It's been 2 weeks since we started playing MartStrat simulation game. At the very first time, I couldn't really understand why 'innovation' and 'differentiation' are important as professor emphasizes in class. I knew that's what will make our team competitive but didn't have a clear view of innovation. I was like 'I can't be an innovator. I am not creative so thinking of unique ideas and thoughts should not be my job.' How irresponsible I was! Well, our group had several times of meetings as others and during that meeting, I just sat and agreed with some ideas from other group members. I could analyze and tell people what can be more appropriate choice for us but as we started failing, we all needed to be able to innovate our products in order to increase the sales. It was time to face 'innovation.'
In this article I read, Jack and Suzy Welch tells you some important aspects of innovation. Yes, 'innovation doesn't arrive like a thunderbolt. It emerges incrementally, in bits and chugs, forged by a mixed bag of coworkers from up, down, and across an organization, sweating and wrangling it out in the trenches.' (quoted) I agree with this part. It changed my thought that I had, which is 'innovation is possible with geniuses only.' It may sound ridiculous, but I really had this thought on my mind and that's reason I kept avoiding whenever I had to face 'innovation or differentiated-related' task. Innovation doesn't always arise from geniuses. Jack and Suzy said that 'it's a mind-set that makes people excited to share new ideas and to embrace the notion that you only win as an organization when everyone's brain is engaged.' (quoted) In other words, the place I am with my teammates for this game is the place where innovation lives. We are all different and have all different strengths. No one is the same. How creative God is! Thank God for creating us like his image. I can be creative, while I simply share my thoughts with others as we stimulate each other with our own unique thought. Innovation and differentiation are hard, for me still, but I no longer want to avoid it. It's not something that automatically pops up, but the time I spend with my team members, sharing ideas at night, sometimes having fun and joking around, is when innovation is being created!Whatever I do today can be better tomorrow if I do it differently. I have a tendency to do things as 'I have done' them because I believed that's the right way. But now I know that it's not true. I leanred that embracing difference is the first step to take in order to make my life innovative and unique through this article. I'll get started right now. :)
Reference* http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_16/b4080084408701.htm
* entry 6 by 20500297 =)
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