How To Breed An Innovative Business Idea — #7 of 31 Proven Skills [Research]
Skill #7: Copy by Observation or Create Through Generation
While a difficult problem is daunting when it first reveals itself, a valuable starting point is to know that there are two reliable options for tackling it. One is to copy a solution that successfully solved a similar problem and the other is to generate a solution that leverages resources that are readily available to you. Then set about securing the ‘capability’ that will enable you to achieve your goal
Initially, when we run up against a difficult problem blocking our progress, most of us are a bit stumped and may take time away from the situation, hoping some inspiration will emerge. Sometimes, we just need help in knowing how to approach the problem let alone solve it.
However, once we understand that we are able to learn skills — there are 31 in all — that equip us to innovate to solve problems, we can take confident action immediately. This knowledge informs us that there are two strategic paths available:
· we can locate a workable solution by observing one that resolved a problem similar to ours (Copy by Observation), or
· we can generate our own solution by knowing how to bring other resources that are accessible to us into play (Create through Generation).
Although they are obviously distinct, these two strategic options have the same grounding. Both are seeking a ‘capability’ that has the power or ability to resolve the problem we face. The key challenge is discovering that capability and the two paths do differ in the way in which they accomplish this task.
In the case of Copying by Observation, the required capability is observed as operating in a particular situation and is adapted to a new resource and utilized in a different setting. Many inventions have originated in this manner. More on this shortly.
In the case of Creating through Generation, the required capability is generated from an existing resource that is changed and amplified to do more than it has done until now. Most innovations (innovative solutions to problems) — as distinct from inventions — tend to be created this way. Again, more detail in a moment.
Now, although the solution to a weighty problem is rarely obvious at the start, describing the ‘capability’ needed to resolve that problem is very straightforward and we can know it immediately.
This is achieved through employing a goal-based definition of the problem faced. We do this by identifying the current state before our problem is dealt with and the goal state after it has been successfully resolved. The gap between what we currently cannot do and the achieved goal that represents what we want to do is the required ‘capability’.
For example, if expensive advertising is blocking the achievement of the goal of making your customers aware of your product or service (current state), the innovative solution (capability) will need to deliver the equivalent of inexpensive advertising or discharge the requirement for expensive advertising (goal state) for the goal to be satisfied.
Copy by Observation
Copying by Observation is usefully illustrated by using the metaphor of climbing a mountain. Learning is accumulated on the way up, is processed on the mountaintop, and then used to good effect on the way down.
Consider the invention of Morse Code as summarized in this image and described below it.
In 1838, Samuel Morse, while traveling by stagecoach across America, casually observed that fresh horses were hitched to his stagecoach periodically to sustain constant progress over the remainder of the journey. This caused him to reflect that the physical energy (of horses) was being regularly refreshed.
He then began to reflect more generally and recognized that a broad capability of boosting energy was at work and this triggered retrieval of a problem he had been wrestling with — the inability of electrical energy (that had been recently discovered) to carry over a distance. Soon he realized that in the same way that the fresh horses boosted physical energy, he should be able to link together relay stations that would boost electrical energy.
In starting to climb the mountain, Morse observed an embryonic, specific capability — boosting the physical energy of horses and generalized into a broader capability of just boosting energy. He then specialized back down the mountain to boosting the electrical energy of transmission towers. This innovative insight from casual observation removed the last obstacle to the emergence of Morse Code.*
As striking as inventions such as Morse Code are when they are spawned from Copying by Observation, this strategy depends almost entirely on chance. Significant uncertainty still exists about whether the requisite capability will be found and, if so, how long it will take.
This is as good a reason as any to develop skill in the second strategy as well.
Create through Generation**
If copying a capability is the equivalent of climbing a mountain, creating a capability is more like looking for a solution in our own backyard. Instead of fortuitously locating an applicable capability, we focus instead on applying innovative techniques to a resource that is readily accessible to us to create the required capability. Often, such resources are found within processes that contain the problem we need to tackle.
The best way to illustrate how Creating through Generation works and to distinguish it from Copying by Observation is to once again describe an example of it in action.
Let’s look at how a manufacturer of paint generates a solution to the problem of persistent disruption to the paint production process.
The output of a paint manufacturer was seriously constrained because of the constant need to use cleaning solvents to clean the mixing vessels and wash them out before each new batch of paint was produced. What could be done to resolve this highly disruptive necessity?
The breakthrough came when the production people realized that they could select the cleaning solvents that they were already using as a resource and amplify their capability. They saw that they could reformulate the cleaning solvents to extend their use beyond their obvious primary purpose of cleaning to that of becoming an ingredient in the subsequent batch of paint.
This of course meant that they no longer had to be removed and output no longer suffered from the disruption of batching.
Takeaway
*Although he would not have been aware of it, innovators such as Samuel Morse were engaging in the well-known (but not so well understood) technique of having ideas ‘by association’.
**Thousands of curated, innovative business ideas can be found at Sebir.com
