DEFINING INNOVATION

DEFINING INNOVATION: SOLVING PROBLEMS, SUSTAINABLY

// By Mushambi Mutuma

CEO, author and renowned speaker Mushambi Mutuma unpacks what it means to (truly) innovate, and provides invaluable guidance for effectively harnessing creativity to propel your ventures to long-term success.

I recently asked a few followers how they’d identify innovation:

‘The improvement of existing ideas or creation of new ones, to operate more efficiently and effectively’ – @ms.jua

‘New and simple solutions to problems’ – @danbrsmalemo

‘Progressive, life-changing & inspiring’ – @staceydesigns However, it was @kgalimo’s take on innovation that spoke most directly to me:

‘Innovation is about finding a more sustainable solution to an everyday problem. It’s a reinvention of self. Thoughtful simplicity.’

Inherently, innovation is about problem-solving. It’s that simple. We often overcomplicate what it means to innovate and how to do it. However, in its very definition,

innovation is about finding a solution in the simplest way

possible. Typically, we tend to believe that coming up with an innovative idea means coming up with a solution no one has ever heard of before - a space-age level application. The Rolls-Royce version of the big idea in our head. In most cases, the Polo Vivo version, with no air-conditioning or power windows, that just gets us from point A to point B, is all that’s necessary. Innovation’s nature is for you to use it as a tool to solve the problems around you – innovating is about solving a problem with a solution that will last. To describe it even more simply, innovation is the process by which we change the world. We don’t innovate for the sake of smashing the status quo or just for the sake of breaking everything around us. Innovation is solutionbased.

WHAT INNOVATION ISN’T

Understanding the opportunities with innovation and remaining adjacent to how it works is quite critical, but we also have to understand what innovation isn’t.

INNOVATION IS NOT ABOUT BEING FIRST

When understanding the nature of technology and innovation, you’ll note that most new ideas are truly not that new. Invention rarely happens in this day and age, and that’s okay. It’s likely less needed than before. Continuous improvement and adaptation, however, will always remain key. So, stop trying to be first to market with a brand new idea. The focus

should be on taking what’s currently

present and refining it even further. Innovation does not mean being the first in your industry to launch or take advantage of something. It can also mean just doing it the best, the most efficiently or with a reframed business model.

INNOVATION IS NOT MERELY A BUZZWORD

Don’t let taglines, fancy job titles and new websites fool you; there’s a huge difference between saying ‘we’re innovative’ and actually being innovative. Many of the brands I meet with on a regular basis as clients state and believe (on the surface) that they are innovative. It’s written on the whiteboard of almost every boardroom and it’s raised in every yearly team-building workshop. A few years ago, a financial services client gave us the brief to ‘reinvent digital banking’. As a digital lab, this was an incredibly exciting challenge for us. We were going to get to truly disrupt and offer a fully immersive value proposition to an industry filled with inefficiencies, mistrust and unexplainable fees. Right?

Well, all they actually wanted was a new website. The intimidating challenge of being truly ‘innovative’ and upgrading the current banking experience was overwhelming and not rational to the bottom line. Why fix what’s not completely broken? That’s how most of us view innovation. It sounds nice. It looks good on our New Year business resolutions. But most of us don’t understand it or actually want it to take hold. It would force us into a new space, take us out of our comfort zones. It’s a journey that needs real commitment. Real innovation is about a true investment into change and progress. It requires you to practise what you preach.

INNOVATION IS NOT FAIL-PROOF

While studying art in Florence, walking the same streets that Leonardo da Vinci walked daily, I learned that the most important

lesson for achieving next level

success is through failure. Da Vinci’s accomplishments included painter, sculptor, scientist, architect, musician, mathematician, inventor, geologist, botanist…the list goes on. However, one of this polymath’s foundational principles unlocks the power of failure and can be used as a framework for your personal development. Dimostrazione.

Dimostrazione is a commitment to test knowledge through experience and persistence, and to consent

to failure. Often our expectation of innovation is for it to never fail. It must be improvement only. We have

“It’s the law of life that problems arise when conditions are there for their solutions ...”

bottom lines to think about here. This restricts not only the risks and leaps of faith we take, but also restricts our process. By its very nature, innovation is about experimentation. We need to escape the curse of implementation and focus instead on trying something completely new, never tested, often only dreamt of.

Growth comes through regular failure and rapid experimentation. This means researching, designing, whiteboarding, testing, implementing. And then going back to researching again. In order for you to be successful you need to fail constantly through testing your ideas. This is not falling down on your face and staying there. This

is finding out what doesn’t work and then moving on to the next opportunity and being more refined

and more precise. If you encourage innovation within your company, you encourage experimentation, and you encourage failure. The expectations, therefore, have to be managed realistically. The most impactful ideas weren’t rooted in the best business model, financial structure, profit versus risk margin or even in core historical services and product offerings. They were rooted in shaking up the status quo, thinking outside the box and trying something completely new and almost irrational.

That willingness is the best path to success.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mushambi Mutuma is a CEO, author and speaker who has spent the past 12 years building brands and businesses across the African continent and the United States. His debut book, Tech Adjacent, is a must-read for anyone aiming to understand technology in Africa and business at large - CEO, manager and student alike. Grab your copy online or at any leading bookstore.

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