Beautiful Limitations

When most people imagine innovation, they think of increasing human capital, millions of dollars and limitless possibilities. The truth is that’s not what innovation looks like for the majority of organizations. The core of innovation is about identifying and solving problems. Innovation must be approachable; it’s not about generating as many off-the-wall ideas as you can think of. It is about creating boundaries and limitations so that you can solve the real problem. Innovation is freedom within a framework.

In the middle of the 2008-2009 financial crisis, my CEO asked my team to set our sights on coming up with two new innovative products every year. This provided us with a boundary; it wasn’t about brainstorming as many products as we could, it was about putting all of our focus into two. The project was intimidating, but not difficult with the right focus and lens. And we did it. Some of those products won awards, others were patented and they created excellent streams of income for the business. It was this CEO’s direction that highlighted the power of limiting what could have been 100-plus ideas down to one or two.

These beautiful limitations help create more rapid innovation among teams. They give our brains boundaries so we can narrow down what problems we are attempting to solve and how we might get there. When introducing this concept to your organization, it’s helpful to think about three types of innovation: transformative, breakthrough and disruptive.

Transformative Innovation 

The beauty of transformative innovation is that everyone in your organization can begin this journey on any given day. It’s about improving an existing product, service,or offering you already provide. For example, Apple implements incremental changes within its iPhone product line when they create new releases (iPhone 13 to 14). As we ideate with our teams, we can ask these simple questions:

• How can we transform what we are doing today? 
• What can we improve for those that we serve?
• What’s one thing people always complain about?

The secret of transformative innovation lies in the daily routines of those we serve. By listening closely to common problems/areas of trouble, your team can effectively make improvements that will result in a happier customer base. 

Breakthrough Innovation 

As we move to breakthrough innovation, the stakes begin to heighten. However, the boundaries remain in place. In keeping with our Apple example, when they introduced the first iPad in 2010, Apple not only created a new product line, but also a new consumer category of products. Breakthrough innovations keep your organization from plateauing or stagnating. It’s the fuel that takes you from only having products to creating a platform. If you are going to thrive long-term, it’s crucial that you make the leap from product to platform.   

Disruptive Innovation 

The iPod and Apple Watch were step-changes for how people listen to music, record workouts and even exchange money. The iPod is known for disrupting the music industry. The Apple Watch is known for transforming the simple time-telling device into a much more complex system of actions that many can’t imagine living without. The key takeaway with disruptive innovation is that these new products didn't just impact Apple’s core industry, they sent ripples into a variety of other industries as well. That’s the power of disruptive innovation.

If you want to generate continuous innovation over long periods of time, you don’t need unlimited resources. You need to create a focus and target for your team. It’s boundaries that actually help us innovate; it’s the beautiful limitations.

This article was extracted from Issue 9 (Spring 2022) of the AVAIL Journal. Claim your free annual subscription here.