The Myths of Innovation summary

Today’s world is all about convenience. Everything nowadays is being sold to us pre-packaged – from meals to holidays, clothes to entertainment. The problem with this convenient consumer culture is that we also expect our new ideas to come conveniently gift-wrapped, which is another myth of innovation.

The belief that good ideas arrive fully formed often stops us from developing them, which forecloses the possibility of those ideas becoming great. When pitching a new idea to, say, a team at work, one of the things innovators often hear is “We’ve already tried that” or “We don’t work like that here.” This is unfortunate as these criticisms nip the possibility of growth in the bud and ignore the fact that new ideas don’t come conveniently ready-made.

If you were to ask a young child who invented pancakes, they’d most likely answer, “My mom!” Well, the bad habit of assuming that the person we associate with an invention is also its creator doesn’t stop at childhood. How many of us think that Thomas Edison invented the electric light bulb? And how many know that it was in fact invented by the lesser-known Humphry Davy and Joseph Swan? Unfortunately, the myth of the lone innovator has robbed these two men of their laurels.

People like Edison get the credit for great inventions because we want our products, our ideas and our heroes to come conveniently pre-packaged, as previously mentioned. Therefore, it’s easier to spread the myth that something great was achieved by a single person, even though the truth is that it usually involves more than one mind.

Creator of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, had his invention dismissed as nothing more than a useless toy by the world’s leading communication company at the time, and George Lucas’s original Star Wars script was rejected by all the major Hollywood studios except one. This brings us to another innovation myth – that people like new ideas.

From the examples above, we can see that people aren’t so receptive to new ideas, even if the ideas are brilliant. People tend to reject new things because they are inherently afraid of change.

Can you imagine Stephen Hawking working for a typical boss who demands that he submit daily status reports? Or what about Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton having to get their time cards stamped? How about Mozart, Marie Curie and Leonardo da Vinci taking notes at a company conference?

If you’re struggling to picture the great innovators of the past succeeding within the confines of today’s workplace, how can we expect the modern employee to accomplish any innovative work?

Fairy tales and stories of heroes usually follow a familiar trajectory: the good guy wins, the bad guy loses and those who follow the right path are rewarded. These stories demonstrate our deeply held beliefs about meritocracy – that the best individual or idea will or should win. However, the belief that “goodness” wins is yet another myth of innovation.

In a business context, the myth that a great idea will always triumph is perhaps best captured in the well-known saying, “If you build it, they will come.” Unfortunately, this phrase has led many entrepreneurs to falsely believe that a good idea will sell itself.