Innovation is Too Essential for Businesses to Be Precious About

True innovation and design thinking do not necessarily originate only with the sequestered brain trust of a “skunkworks” research & development style team. Instead, it is the productive combination of pure analytical thinking and pure intuitive thinking.

According to Big Think expert Roger Martin, Institute Director at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto in Canada, innovation originates from training a whole organization to think both analytically and intuitively, and by leaning on the insights of its sales force. Doing this helps leaders develop organizations that think about innovation while also contemplating exploration, exploitation, and the needs of the customer.

Martin says that leaving innovation only to a separate internal group can lead to the creation of ideas that may not align with the goals of the organization and also may generate a sense of distrust from the mainstream organization’s employees.