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Innovation comes from willingness to appear foolish
By Jana M. Kemp
Willingness to appear foolish. Not many of us are willing to appear foolish. Fear alone can keep us locked into our comfort zones, causing us to miss opportunities to innovate. Fear of failure, rejection, or humiliation can keep us from trying new things and exploring new arenas.
The willingness to appear foolish is one of the "rules" for learning Spanish at the Sendero Institute Language School in Boise. The premise is that the willingness to appear foolish will help to learn the language and learn it more quickly.
Look at the history of the inventions we tend to take for granted - paper, electricity, automobiles, computers, movies and millions of other items. Nearly every inventor has been considered crazy or foolish for both dreaming and pursuing things that few others even imagine. Yet the inventor's very willingness to appear foolish is what led to the ultimate completion of the invention.
So I've been reflecting on what areas of life and work might benefit from a willingness to appear foolish. My discovery? Just about everything we do can benefit from a spirit of willingness to appear foolish. Why?
Consider the statement in this light. Roberto Bahruth, Ph.D., Sendero chief instructor, proposes that "a willingness to appear foolish means you are willing to creatively construct something." In other words, when we overcome our fears about appearing foolish, we become more creative and innovative. The hardest part of course is overcoming our fears.
The benefits of overcoming our fears and becoming creative and innovative abound. Customers receive new products and services. Employee morale tends to rise and turnover to decrease. Business owners discover new product lines and revenues. Artists and playwrights bring us new beauty, humor and grace.
For every success, say Coca-Cola, we can find some innovations that are acts of foolishness. Remember New Coke? Yet without testing New Coke, how would the discovery of Classic Coke's appeal been uncovered?
Of course with a willingness to appear foolish, we are called upon to make investments - such as the cost of trial and error, of time, energy, and of emotion. What investments are you and your organization willing to make in order to be more innovative? To be more customer focused? To improve employee relations?
And, what daily acts of appearing foolish can you pursue to discover new things about yourself, about others, about your business? Consider these acts of potentially appearing foolish:
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Learning new skills |
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Responding to questions |
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Dancing, singing, using humor |
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Pursuing artistic and creative endeavors |
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Learning another language |
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Making a presentation |
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Asking questions |
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Smiling, laughing, being joyful |
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Making observations |
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Offering ideas |
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Sharing personal stories |
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Trying new product and/or service configurations |
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Conducting customer focus groups New product brainstorming |
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Exploring and reading outside of your field |
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Volunteering to do something you've never done. |
What other acts of appearing foolish will help you, your team and your organization be more innovative?
Be willing to appear foolish and imagine what you might discover, master, explore or build. Encourage yourself and others to break free from fear and innovate.
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Jana M. Kemp is an internationally recognized speaker, author and workshop provider on the subjects of improving day-to-day business activities. Jana hosts Momentum(tm) every Saturday at 9:00 a.m. on KBOI 670am. Reach Jana via her website www.janakemp.com
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