Innovating Innovation!: Why Corporate Innovation Struggles in the Age of the Entrepreneur

by Mike Stemple

The reason why corporations are failing is because they are not thinking and acting like a startup.

Innovation isn’t just a product or end goal—it’s a process that unlocks the creativity and ingenuity of your people.

The verb “innovate” is defined as “making changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas, or products.”2

The answer I found to “Why do we innovate?” is simply because things change.

Innovation is “the human response to evolution.”

Innovation is the creation of better products, processes, technologies, or ideas in response to evolution.

Innovation exists just beyond the data in the realm of imagination.

But innovation, by its very nature, is a messy process full of failed experimentation.

innovation is a creative pursuit, and all creative pursuits involve risk and difficulty.

you cannot “find” innovation; you can only create it.

When it comes to innovation, there are four categories to consider: Incremental Radical Revolutionary Theater

When everyone is fearful of failure, it’s impossible to create the kinds of ideas that will change the world.

Inspiration leads to hope, hope leads to courage, courage replaces fear.

If it doesn’t scare you, then you aren’t truly innovating.

The frontline innovators are the S.W.A.T. teams of the business world.

Innovators are metamorphic; they are obsessed with radical change, with leaps of advancement.

I always know I am innovating when I am feeling afraid.

the innovation process is also a process of discovery.

everyone wants to be perceived as innovative, but no one wants to act innovatively.

True innovation is nebulous and hard to define,

One of the hallmarks of innovation is curiosity. Do you allow your employees to be curious?

Ideas are like children. Each one is an individual, and each one develops at a different rate.