I was recently reading , the story of Pixar from the eyes of its co-founder Ed Catmull. I read this question just as I had finished reading this paragraph…..

And it struck me that that paragraph very much encapsulates the process of innovation in my eyes. It starts with doing. When you innovate, you take a process or way things are done and you try and do it better.

You don’t know if it will work. If people knew your new way worked, they would have done it already! But you take that leap of faith and you test something.

Most people you will meet in life are stuck in the idea phase. They have lots of great ideas. But they are never able to take the next step and turn it in to execution.

So the first step to innovation is to realize that action, even if your plan is a bit unstructured, will always trump inaction.

That being said, you always want to give yourself the best chance to succeed with anything you try. So make sure you understand the “why” around the current state of affairs.

Many people assume that they are brilliant and the way things are currently done is just because people are numb-skulls and like doing things sub-optimally. This is bad line of logic to take. Assume that processes and the ways things are done are for a purpose and then extrapolate why they might have missed the mark on certain pieces.

Next, to innovate effectively you need a certain organizational culture. Employees need to be emboldened to debate leaders and challenge the status quo. Don’t build a culture of yes-men. Make sure to always elevate the best ideas on their merit and throw hierarchy to the wind. Your goal as a leader is to innovate and change the world, not win arguments.

Finally, be quick to pivot and change direction. Because our first principle of innovation was around action, it means sometimes you head down a path and realize it wasn’t the right one. You need to change course.

Innovators get comfortable with failure and pivoting. They don’t drag it out until it magnifies. In business, having the foresight to adapt is one of the strongest predictors of success that you will find.

So build a team of candid, creative, purpose-driven thinkers, with a culture of robust debate, and you will be on your way towards innovation.