Even though many things can be standardized, “anybody can do any thing”, etc, I personally think ideation and innovation are brain driven. Some brains naturally generate ideas. We call these kind of personalities as “creative people”, “Innovators”, etc. Some people are more focused on tasks. They are naturally gifted at execution. And some other set of people are more interested in relationships/people etc. In simple terms we have three broad types of core personalities – visionaries/innovators, execution focused and people/relationship focused.
Now is the tricky part. Earlier we could have three different set of people to deliver the end results. While one guy is focused on ideas and other two could focus on people and execution part. But now if you simply give an idea there is no value. Some one else will steal your idea and deliver it fast. No body cares whose idea was it. At the end all people care about is results. This is the Hard truth.
Especially now we are expected to deliver the innovation in fastest time possible. So unless the Innovator plays major role of leading and delivering the Innovation there is no real value. Innovator now need to be like a leader. He/she need to come up with idea and form a team to delivery the innovation. This is very different from earlier days where some high intellectual guy comes up with idea inside a room and he will be looked at as a great guy.
Now Innovation means delivering Innovation not just ideas. Innovation = Idea + Implementation and of course with ultimate bottom line improvements. If you look at major Innovators they have brought in the ideas and implemented them for profits.
YK
