The project represented by this web site is an attempt at integrating and applying the work of widely varied thinkers and doers. It's an attempt at leveraging that work toward new opportunity.
The project began with the accident of a discovery regarding what innovation means exactly -- I call the discovery a "trailhead" because the initial resource led me to discover so many other related resources.
That trail, initially a source of personal interest, became compelling to me as a potential source of value to others. Basically, knowledge dots connected to signal a possibility that I found important as a potential resource for many, many individual lives and for society overall. It might sound hubristic to imagine such effect, but I couldn't not try to convey a possibility that seemed (and seems) not only important, but there for the taking.
I could only develop the foundation of the possibility (the principles) in a limited way -- to the point of a prototype. Even that ended up taking much more time than I ever would have guessed, and the result may have many weaknesses. However, I hope it will be enough to signal a sense of possibility to those who have the knowledge, perspective, and more to take the prototype to a developed set of principles, so that others (myself included) can make productive use of that product.
Some of the detail about the trail follows, ending with next steps:
Unexpected Trailhead --
I read Thomas Stewart's Intellectual Capital in order to learn what "intellectual capital" meant exactly, and in doing so I encountered a trailhead of discovery about what "innovation" means.[1]Stewart's treatment of "innovation" caught my initial attention for two significant reasons:
A big societal challenge --
- A couple of years prior, I heard a panel of business school faculty conclude that:
"Innovation" -- "either gradually or by crisis" -- is the solution to the coming global context of rapidly growing human population combined with limited natural resources (and "consumerism's" extensive and skewed use of the resources).
Innovation is the only means to (advance yield on resources that will) ~"at least maintain the standard of living among (economically) developed nations while also improving the standard of living among developing nations."[2]
- I wondered about "innovation" being enough to accomplish this and how exactly it would do it. Plus, my study of social theory pointed to "crisis" as more likely than "gradually."
- Overall, it was a troubling image that left an impression, and Stewart's book brought it back to mind, though now with a discussion of "innovation" that I had been missing.
A core personal "process" --
The second reason that Stewart's treatment of innovation caught my attention was that, to my surprise, I recognized integral aspects of the dynamics that Stewart was describing. My understanding had been tacit and partial, but it was connected to a longtime personal orientation and medium of expression -- a process of bringing out potential that was rooted in signals of opportunity.
- The type of change associated with using this personal process -- win-win and with leverage -- had influenced me early, as a youth, and increasingly as an adult as I collaborated in my work with widely varying specialists and at widely varying scale.
For years, I had wanted to understand more about how and why this personal process worked. I knew it was oriented to clues and puzzle-solving, but where did specific ideas come from? (I didn't feel I could simply "call them up.") And why did they work? Although the process seems obvious now, as a version of innovation's methodology, I had sought answers from high-quality sources, with little progress.
- Perspective from my career course happened to be pertinent in another way as I encountered resources on this trail of discovery that spoke to distinctions between creativity for innovation and for science. Since I had made a transition from the commercial sector to academic research to inform U.S. education policy, I had personal reference points for these distinctions, and again the new resources explicated what I had understood only tacitly and partially.
Heading Down the Trail --
As Stewart's text about innovation caught my attention, I turned next to key references in his book in order to learn more (e.g., beginning with Drucker's 1985 Innovation and Entrepreneurship).[2.5]
- Absorbing these resources, one after another, I soon realized that I had embarked on a trail that was as practical as it was intellectually and inspirationally fertile.
- The learning was gripping my attention because the farther I went down the trail, the more I began to switch gears -- from finding answers, including to questions about a personal process, to using my process toward the end of bringing out potential.
- The trail of expert resources featured themes that spoke to innovation's driving fundamentals (e.g., why it matters, how it works, etc.). The fundamentals were forceful, not trivial, and they explained innovation in a way that unified its extensive variation. The themes brought to mind an established learning-lever concept (noted just below), and that cross-disciplinary connection represented the roots of the opportunity represented by this site's overall hypothesis about the feasibility and value of articulating innovation's organizing principles.
