WHISTLER, CANADA The air is mountain fresh and the ground crunches frostily underfoot. I’m scrambling over the boulders, scree and moss of the untouched Boreal forest behind our mountain cabin. Hours before I was on Vancouver’s waterfront in a polished hotel lobby. I was discussing innovation risk with an exec at a leading global tech player. He works in one of the world’s most risk-tolerant cultures.  Yet innovation is still very hard. Painful in fact when it happens.

Back in the mountains, I’m revisiting the wilderness where as a young aspiring athlete I trained. Running, jumping and lifting in pursuit of a dream. Deep in the forest, I felt safe that nobody but bears and eagles might see me. Where I could leap, bend and move in new awkward and weird ways to acquire high-performance skills and capabilities. The new movements and physical exertion hurt but it allowed me to take risks and find out what I was capable of, and more painfully, what I wasn’t. 

What makes digital innovation so painful? Even for those with the talent, endeavour and capabilities in the safest of safe spaces with genuinely supportive colleagues? In any environment intention is easy but action at the edge of what is known to be possible is hard. Not so much for the physical exertion but the deeper personal risks of embarrassment, failure, stability, security and identity. 

Typically, innovation is a discussion of process, methodology, resources and material rewards. Very little focus is made on the acts of innovation themselves. The very moment where one bends, jumps or leaps with their thinking. The painful real work of pushing boundaries, daring to dream, taking risks, learning you were wrong, trying again, succeeding and trying again.

So how does one know if their team or they themselves are ready to do the serious work of innovation? Here are seven practices to endure innovation’s pain:

• Willingness to venture forth

• Building tolerance for discomfort

• Growing courage to exert will

• Practicing agreeableness to create a collective

• Building resilience to keep going

• Maintaining open eyes for opportunities

• Accepting limits of the controllables and knowables

All seven will rarely if ever be topped up to 100%. It’s a goal to strive for and on some days it all comes together. You throw everything into it, it’s exhausting but oh so rewarding.

Up for it? If so smile and enjoy the pain of progress. 

Dot Makers

As I’m on the West Coast I asked entrepreneur, professor of innovation at the UBC Sauder School of Business and future of work provocateur Jonas Altman to join us in the second edition of Dot Makers.

What aren’t we talking about that we should be?

Amplifying our insecurities, neurosis, anxieties, and fuelling cultures of narcissism.

What unexpected innovator do you admire?

Margaret Mead

What’s the hardest moment of your job?

Stopping

What does a break-through moment feel like to you?

Lightness - like floating on clouds (if I ever get chance to do that).

When it comes to digital innovation what do you wish we knew that we don't?

How can we find a better balance so that we become more, not less human.

Movements

After a quick stop in London I’ll be at Fontainbleau for my last road trip and INSEAD stint of 2019. Then it’s holiday time in London. Say hi for coffee.

Thank you as always for feedback and sharing Connecting Dots. You may have seen us featured in the exceptional Silicon Valley must read Exponential View newsletter. Which is amazing. Thank you Azeem Azhar and everyone else who shares Connecting Dots with their smartest friends

See you on the digital frontier,

-Brett

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