The pioneering firm innovator's DNA which was co-founded
by Clay Christensen, Hal Gregersen,
and Jeffrey Dyer conducted a study over many years of whether
or not successful innovators shared any common traits.
After researching over sixteen hundred firms and individuals,
they boiled it down to
five common skills that all these innovative firms and individuals share.
The first is experimenting,
something that we also encounter in music,
whether it's through songwriting or in the recording studio.
The guitar pioneer, Les Paul,
is famous for having pioneered all kinds of
recording techniques including multi-tracking,
or new ways of recording the guitar,
and new voicings through this constant process of experimentation.
So much of our upbringing in our generation has
been about congratulating success based on getting it right or getting it wrong.
And that happens at childhood.
And I think that if we can encourage people
with a pat on the back when you put effort, when you've worked hard,
when the process of achievement whether or not it is exactly what you wanted it to be,
can be encouraged as much as the product.
Encouraging the making to think versus the thinking to make,
you'll arrive at an incredible solution and you'll
have learned all these things along the way that are so priceless.
I have all these sort of development processes that I do.
So, I literally go in there and just start like scrolling to software,
instruments, and playing whatever happens.
And then I go, "Oh, that's cool." And then I record it.
So it's generated by the sound of the instrument and there's
all kinds of ways to sort of spark yourself to let go of trying to control or to be,
"I'm writing a song now," and to have it be a little bit more playful.
It's like, I'm sure you've watched a little kid.
You know how they just pick up two things they try to put them together,
if they can't, they just throw them down and pick up two more things?
That's kind of what I do in a very a little bit more adult way.
Another skill that successful innovators share is the process of networking.
They're really good at developing communities and friendships.
Think of a musician like Miles Davis,
who was able to endlessly reinvent himself
and whether it's on albums like Bitches Brew or Kind of Blue,
by effectively going out there and getting
a number of different musicians to come together,
and through the process of collaboration,
come up with something absolutely unique and different.
Entrepreneurs are good at not so much selling
people a concept but getting people to want to be part of something.
Yes. It's so important for the project that you're building to be about them as well,
because a lot of people, like in Berkeley as well,
are like, "Yeah, I'm trying to make a band so I'm going to pay my musician."
It's not about that.
Like, they really have to believe in your mission and your vision.
The third skill is questioning.
Well, isn't all music an act of rebellion, challenging authority,
and wanting to put an imprint on the world through the act of your own expression?
When I very first started in the kitchen, I was extremely young.
And I remember this one chef.
They all used to tell me certain things.
"You can't do it like that.
You have to do it like this."
And I would always say, "Well, what happens if I do it like this?"
And they'd say, "No, no, no, no, no. You have to do it like that."
There was one chef that said something to me.
He said, "You can't set pineapple juice into jelly."
I said, "Come on, guys. Of course, you can."
They finally gave me a reason then they said,
"No, there's an enzyme."
I said, "But listen, it has to be possible."
So the following day I came in was my day off and eight or nine hours later,
I took a container, threw it cross the bench,
and I said, "Pineapple jelly."
And they're like, "How did you do that?"
And I said, "No, no, no. That's not the question."
I said, "The question is, how many things are you telling
me that can't be done that can actually be done?"
That really taught me that just because it's done that way,
doesn't mean it has to be done that way.
The other skill set that successful innovators and
successful groundbreaking musicians share is what we call association.
Think of a band like The Beatles hearing Indian music through Ravi Shankar and
incorporating that into their own music on
an album like Sergeant Pepper and the song Within You Without You,
fusing Indian music with rock music,
associating the two, and creating something entirely unique and entirely different.
I mean, you think about Mark Ronson in that Amy Winehouse record.
And of course, you have Amy Winehouse and it's retro,
but it also sounds so unique.
It's probably because of her voice and her vocal style and her lyrics.
But you see it's a combination because if
she had just been singing about, "Ooh, I love him,
and ooh, listen, ooh," that it would've been too much of a copy of the 50s,
early 60s girl group stuff,
but because of her gritty sensibility and her weird voice,
it turned into something else.
The last skill set that successful innovators have is observation.
Now think of Marvin Gaye's What's Going On.
Marvin Gaye was moved by the environment and
the changes that were happening in American society during the Vietnam War.
So the process of observation is both critical in
company building as well as in
the creative process and yet another commonality that we see between the two.
Panos PanayCourse Author