Key Connections --
Whereas my argument about the feasibility of establishing "innovation's organizing principles" reflected connections within the dense trail of innovation resources, the associated hypothesis about the value of such principles reflected connections between that trail and complementary knowledge and ideas from fields such as education and psychology. For example:i. Jerome Bruner -- "Structures of the Discipline" & "Paradigmatic Imagination"
Two distinct conceptualizations from Jerome Bruner, a research psychologist and learning theorist, stood out:
- First, the learning-lever concept to which I related the innovation themes is called "structures of the discipline": "The curriculum of a subject should be determined by the most fundamental understanding of the underlying principles that give structure to the subject."[3] Bruner had pointed to the example of Algebra, where articulated structures allow students to see all problems as but "variations on a small set of themes."
Bruner's conceptualization seemed highly fitting: The innovation themes gave structure to the subject and also allowed for seeing its unusually varied expression as but variations on a small set of "forces." What's more, I had seen this learning lever in action, initially within instruction for quantitative research methods, which had led me to apply it for a different topic within a separate instructional context.
- Second, I found similar pertinence in Bruner's separate account of "paradigmatic imagination," which he described as "the ability to see possible ... connections [of existing knowledge] before one is able to prove them in any way ...." [4] I came across this account serendipitously, just before the innovation trail, in the introduction to a book about "narrative imagination," which Bruner introduced by distinguishing narrative imagination(e.g., "gripping drama") from paradigmatic imagination.
- Although Bruner related paradigmatic imagination to science ("an existing formal system of reality"), typically associated with the domain of an academic discipline, his explication stood out because I immediately associated "seeing new connections ... " with my personal concrete experiences of changemaking ideas.
- Bruner's account had stuck as highly useful explication. It made the source of ideas seem obvious, and it not only fit with resources on the innovation trail, I found it much more foundational and cognitively explicit than any other resource. That includes a body of scholarly work on "creativity" from the 1980s, which at the time was associated with what is described as the greatest-ever federal research investment in social science. Although this body of scholarly work is rich (and includes multiple books by Bruner), I found paradigmatic imagination -- "the ability to see possible .. connections [of existing knowledge]" -- to speak most directly and essentially to the source of ideas for the domains of science, innovation, and invention. And it wasn't in conflict with any other
- Indeed, I found that "paradigmatic imagination" (in effect, hypotheses) provided a "structure of the discipline" for innovation -- its essential creative structure. This fit, too, with Bruner's explanation that structures of a discipline allow for understanding how a subject relates to many other things. In this case, innovation's creative structure is shared by science and invention -- albeit with the nature of hypotheses reflecting the immediate departure of direct purpose.
ii. Peter F. Drucker -- "Skilled Craft to Methodology" & "All but Existential"
Whereas aspects of Drucker's extensive work figured prominently within the themes about innovation's essential purpose and forces, the following two elements complemented the themes:
- First, Drucker expressed that it's the articulation of "organizing principles" that allows for the conversion of a skilled craft to a discipline or methodology, by making it broadly teachable.[5] I found this assertion especially pertinent to innovation, which remained a craft. I also related the idea of "organizing principles" to "structures of the discipline." And finally, organizing principles fit with an idea from a professional journal volume about knowledge management: the ~innovative effect of "explicating what is tacit." Innovation's organizing principles explicate what is tacit about a skilled craft.[6]
- Second, when Drucker expressed that innovation's change dynamics were pertinent to "all but that which might be considered 'existential,'" it led me to begin thinking in terms of innovation's methods.[7]
- It signaled to me that even young students could experience innovation's dynamics firsthand. Similar to the approach to learning the methods of science, youth was the natural place to begin, including hands-on experiences and a lens for recognizing the dynamics in the world and recognizing opportunities. Plus, based on personal experience, I knew that small-scale engagement with the forces could be quite meaningful and also high in leverage.
- What's more, principles-based "innovation methods" could run in parallel to higher education's "research methods." Just as the same core research methods modify every academic field, innovation methods could provide a similar modifying function -- with consistent principles across fields especially important given innovation's fundamentally integrative and cross-functional nature.
