Suzie Boss, always great, offered last week on Eduotopia her takeaways from the Harvard Business Review piece on “How Innovators Think.”   (I published my inferences here two weeks ago).

Her summary is better than mine, and I hope it is OK to re-publish here her three “nuggets:”

  • Make connections. Creative thinkers work across disciplines and “make connections across seemingly unrelated questions, problems, or ideas,” according to Jeff Dyer, business professor at Brigham Young University. The “Aha!” moment often occurs when ideas connect in new or unexpected ways.
  • Never stop questioning. Good thinkers never stop asking questions. Inquisitiveness is the common denominator of innovative entrepreneurs, concludes Hal Gregorson, of INSEAD, an international business school. Yet school tends to value getting the right answer. This “drums the curiosity out,” he cautions, making many students — and, eventually, adults — reluctant to ask provocative questions.
  • Learn from failure. One of the hallmarks of expert problem solvers is known as rapid iteration. This term refers to learning from each attempt at solving a challenge and incorporating what worked into the next prototype. What doesn’t work on one try becomes a rich learning opportunity — and the platform for future success.
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