INNOVATION: Risks are Necessary C. D. Mote, Jr. Regents Professor & Glenn L. Martin Institute Professor of Engineering University of Maryland, College

INNOVATION: Risks are Necessary

C. D. Mote, Jr.

Regents Professor & Glenn L. Martin Institute Professor of Engineering

University of Maryland, College Park

Honorary Professor

Beijing Normal University

October 20, 2011

1. Innovation

• What is it?

• What determines an innovative culture?

• How great is the span of innovation?

2. Speak to you about becoming an innovator

• Offer advise that can change the world

This Evening –> I have two goals!

• “Why Innovation?

• World is crazy about innovation.

• Answer to every “How will we….?” question

• Success attributed to innovation

• Key to creative society

• Value chain: assemble –> design –> create

Innovation: Unreasonable Expectations

• Invention An idea realized

• Science Discovers “what is”

• Engineering Creates “what never was”

• Innovation Implements successfully

• Entrepreneurship Transforms innovations into

economic goods

Innovation: How is it different from…..?

• Invention An idea realized

• Science Discovers “what is”

• Engineering Creates “what never was”

• Innovation Implements successfully

• Entrepreneurship Transforms innovations into

economic goods

Innovation: How is it different from…..?

NEW GRAPHIC NEEDED• Innovation is not a subject.

• Innovation is a way of thinking, interacting, living and behaving.

• Innovation is a culture devoted to successful implementations

– all cultures are characterized by a set of attitudes, values, goals and practices

-- innovative cultures share seven characteristics

“Innovation” is a culture, not a subject

CULTURE OF INNOVATION

1. Strong leadership committed to innovation

2. Minimal hierarchy in decision making

3. Commitment to deliverables, implementation

4. Value disparate talents & entrepreneurship

5. Value ideas, the creative and unconventional

6. Move quickly but adapt readily

7. Willingness to accept failures


Characteristics of a




a. Capability and authority to lead

b. Most important of the 7 characteristics

c. No leadership -> no culture of innovation

















a. Few layers of bureaucracy --> “flat organization”

b. Clarity about who decides what will be done.

c. Confidence in leadership capability

















a. Cultures of innovation commit to deliverable

implementation.
















4. Values disparate talents & entrepreneurship

a. Openly and highly value: people with disparate

talents who bring expanded values and creativity to

the implementation.

b. “Different and creative” is more valued than being

“Highly talented but just like everyone else.”

















a. Share a determination to:

i. Conceive ideas

ii. Create innovations

iii. Challenge conventional thinking

iv. Be different

















a. Share commitment: to:

i. move quickly but adapt readily as plans evolve.

ii. Minimize the inherent risk.

iii. Rate of change is accelerating

iv. Do not fall in love with an idea – ideas change
















7.Willingness to accept failures

i. Seek to reduce the risk of failure

ii. Failure is realistic outcome

iii. Failure is not shameful; you learn from failures.

a. What experiment has never failed?

b. What inventor has never failed?

c. What Nobel Laureate has never failed?





7.Willingness to accept failures

i. Seek to reduce the risk FAILURE IS NOT A GOAL

ii. Failure is realistic outcome FOR REAL PROBLEMS

iii. Failure is not shameful; you learn from failures. MORE THAN

FROM SUCCESSES

a. What experiment has never failed? NONE

b. What inventor has never failed? NONE

c. What Nobel Laureate has never failed? NONE















V. NURTURING THE CULTUREInnovation Domains

Scaled by Leadership and Size

• Individual

• Organizational

• Community

• Provincial / State

• National

• World

NURTURING THE CULTURECOUPLED INNOVATION DOMAINS

STATE, ORGANIZATION, WORLD

NURTURING THE CULTURECOUPLED DOMAINS OF INNOVATION

GREAT INNOVATORS

• Second goal –

• Great innovators

• Becoming a great innovator – yes or no?

•Advise on this big problem to think about

YOUR CIRCUMSTANCE.

• BNU is a most prominent university.

• You are among the best students in China.

• What’s the problem with that you ask?”

• Serious, unintended consequences to think about.

THE BIG PROBLEM

• You've been a very fine student for a long time.

