I’ve said in my previous writing that brainstorming does not drive successful innovation. This is the case because success does not come from generating the wildest ideas. According to my 25+ years researching business success and failure patterns, innovation success results from selectively pursuing the right ideas, generally ideas that evolve from your existing strengths. A new book related to this, “Inside the Box: A Proven System of Creativity for Breakthrough Results”, was the subject of a June 15-16 Wall Street Journal article titled “Think Inside the Box” and subtitled “Forget brainstorming: People are at their most innovative when they work within the constraints of what they already know”. Although I have not yet read the book, some of its key points appear to fit well with the success patterns that my research finds.
My research agrees with the book’s view that that successful innovation builds upon what you already know. Yet, since fresh perspective can lead to worthwhile ideas, I wouldn’t say you must totally forget brainstorming. But, you should recognize how picking success prone ideas that build upon prior strengths is much more important than dreaming up wild ideas. Thus, based upon my 25+ years researching business success and failure patterns, “Inside the Box” is a much better approach to innovation than dreaming up and pursuing radically different ideas that are far outside the box.
That’s why my Winning Moves® Special Report “Evolution, Not Revolution: How to Innovate Without Destroying Your Business” (published in 2007) advocates evolutionary stepwise change rather than innovating by doing something radically different. Innovation success comes from an evolutionary approach that builds in a stepwise fashion upon what you already know how to do. An evolutionary approach discourages going too far out of the box and, therefore, is consistent with the book “Inside the Box”.
That’s also why I stressed the importance of evolution, not revolution when Daily Herald/ Business Ledger journalist Anna Marie Kukec asked me to comment on the many recent innovations at Walgreens. My comments appeared in a newspaper article she wrote about Walgreens published early this year.
Still, innovation too often ignores the patterns of success and focuses upon thinking far outside the box. Yet, far outside the box approaches typically fail. So, by encouraging innovators to think “Inside the Box”, the new book serves a useful role. It can keep innovation on the right track and it helps prevent what could easily be wildly creative innovation attempts that turn into a major disaster. For example, the problems with Penney’s recent innovative transformation attempt could have been prevented had the company’s approach been less out-of-the-box.
Thus, the major theme of the book “Inside the Box” is a step in the right direction for innovation.
