Featured Insights
Inspirational Lessons from the Innovators
Much has been said that the heart of a company, a product, or a service is creativity and innovation. Thankfully, we may discover some thoughtful insights in the works of successful innovation leaders that we can learn from.
What will customers expect from a product? Many companies’ executives are constantly debating and struggling to answer this fundamental question. The way in which Steve Jobs, regards as one of the world’s great innovators, answered the question carries inspirational lessons for us. Many companies would conduct market research to understand customer needs and expectations, but he revealed that market research did not lead to the development of iPad or iPhone. Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen said that “Jobs’s instinct was not to focus on the customer, but rather to focus his innovations on the job that the customer is trying to do.” Jobs taught us to carefully observe what people are doing and trying to do. He then turned the insights into innovative product to provide customers with superior experience in navigating the art, design and technology of a product.
In the filmmaking industry, the Oscar-winning director James Cameron has been pushing technological innovation. He was constantly trying to do things with the shock of the new in his movies, like Titanic and Avatar. According to Cameron, inspiration may come from anywhere, for example, when you talk to someone at a party, you can get an idea. People would wonder how he integrate his ideas into the creative process. Cameron experiences that “it is important to recognize the moment when you are on the verge of a breakthrough. To convince people to back your idea, you have got to sell it to yourself and know when it is the moment.” Sometimes we may need to learn to be patient. Moreover, as breakthrough comes always from discarding the assumptions, the ability to exploit our capabilities is important for fostering creativity and innovation.
There are much more lessons from the successful innovators.
Cultivating Mentality in Changing World
What we believe and how we think have a profound impact on the way we conduct our lives. Especially in today’s rapidly changing world, it is important for us to cultivate the capabilities to lead lives of greater commitment.
In early years of 2000s, I participated the “education sponsorship” programs with a goal of upholding education opportunities for children in developing regions. Once we visited a mountainous village in Guangxi, the southwest province of China. The road to the village was extremely rugged. It took 4 hours for us to travel there for a distance travelled less an hour in normal road condition. While arrived, we visited the village’s only school and had a gathering with the students. I remembered a scene of the gathering. For a game, students were required to pass the basketball from the first student to the last student at the lines, then moved it back to the first one. The fastest team would win. The game itself was very simple, but the children enjoyed it very much and were full of joys. I wondered why they were so enjoyable and happy with such simple game. On that day we then visited a child’s home and spent the night with her family. Her family had a lot of tough times in their lives due to mountainous condition and lack of resources there, but I found pleasure and sincerity on their faces.
Some years later as I had progressed through my life, I learned that it is about “mentality”. Positive mentality puts opportunities to unleash our potentials in the pursuit of success in life. In the difficult moments, positive mentality leads us to maintain faith and not to lose hope. Our faith keeps us grounded. Like the children I met in Guangxi found they were happy with a play as they had been. And, when we recognize mentality as the discipline of bringing out the good in ourselves, the good in others, we then come to know the good in people’s pursuit of common positive purpose.