- Methods would allow for an "innovation learning system," connecting student experiences across time and place, beginning in K-12 years, like the existing system for science.
iii. Martin Seligman -- Framework about "Value"
After I had begun to draft the prototype principles, which featured "value" as innovation's change catalyst, I happened upon the videotaped TED talk of Martin Seligman, co-founder of the field of positive psychology. Within this talk about his research-based theory of "well-being," Seligman described a set of categories of experience, each valued "for its sake alone." Each is an object of "uncoerced choice," associated directly with personal well-being, or "flourishing":
- positive emotions
- engagement (of signature strengths)
- positive relations
- meaning/purpose (connecting strengths to a purpose larger than the self)
- achievement (for its sake alone). [8]
Upon hearing Seligman's description and seeing his list of elements, I literally moved to the edge of my seat, as I thought "This is what I've seen serve as levers for win-win change, time and again." In particular, outsize leverage had resulted from offering others access to experiences of engagement and meaning. The framework, especially its notion of uncoerced choice, spoke to "why ideas work."
It was a short distance from this immediate response to consider that Seligman's theory and framework might shine light on innovation's fundamental currency of "value."
- The phrase "change by way of value" had stood out on the innovation trail when I heard it expressed by Arizona State University president, Michael Crow. It was another example of distilling what an array of experts had provided as ways to think about innovation's basis for change, both generally (e.g., addressing "the jobs customers need to get done," "the rough edges" of customer experiences) and more directly (e.g., customized value, disruptive, co-created).
- Now Seligman's theory of "well-being" might elucidate this essential innovation force, or catalyst. For example, within the grand marketplace, the value of any offering might reduce to one of the five well-being categories (with perhaps the majority of offerings fitting into "positive emotions," associated with value such as "convenience" or "ease," etc.).
- However, Seligman described a hierarchy to the elements, and when it comes to innovation's value to practitioners -- its prime force -- the framework's elements of "meaning" and "engagement" provided explication for a theme from the innovation trail about forceful value to practitioners.
- Within well-being theory, the "meaning" of connection to a purpose larger than the self represents a type of pinnacle category of value. Seligman relates the category of positive emotions to the "pleasant life," the categories of engagement, relations, and achievement to the "good life," and the category of meaning/purpose to the pinnacle "meaningful life." The entire schebang is the "full life."
- What's more, separate scholarly research on "purpose" provided reinforcement of the special value of this experience, including among youth. An individual's early discovery of personal connection to purpose larger than the self -- especially as a sense of direction -- may have the greatest leverage for both personal well-being and societal benefit, in part because the larger purpose can be connected readily with personal schooling pursuits.
iv. John W. Gardner -- "It is not exhortation they need but instruction"
Finally, words from John W. Gardner (a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom) provided, in my mind, an umbrella for all of the above, including the backdrop of the 2007 panel discussion about this century's pressing need for innovation.In a 1963 book about "the individual and the innovative society," Gardner wrote:
“(W)e must help the individual to (re-)establish a meaningful relationship with a larger context of purpose. … (O)ne of the reasons young people do not commit themselves to the larger social enterprise is that they are genuinely baffled as to the nature of that enterprise. … They do not see where they fit in. If they are to commit themselves to the best in their own society, it is not exhortation they need but instruction. … We must also help the individual to discover how such commitments may be made without surrendering individuality."[12]
"Instruction" about innovation's essential purpose, forces, and methods (and the extensive variation of its expression) struck me as custom made for this win-win societal task, especially if learning begins early and is designed to support students' hands-on exploration of innovation's multiple types of variation. Indeed, rather than surrendering individuality, well-being theory (and research findings about purpose) reinforces the idea that students would find forcefully positive value in experiences of progress in a genuinely meaningful sense of direction vis-a-vis their society, including its economy.
Innovation is of course not the only purposeful medium of expression; however, in the 21st century, its dynamics and overarching purpose are pertinent to perhaps the vast majority of workplace roles. Learning about it provides a broadly pertinent picture of what Gardner called "the larger social enterprise." Plus, the principles-based framework seems to represent a rare instrument for providing early, authentic, and varied experiences, which allow for feedback and discovery. Hands-on experiences can and should support student exploration of both innovation's ends and means.
A Potential (and Needed) Win for Society -- --
Overall, it's as if the panel I mentioned at the start of this page could have concluded that the only solution to "the coming global context of rapidly growing human population combined with limited natural resources (and "consumerism's" extensive and skewed use of the resources)" is:
To have enough individuals connecting to a personally compelling purpose, and within the connection developing personal strengths, knowledge, and methods/tools to address the purpose -- all with consciousness of the context and of the fit of innovation's essential purpose and forces.
