Innovation is more than ingenuity

"Intentional innovation, resulting from analysis, systematization, and hard work, is all that can be addressed in the Practice of Innovation" Peter Drucker in Innovation and Innovative Entrepreneurship

You want to start a business but you do not have a clear idea of what you want, how you want it or where you want it, don't worry, very few people know it when they start, what's more, knowing it is not a guarantee of success, although it does make it easier.

If you already have an idea and it seemed difficult to get to it, you have started, but there is a really hard part that consists of analyzing it, looking for background, identifying competitors, recognizing its weaknesses and strengths, in short, working on it to move it forward. You think your idea is unique but, on the subsequent road to conception, you find that no, someone already had it, don't worry, there are probably no "great ideas", but with hard work, order, balance and a lot of effort you can make your own. idea a lucrative reality.

Peter Drucker, in my opinion the greatest "thinker" in management, identified some things that innovators like you should do and some that they definitely shouldn't, as well as others he called conditions for innovation. Here you go, in case you are interested:

Effective Innovations

* Analyze Opportunities * Observe Simplify and Focus * Start small * Seek leadership

What if

1. Analyze opportunities: look for the sources, all of them, of opportunities to innovate. Some of them are: the market, processes, demographic changes and new knowledge. This search must be organized and grounded on a systematic and regular basis.

2. Go out to observe: it is not enough to conceive the idea and do the financial analysis. You must go out into the street, listen to people, ask them, observe them, there are needs that will allow them to be covered. "What should innovation be like so that people want to use it and see their opportunity in it?"

3. Simplify and focus: for an innovation to work it must be simple and focused. The pulse of simplicity occurs when you meet her and say "It's obvious why didn't I think of it?" It must also be focused on one thing, solving a problem, meeting a need. Few are diversified innovations.

4. Start small: An effective innovation must start small. It is much more manageable, more flexible, easier to correct, also cheaper in terms of capital investment and human resources. Can you start big? The answer is yes, but it is easier to correct errors when you supply six local stores than when you supply 23 supermarkets in large cities.

5. SEEK LEADERSHIP: Successful innovations aim to be leaders in your field. It does not matter that leadership is in a small market segment, what is important is that it aims to achieve it, otherwise only opportunities for competition are created

Drucker, in "Innovation and Innovative Entrepreneurship", identified several things "that must be done" to carry out successful innovations, well, in this article we will talk about "those that must not be done" and the conditions to be taken into account to achieve the success

The ones that don't

They are few but important, here they go:

1. While it is important that your idea or project be innovative, you shouldn't worry about it being "revolutionary." Drucker calls this "don't try to be smart." Remember that your innovation will be managed by human beings and not all or better, the vast majority of us are ordinary people. If a lot of cunning and 'smart people' are required to develop the project, it will probably be difficult to get ahead.

To quote Drucker, "Anything that needs 'cunning' to handle or produce is doomed to failure, whether by design or manufacture."

2. If you remember, one of the characteristics of successful innovation is focus, so why diversify from the start? You don't think it's better to focus on one thing. The focus may be on a specific function, a new process or the market itself, a niche where it can be attacked. If you branch out from the beginning, it is probably going to get confusing.

"There must be a unifying core of innovative efforts"

3. Should you think about the future? Yes, but innovation must be done for the present “it is not enough to say: in 20 years there will be so many elderly people who will need this. One should be able to say: there are so many elders today that this will serve them. Of course, time works in our favor since in 25 years there will be more.

The conditions

Now the two conditions to innovate effectively, which although they are logical, are not always taken into account:

1. In addition to ingenuity, the "brilliant idea" if you have one, your knowledge and your talent, innovation is work. The recipe would turn out something like this: