Creativity Central [Marty Baker]

It all began with a spontaneous comment by host Saul Kaplan on the second day of the BIF5 Collaborative Innovation Summit.  After thanking two of the speakers, he made the observation that there is a strong connection between vulnerability and innovation.

The bloggers and tweeters, all noted the remark. During the next break, I asked Saul what he meant. He told me he was reacting to each innovator’s openness to new and often contradictory ideas.

Melissa Withers, Executive Director of the Business Innovation Factory, echoed the same idea a few days later in an interview with Ted Nesi of the Providence Business News.   “I saw a deep and authentic vulnerability that was inseparable from their strength. In both cases, they showed that innovation requires an openness to the world that most of us are afraid of, whether we realize it or not. It was as though a flashbulb went off in my head, and now I can see things – about my business and about myself – that I couldn’t see before.”

Both observations, reveal another paradox of innovation. Innovators need a healthy degree of both confidence and openness to succeed.  Bill Taylor, co-founder of Fast Company says, “I find that the best leaders demonstrates a capacity for vuja dé.” It is the flip side of déjà vu – experiencing  the familiar in a whole new way.  It is an openness to reevaluating the status quo.

The idea of “openness” isn’t new, but what makes it provocative is that we continually have to watch for our own evolving blind spots.  It is a continual process of rethinking what works and what doesn’t.  I think it is a variation of what Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein call “Schooling the Imagination.”  It is about schooling an “innovation mind-set.” It is being open when staying closed would be easier alternative.

BIF is all about vuja dé.  It is putting ideas under a collective microscope and seeing what new species of ideas we can find.