CHAPTER 11

The Innovation Code Within

Patrick wanted to be a professor. His dreams went beyond ivy-covered campuses and comfortable offices with overflowing bookshelves. Although his interests in the somber poetry of English medieval martyrs were even more obscure than those of his grad student cohort’s, his aspirations were bigger. He didn’t want to become just another charming tweed-wearing colleague at a faculty party talking incessantly about some arcane factoid only two other people in the world knew or cared about. He imagined becoming the kind of broad-minded raconteur whose musings are accessible to anyone and everyone—the sort of public intellectual with ideas that transcend the limits of discipline.

When Patrick got into a PhD program at a top university known for cross-boundary collaboration, he had the hope and eagerness of a lovesick schoolboy. He left all his friends and family in Los Angeles for the cozy Midwestern college town.

But he quickly found that, when it came to his personal and intellectual odyssey, other people were in control. The only thing Patrick chose his entire first year in grad school was the apartment he lived in. Everything else was decided by his advisors and the director of graduate studies: the courses he took, the books he wrote about, the research he did over the summer.

Incensed, Patrick felt misled. He’d come to the university to develop his own ideas but instead found himself institutionalized against his will. With the norms, expectations, and culture of the academic community forcibly imposed on him, he felt suffocated. Resistant and recalcitrant, Patrick argued with authorities, complained to friends, and took long walks to cool off. The Man was holding him down.

Through a mutual acquaintance, Patrick met a professor in the sociology department who seemed to be the antithesis of his own advisors. Professor Barry was always on a jet somewhere for a conference or at meetings with people who wanted to hear his ideas and apply them to sectors totally outside of academia. Barry wrote weird, wild articles for mainstream magazines and had just signed a book contract with a high-profile press. Patrick became Barry’s research assistant. Barry hated the title, but research assistantships were the only way for faculty to get university money to pay grad students for mentorship pairings. Patrick helped Barry on emerging projects and traveled around the country with him to conferences and meetings with industry leaders.

Three months into their partnership, Patrick confided to Barry that he hoped to have a kaleidoscopic career just like his one day. “Then you’d better start doing what your advisors are telling you to do,” he said. The senior scholar’s reply shocked Patrick.

What Patrick didn’t see was the horizon in front of him. He didn’t realize that he needed to endure these three years of required course work and sit for his preliminary examinations—a medieval process of glorified hazing that was in many ways more barbaric than the stuff Patrick read in his eleventh-century poems—in order to be successful when he’d finally get the independence he always wanted. In these difficult three years, Patrick had to develop the academic skills and the disciplines he needed to grow into the broad-minded intellectual with interesting ideas. He had to see the world through different lenses in order to gain more understanding of and further develop himself.

Once he got through these unpleasant milestones, Patrick had three years of complete freedom to write the dissertation of his dreams—a scholarly book of original ideas. His advisors stopped telling him what to do and started encouraging him to follow his own interests. Beyond the point where he had to answer to authority, he assumed authority over his own project. He reached out to people in other departments, other schools, and nonacademic publishing houses and magazines and talked with intellectuals and well-worn practitioners about his ideas. Then something strange started to happen. The more Patrick followed the flow of ideas, the more his point of view began to blend with others, and soon new and greater concepts emerged. A deeper understanding appeared in his research and writing, and his dissertation was very well received.

Still, there were tacit rules and protocols he needed to follow. In order to get accepted into the top journal of his field, he had to tone down his usually animated style. But once his first few scholarly articles got recognition in the discipline, he got more traction with more popular publications. As he settled into a teaching job at a small liberal arts school—far from the kind of research institution he imagined ending up at—he gradually built a reputation in academic and nonacademic circles alike. His second book became a surprise crossover best seller, and he eventually transitioned into teaching part-time to devote full energy to his career as a public intellectual.

Patrick was an Artist with the drive of an Athlete surrounded by Sages and Engineers. But to achieve the kind of life he wanted, he needed to turn on—and off—all of the various switches of the Innovation Code at different times. At the onset of his graduate years, he had to suck it up and hunker down like an Engineer. As he prepared for his preliminary examinations, he embraced his Athletic side, his eyes on the prize. While he wrote his dissertation and reached out to scholars working on similar projects, he took on the role of a Sage. And, all the while, he stayed true to his fundamental identity and vision as an Artist.

