Madam C.J. Walker, born Sarah Breedlove, was America’s first female self-made millionaire. She pioneered a line of hair care and beauty products for people of color early in the 20th century, and the recent Netflix series “Self Made” details the story of this talented innovator and the challenges she overcame along the way.
To accomplish her goals, she had to face overwhelming uncertainties.
It is tempting to think that innovators are a breed apart, or perhaps lucky. But research shows this is not the case. So what characteristics do innovators such as Madam Walker have that lead them to the seemingly serendipitous moment?
Pop culture might have you believe it is a tolerance for or even an obsession with risk that makes great innovators. But in fact, research has for decades demonstrated that innovators and entrepreneurs are no more risk-taking than the average person.
Innovators are much more comfortable making decisions under conditions of uncertainty. Additionally, innovators tend to have a set of skills that allows them to better navigate this uncertainty. My experience and research has shown that they can also be learned and practiced.
Risk is when the factors determining success or failure are out of your control but the odds of success are known – a game of dice, for example. You can’t control whether a 2 or a 12 is rolled, but you know the odds.
Uncertainty is when the factors determining success or failure are not necessarily out of your control but are simply unknown. Innovators tend to be more willing to venture into the unknown, and therefore are more likely to engage in ambitious projects even when outcomes and probabilities are a mystery.
Interestingly, risk and uncertainty appear to trigger activity in different parts of the brain. Research would suggest that experienced innovators are better able to maintain their analytical capabilities despite the adrenaline and instinctual response that arises when confronting uncertainty.
Innovators don’t ignore risk; they are just better able to analyze it in uncertain situations.
Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen and the late Clay Christensen spent years investigating the characteristics of successful innovators and broadly divide the skills of innovation into two categories: delivery skills and discovery skills.
Delivery skills include quantitative analysis, planning, detail-oriented implementation and disciplined execution. These are certainly essential characteristics for success in many occupations, but for innovation, discovery must come before delivery.
Discovery skills are the ones more involved in developing ideas and managing uncertain situations. The most notable are:
• The ability to draw connections between seemingly disparate ideas and contexts.
• A tendency to question assumptions and the status quo.
• The ability to network and broaden a set of relationships, even without an intentional purpose.
These skills can be learned and cultivated. By asking the right questions, being observant or mindful, experimenting and networking with the right supporters, innovators will be more likely to identify opportunity and succeed.
There’s also passion, experience and persistence.
Successful innovators are passionate about the problem they are solving and share this passion with others.
Innovators also tend to have personal experience with the problem they are solving, yielding valuable insight.
Finally, innovation takes persistence. And often, the more disruptive the innovation, the longer society may take to embrace it.
Now is not the time to put blinders on and close your eyes to uncertainty, which can create opportunity and a need for innovation. If you build your discovery skills, you are more likely to create opportunity and persist through uncertainty.
Todd Saxton is an associate professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. Distributed by The Associated Press.