Preface
I speak to audiences all over the world about a subject I am most passionate about: innovation. Sometimes I look out at auditoriums full of senior executives, and other times I find myself speaking to young professionals or students. But no matter who is in the audience, I am always happy to see that my message has been accepted when I see a line of people forming at the front of the room to speak with me. Some of these people just want to shake my hand and tell me that they've enjoyed my talk. Others have questions or comments, and given the number of speeches I make, it is not unusual for some to tell me this is not the first time they've heard me. Those who have heard me speak before often want to tell me how they've put my recommendations to use, and they are eager to share their stories. Oftentimes at least one person in line tells me: “You should write a book, Madge. There are so many people and companies out there who could use your advice.”
Well, I finally took that advice, and this book is the result. I call it The Innovator's Path—not because I believe we must all follow the exact same route to innovation; we don't. Quite the contrary: Each of us must create our own way forward. Yet it is also true that, no matter what path we take, most of us will encounter similar challenges as we try to innovate, including the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of our colleagues and our managers.
I am happy to say that over the years I have found certain fundamental ways of making innovation happen—disciplines, I call them—that can be used to make our path more smooth and effective. Those disciplines, and the techniques that derive from them, can be used by individuals, teams, and even entire organizations. Together they form the heart of my book.
My disciplines are tried and true, fashioned and fine-tuned during my decades-long career in executive leadership positions at IBM, Merrill Lynch, and lastly at State Street, where I served as executive vice president, chief innovation officer & technology fellow. At each of these great companies, I took on roles of increasing responsibility in global technology and innovation, and my teams achieved a distinguished record of accomplishment, winning 32 industry awards over the last decade. Now I would like to share my many years of diverse experiences and lessons learned in the chapters of this book.
There is no single Chinese character for the word “innovation.” Instead, I have used the characters on the first page of this book—pronounced Chāoyuè Chuangxin—to convey the essence of The Innovator's Path, and to represent my approach to innovation.
Both of the first two characters are built around the same radical (or root), 走 zou, dipping tone, which depending on its context can mean, among many other things, to go, to leave, or to go along.
The first, 超 chāo, level tone, represents a human being going forward—or better still, going beyond his or her present position.
The second character, 越, yuè, falling tone, signifies the continual act of excelling or overtaking—that is, a process in constant motion. Together, 超 and 越 reinforce one another, creating the simultaneous sense of ongoing and going beyond.
The third character, 創, chuàng, means “to carve out.” The right side of the character is the “particle,” or root form of the word “knife.” Thousands of years ago characters were carved on oracle bones with a knife or sharp implement, and thus “knife” carries with it the sense of “to originate, to make real, to cause to exist.” The left side of the character consists of 倉, cang, first tone, meaning “warehouse,” derived from the term for “food,” 食 si, first tone.
The fourth character, 新 xin, is an ancient character and means “new” in the sense of “that which has not yet emerged.” On the right side is the pictograph for axe, 斤 jin, supplying a pronunciation guide. On the left is the term for hardship, 辛 xin. For that reason, I prefer to use the compound word Chuangxin because of its positive, forward-looking meaning.
Throughout my life, and over the course of my corporate career, I have found that those individuals capable of blazing a trail to innovation share several basic character traits. They are usually very determined and very willing to work exceptionally hard to achieve the goals they believe in. They are also surprisingly open to alternatives and exhibit the willingness to try a variety of ways to reach their goals as new information and new ideas come to light. Indeed, most innovators share yet another character trait: They are also willing to shed old assumptions and adopt new and even unusual approaches if they believe it will speed their progress.
On the other hand, I've watched people go to extraordinary lengths to hold on to the things they are used to and that they value, resisting change even when change has become the only way to survive in a constantly mutating world. Resistance to change is certainly not hard to understand. Many of us prefer the familiarity and security of our well-understood, proven ways. We may avoid what is untested or unproven, perhaps because we believe that it will be too difficult for us or that we won't be good at it.
Rapid change, though, has become the new normal in life and in work. There is simply no way to avoid it. In fact, why would we want to avoid it? Change can be exciting and life-changing in a positive sense! That's really the reason I decided to write this book. The business world has become a world of creating, innovating, and forging ahead. If we don't do this, our competitors surely will. I am determined to teach as many people as I can how to incorporate this new reality into their day-to-day practices. I hope my book will inspire readers to make innovation part of their new business-as-usual. We simply cannot afford to rest on our laurels. We need to be creative and innovative and push the boundaries of whatever business or industry we serve. But most of us don't walk around thinking we are the most brilliant, innovative people around. How are we and our organizations supposed to thrive in this new world if we are merely smart people who are good at our jobs? Nathan Myhrvold, the celebrated inventor and entrepreneur who was formerly chief technology officer at Microsoft, has offered some interesting insights into the nature of the innovative organization and some hope for those of us who may not consider “creativity” one of our top traits:
Being creative is some weird mixture of things that you learn and things that are innate in you. It's hard for a company to be creative, and it's hard for many individuals to be creative, but you can have an innovative company even if not everybody in the company is creative. The trick is that you really have to set out to be innovative. A lot of companies just wait around for innovation to happen to them. But I think, as in most things in life, including innovation, if you want it to occur, you should actively seek it. Eureka moments occur, but they occur more often to people who are trying to solve a problem, not to people who are not.
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I was born in Shanghai, China, and then moved to Hong Kong as a teenager. My upbringing, my family life, my exposure to the culture of my native country has influenced me in many profound ways, of course. But interestingly, it has also taught me many lessons that I have applied to my career. I thought my readers would be interested in this cross-cultural phenomenon, so I have included some anecdotes from my personal life that have direct relevance or direct application to the subject of innovation. In addition, I have reproduced traditional Chinese ideograms in each chapter that represent and help describe and explain the terminology I have chosen for each of the eight disciplines of innovation.
When I began planning this book, I reached out to many leaders in industry, government, education, and the military who have world-class reputations as innovators. I sought their personal views on a variety of subjects involving their experiences as innovators and leaders. I am pleased and deeply honored by the thoughtful responses they have provided to me. Throughout these pages, readers will find observations and advice from these leaders, inventors and innovators, in their own words, adding a depth and richness to the book that I could have never achieved on my own.
In my Introduction, I define what I mean by the word innovation and introduce in depth the eight disciplines I've used to advance innovation over the course of my career and at the companies I've worked. My greatest pleasure has always come from helping colleagues and employees chart their own paths to innovation—and I have to admit, not letting them rest on their laurels but leading them to the next innovation path. Nothing excites me more. It is my hope that the book will show my readers how they can walk (or run!) along their own paths to innovation and change.
So let's get started!