We All Have Every
Dominant Worldview

At some level, despite our dominant worldviews, we have the qualities of all four Innovation Code archetypes within us. The dynamics of the Innovation Code are not just at work in teams and organizations but also in individuals. You might be a Sage, an Athlete, an Artist, or an Engineer, but you also have some tendencies of all the other kinds of thinking, feeling, and problem-solving. We can let all of these conflicting impulses create havoc and anxiety—or we can use them to harness productivity. Getting the kind of holistic life we all seek is a matter of turning on and off select qualities when we need them the most, even if they sometimes go against our usual way of doing things.

Think of your identity like a team of different thinkers, with separate interests that need to be prioritized (and de-emphasized) at the appropriate moments. Managing your inner team is a constant rebalancing of all these various identities. So rather than embodying the extremity of your dominant worldview, become a Sage, Athlete, Engineer, or Artist when the occasion calls for it.

You might be flirting with an old entrepreneurial idea, a lifelong dream that you’re considering to give up your present career for. Or maybe you’re a recently retired doctor boomeranging back into a medical practice because fishing and golf just aren’t enough for you. Or maybe it’s your twenty-five-year old daughter who is trying to reinvent herself after her hitch with the Peace Corps by going back to school for her MBA. We all seem to be chasing something we haven’t got or moving the bar once we get “there.”

Reshuffling Your
Inner Team

Try reshuffling your inner team. Remember Aabha the Engineer? It turns out she taps into her inner Artist every day by keeping a notebook for creative ideas and maintaining a lifelong interest in spirituality. She visits holy places of all religions wherever she travels.

Remember Mae the Sage? She nourished her inner Athlete and her hunger for competition by showing up for a daily appointment with herself to work out. Her aggressive side came out on a regular basis as she actively managed her investments.

Remember Gary the Athlete? He feeds his Sage side and his instinct to collaborate by cultivating his curiosity and exposing himself to both like-minded and diverse thinkers. He seeks out new experts and enrolls in continuing education courses. He also recognizes that staying connected to family, friends, and community keeps his collaborative capabilities sharp and in focus. Last year he went on a camping trip with his family—perhaps the greatest test of one’s sagacity (and patience).

Remember Tom the Artist? He can be quite the Engineer. His need to maintain some control over his life has led him to institute small rituals: he keeps a cash jar for family emergencies and, as a way to satisfy his desire for productivity, he also occasionally volunteers for projects that will enhance him professionally, even if they don’t pay.

Take the
Long View

Like any high-performance team, take the long view of your projects. This means that what you do, and the changes you might make, must reflect what you believe you really want at any given time. So you may pursue very different types of outcomes in various areas of your life. For example, you might be an Artist by traveling to Bhutan, while also being an Engineer by moving some of your investments out of the volatile market and into a savings account. Over time, you will recognize a rhythm to these patterns in your life: compartmentalizing demands and desires into the four archetypes of the Innovation Code may actually free you up to pursue the wildest of options.

Patrick’s story goes on, with an even more diversified life. Twelve years after he got his first job, he is married with two children. Some weeks it’s about the kids: karate, violin, catechism, and the like. Some weeks it’s about the career: travel to conferences, lectures, academic papers, and so on. Every Sunday he and his wife sit down and talk about their lives. They shift things around, create hybrid solutions, and connect a lot of dots. With a little luck, most of the time, their life is reasonably balanced, and for that they are grateful.

Imagine if your dreams came true the day you graduated from high school: the bright lights of Broadway, a fast car, a happily- ever-after engagement to the beautiful homecoming king or queen. Would you still be happy today? While some might be, many of us have outgrown our early dreams and have new ones to pull us forward. So, as you’re planning your way to the future, why not leave a little room for the things you don’t know now? Diversify your life to hedge against unforeseen challenges and give yourself the freedom to pursue emerging opportunities. That way you can have it all when you really want to have it.

Summary

Beneath your dominant worldview lies all the other Innovation Code archetypes: we all have an inner Artist, Engineer, Athlete, and Sage, pushing and pulling against each other as different threads of our characters. Just as you would at the organizational level, use that inner tension to create something powerful. It is in our inconsistencies and opposing impulses where we will find ways to do newer and better things.