Here’s to the Innovators. The Lone Voices in the Wilderness

Complexity makes simple solutions obscure. Very few deliver the ideas that make the difference.

The ‘very few’ can be lone voices in the wilderness. Innovation defies complication, simplifying the previously mysterious. Innovators are stewards. They carry the gift of being able to draw straight lines from problems to solutions — piercing through the noise that is complexity. It means Innovators are often lone voices. While others murmur, fiddle and ferret, Innovators quietly navigate through experimentation and continuous improvement. Some do this alone. Alone in the midst of the noise. And it’s OK to be that lone voice in the wilderness. Sometimes aloneness is needed to seed innovation, create change and deliver transformation. Just like the natural birthing process, it only takes one idea to bring change.

So what validates the Innovator’s solo act? Here are 5 key results that indicate that we’ve got an Innovator that’s not to be silenced or ignored:

1. Her solution first is a passion about a job she knows needs to be done. She also carries that passion in a message or a story. That story is first simple. Anything else, is noise and fleeting
2. She is consistent. If they’ve shown up every time, they’re worth at least half their salt. Your consistency is important in measuring your Innovation cred.
3. She has a Minimum-Viable-Job-to-be-Done (MVJTBD) as proof that there’s something here. Someone’s paying for the idea. There’s heavy interest in what she’s building.
4. She’s in a constant state of iteration. Her passion drives her desire to fine-tune the solution.
5. Her ideas can be reproduced at scale. That’s the highest form of Innovation: being able to replicate your idea in people and in processes at a large scale. The larger the scale, the more impactful the innovation

Here’s to the Innovators. The lone voices. Keep building. Keep iterating. Keep pivoting. If you stay the course, you can deliver that solution that makes THE difference to the world.