That's what seems to represent the necessary roots to realizing the 21st century's need for innovation.
Indeed, one of the faculty members from the panel discussion (Andrew Hoffman) published a thought-provoking book in 2016 that I found in keeping with this premise: Finding Purpose, Environmental Stewardship as a Personal Calling.[13] Although tailored largely for an audience of business students, I found Hoffman's book responsive to Gardner's 1963 admonition above:
Hoffman paints a specific picture of the nature of the 21st century's larger social enterprise -- elaborating on the nature of the challenge of "creating a sustainable world" (including distinguishing between this outcome and "reducing unsustainability").[14]
Hoffman also echoes Gardner's belief in the need to "help the individual to establish a meaningful relationship with a larger context of purpose," as evidenced by the title of his 2016 book.
The combination of Gardner's admonition from over fifty years ago and Hoffman and others' modern treatment reinforces my sense of the importance of considering the hypothesis that establishing innovation's organizing principles, as the basis for broad access to learning about innovation's essential purpose and forces, not only is feasible but would be valuable.
In Sum --
Given these discoveries -- obviously compelling to me -- I couldn't not try to convey the opportunity that I perceived, one that seemed available for the taking.Steve Jobs reportedly said: "If you're gonna make connections which are innovative, you have to not have the same bag of experience as everyone else does." I don't know yet if the connections at this site are innovative. That would be determined only upon the ultimate discovery of how learners respond to reasonably developed learning applications of a reasonably high-quality version of innovation's organizing principles. In one way or another, it will reflect too how the large and complicated operations of U.S. schooling might respond.
Next --
To find out, this site's Learning Leverage page includes a set of sample "how it could become" hypotheses, at the end, where the most fundamental "how" is having high-quality organizing principles. That's where you might come in:
- If you know of anyone who might be interested in making use of this site's prototype work to generate a high-quality version of principles, or even just higher quality, do please send it to them.
- I'm continuing to pursue that type of connection myself, at the same time as using the prototype principles to experiment with students.
Overall, I envision principles as a public good. To the extent that this site is worthwhile, it too is a type of public good.
Thank you for visiting the site and considering its ideas.
Karen Gates
Ann Arbor, Michigan
kgates@umich.edu
[1] Thomas A. Stewart, Intellectual Capital (Currency Doubleday: New York, 1997)
[2] University of Michigan Erb Institute video archives, “Is Consumerism Sustainable?”, 2007
[2.5] See the site's Bibliography for resources that I kept track of.
[3] Jerome S. Bruner, The Process of Education, (Harvard University Press, 1960), p 7
[4] Bruner, Actual Minds, Possible Worlds, ((Harvard University Press, 1986), p 13
[5] Peter F. Drucker, Post-Capitalist Society, (Harper Press, 1993), p 46
[6] Harvard Business Review on Knowledge Management, 1987, “The Knowledge Creating Company.”
[7] Peter F. Drucker, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, (HarperBusiness, 1985)
[7.5] Daniel T. Willingham, Why Don't Students Like School?, (Jossey-Bass: San Francisco, 2009), p 68
[8] Ted Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/martin_seligman_on_the_state_of_psychology
See also: Martin E. P. Seligman, Flourish, A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being, (Free Press, Simon & Schuster: New York, 2011)
[9] John W. Gardner,Self-renewal; the individual and the innovative society (Harper & Rowe, New York, 1963)
[10] Robert E. Quinn, Change the World: How Ordinary People Can Accomplish Extraordinary Results, (Jossey Bass: San Francisco, 2000)
[11] Reinforcing 21st century voices include:
- Anne Craft, Howard Gardner, and Guy Claxton (editors), Creativity, Wisdom, and Trusteeship: Exploring the Role of Education, (Corwin Press: Thousand Oaks, CA, 2008)
- William Damon, Path to Purpose, How Young People Find their Calling in Life (Simon&Schuster: New York, 2008)
- Andrew J. Hoffman, Finding Purpose, Environmental Stewardship as a Personal Calling, (Greenleaf Publishing Ltd: U.K, 2016)
[12] Gardner, 1963, p 12
[13] Andrew J. Hoffman, Finding Purpose, Environmental Stewardship as a Personal Calling, (Greenleaf Publishing Ltd: U.K, 2016)
[14] Hoffman, 2016, p 55