What are the innovation skills needed to be successful in creating new ideas and products? Many people often find themselves void of creativity in the innovation world. This stems from a deeper issue. On today’s show, we will go through in more detail what innovation skills separate those that have limited success to those that have continual success. The core set of skills to be successful and to win regardless of your organization type, size or geographical location are the same.

Self-Confidence in Creativity

The number one skillset I have discussed many times over the years is self-confidence that you are creative. We were all born highly creative. Watch kids with the creative things they say, do and come up with. The problem is creativity is driven out of us from an early age. Children learn conformity from grade school through college. We are brainwashed into thinking that it is vital to act the same in order to be relevant. When we move into a professional career we are asked to be more creative, think differently and come up with solutions, after being taught conformity for 16+ years. It’s no myth that CEOs recruit creativity. Creativity drives innovation. It's a catalyst for growth in a business. If you are not exercising your creativity and unlocking its potential you could become irrelevant.

Bravery

Another key skillset is bravery. The opposite if innovation bravery is conformity. You have to go out and apply your creativity. Share your thoughts and ideas. Take some risks. Try something you haven’t done before. The fear and feeling of failure holds us back and kills the bravery. You have to get over the fear of failure to be brave. Step out, get permission or give permission to go and fail. Go out and experiment, test the limits, break the norm and be brave.

Seeing with Fresh Eyes

One important skillset that gets harder to use as you get more experienced is your perspective. Seeing with fresh eyes and having a beginner's mind will guide you to develop breakout products and services. Don’t let your area of expertise cloud your vision, but have an attitude of openness. Every year of experience in an expertise or capability area you become more and more closed to different approaches or new opportunities. No matter how many times you have seen and worked a type of initiative/project you need to put aside your expertise and come in with a new mindset to each initiative. Adopt an approach with many possibilities and avoid getting caught in the trap of an expert mindset with fewer possibilities and being categorized as a naysayer.

Ability to Craft & Ask Great Questions

How does one get the creative thoughts and ideas flowing? The answer is by asking questions. Questions hold great power. They get people thinking. There are simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions, leading questions and questions you craft to discover. The power of creating and collecting your own questions is critical in the innovation world. It will help you create new ideas and eliminate problems. Coming in as a new leader I crafted four questions to gain a unique insight. Developing these questions is vital to deriving input from your team, vendors, partners, leaders as well as potential beneficiaries of your idea.

Continually, coming up with different ways of asking a question can generate discoveries that are unique. For instance, if I ask you the question of what is half of thirteen and you respond six and a half. I would give you an ‘A ‘on a math test, but in innovation, I would give you a ‘C’. Why, because you stopped at the first obvious answer. Now if I craft the question slightly differently and ask you how many different ways can you convey half of thirteen? There are more ways than one, and it would surprise you how creative you can get.

To help out I’ve crafted a card deck that asks questions with a variety of angles to ...