• You had to “do the right thing” all the time.

• You had no time to fall out of step, risk a bad examination

• Everyone around you urged you to “do the right thing.”

• “Do what is expected of you”- It is necessary to succeed.

• But is it necessary to succeed?

• Does it always lead to success?

THE BIG PROBLEM

• Some people just refuse to “do the right thing“

• To do “what others expect of them”

• Many do not graduate from fine universities.

• Many are iconoclasts, adventurers and dropouts.

• Some, like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates or Sergey Brin

• Create companies like Apple, Microsoft or Google

THE BIG PROBLEM

• The world’s most famous scientist, Charles Darwin, was told

by his father

“you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family”

• Darwin dropped out of Edinburgh U. and U. of Cambridge

• Darwin sailed to the Galapagos at age 20

• Created the theory of evolution

THE BIG PROBLEM

• John Harrison, an 18th century carpenterbuilt a clock that

was accurate to 5 seconds when sailing from the U.K. to the

West Indies and back to win the "Longitude Prize" for

navigation.

• He beat the Royal Observatory, founded by King Charles II

to solve that specific problem using astronomy.

THE BIG PROBLEM

• People like John Harrison devote themselves in

extraordinary ways to adventure, innovation, creation and

entrepreneurship.

• Remarkably often, it is the people who simply refuse

“do the right thing” who make the great discoveries and

contributions.

THE BIG PROBLEM

• These people work “at the edges” of their fields, and not in

the mainstream.

• Great contributions are made only at the edges of any field

-- never in the middle.

• The frontiers, after all, never lie in the middle.

THE BIG PROBLEM

• So where do you find these edges?

• First, just look around you. The edges are lonely places,

risky places, and easily criticized places.

• The edges are where most people are unwilling or afraid

to go.

THE BIG PROBLEM

• Albert Einstein said, "If at first an idea is not absurd, there will

never be any hope for it."

• If people approve of where you are going, you are most

likely not at the edge, but squarely in the middle.

• "Doing the right thing" pushes you toward the middle and

away from the “absurd” – away from the edges.

THE BIG PROBLEM

• Essentially all forces of society push high achievers, just like

you, toward the middle, and away from the edges.

• Our reward systems push high achievers toward the middle

with memberships in honor societies and academies, with

scholarships and prizes, with promotions and raises, and

with praise from family and colleagues.

THE BIG LOSS

• To walk away from these accolades, all earned by doing the

right thing, requires exceptional conviction.

• Accordingly, most high achievers don’t do it.

THE BIG LOSS INCREASES

• While they may appear to achieve, they never get out of the

middle, and consequentially they do very little of great

significance.

• And over time high achievers move steadily toward the

middle, unwittingly diminishing their opportunities for great

contributions and discoveries.

OTHERS STEP IN

• This may explain why a disproportionately high

number of people who impact our society greatly

were never seen as high achievers early on.

ADVISE TO THINK ABOUT

• My call to you is to

"Think about getting out at the edge at least part of the time."

• Our world needs its best and brightest people to use their talents for maximum impact which happens at the edges.

• Decide how much risk you are willing to take. It's a personal decision. It may be 10 percent or even double-time for a few years.

• If your brain feels full, then listen to your heart.


• Be driven by your passion — passion is the awesome force that drives great achievements – no passion = no progress

• Be wary of society's incessant push toward the middle, toward doing the right thing all the time.

• Break a rule every day.


• The frontier is waiting to be opened by the next great idea.

• We can’t say where it will happen – except that it will happen at the edges.

• So . . . your future is in your hands, . . . or should I say “it’s in your hearts.”

Don’t do the “right thing” all the time.

Give yourself a chance to become exceptional

INNOVATIONCulture of Innovation:

• Innovation is a culture devoted to

successful implementations

• Innovation is a way of thinking,

interacting, living and behaving.

Get out on the Edges:

• Give yourself a chance to be a

great contributor.

• Don’t do the right thing all the

time.

Summary – Thank you !

Documents

INNOVATION: Risks are Necessary C. D. Mote, Jr. Regents Professor & Glenn L. Martin Institute Professor of Engineering University of Maryland, College