? I came across this great post on Innovating To Win that gives us some insight on this phenomenon. To summarize the key point in this post, employees have become to narrow-minded in their approach to innovation. Clearly, it is not their fault''Technical specialization' has restricted scientists, innovators, and engineers to think outside the box for new ideas since their focus is streamlined on one particular niche. Real innovation comes from interacting and collaborating with all departments and employees within an organization. We've recently come across a useful article detailing 9 Principles of Innovation which you can also read on our previous post. Today I'll highlight a different principle: 8. CREATIVITY LOVES CONSTRAINTS "This is one of my favorites. People think of creativity as this sort of unbridled thing, but engineers thrive on constraints. They love to think their way out of that little box: 'We know you said it was impossible, but we're going to do this, this, and that to get us there.'" Allow engineers and other innovators to share and sharpen their expertise by broadening their horizons. Only then will innovation slowly shift its way to becoming easy like once before'