Australian Business Solutions Magazine just published a cover story about The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs. I thought it’s time to revisit the creativity section.
Breakthrough innovation requires creativity; and creativity requires that you think differently about the way you think. According to Harvard research, the number-one skill that separates innovators from non-creative professionals is association; the ability to successfully connect seemingly unrelated questions, problems or ideas from different fields. Steve Jobs has always subscribed to this theory.
Jobs has been connecting things his whole life. He once said “Creativity is just connecting things.” He knew instinctively what researchers had taken years to figure out. For example, the company name Apple fell from a tree – literally. He had returned from visiting a zen-influenced commune in Oregon where they grew – you guessed it – apples. Apple co-founder and Jobs’ pal, Steve Wozniak, picked him up from the airport. On the drive home, Jobs said simply: “I came up with a name for our company: Apple.” Wozniak said they could have come up with more technical-sounding names but that their vision was to make computers approachable. Apple fitted perfectly.
That is just one small example of how Steve Jobs thinks differently by making associations from outside his field. He creates new ideas precisely because he has spent a lifetime exploring new and unrelated things and seeking out diverse experiences. Jobs hired people from outside the computing profession; studied the art of calligraphy in college (a study that found its way into the first Macintosh); meditated in an Indian ashram; and studied the finer detail of a Mercedes-Benz and European-made washer-dryers for product ideas. Jobs said of creating the early Macintosh, “Part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians, and poets, and artists, and zoologists, and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world.”
A crucial stage of innovation is to look outside your industry for inspiration. Seeking out new experiences can help you unleash your creative potential. Bombard your brain with new experiences, and trust that breaking out of familiar routines will lead to unfamiliar breakthroughs.
Australian Business Solutions Magazine just published a cover story about The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs.