Mindset for Doing New
July 18th, 2012
The more work I do with innovation, the more I believe mindset is the most important thing. Here’s what I believe:
Doing new doesn’t take a lot of time; it’s getting your mind ready that takes time.
Engineers must get over their fear of doing new.
Without a problem there can be no newness.
Problem definition is the most important part of problem solving.
If you believe it can work or it can’t, you’re right.
Activity is different from progress.
Thinking is progress.
In short, I believe state-of-the-art is limited by state-of-mind.
Posted in Assumptions, Fear, Imagination, Innovation, Intellectual Intertia, Positivity, Problems, Risk, Technology | 
Tags: Engineering Mindset, Problem Definition
5 Responses to “Mindset for Doing New”
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Mike Shipulski
Outstanding! An engineer pushing New! You are my hero ….
Me I am a marketing guy we are all about new products, which usually drives engineers nuts, and production, and everyone else nuts. I like engineers and understand that there is risk trying something new. In the highly competitive markets, we all live and work in there is no safe niche. We all have to be striving for innovation in every product we launch. I learned my lesson over 10 years ago when an engineer told me that UL would never approve lithium batteries in our type of products. Well 6 months later a competitor launched a product with Ta Da lithium batteries. We can’t play it safe any longer, because we have global competition in for every product every ware.
Mike you are absolutely right, NEW is a Mindset…in Marketers and Engineers. Create new or die !
Well…Me, I’m a manufacturability guy and we are all about new products BUT making them easier to make. I mean REALLY easier to make and to do that, you need fearless designers. I’ve found the best innovators tend to be “visionaries.” Fearless because they can visualize the concepts and ideas. They “see” the final form fisrt. Visualize first, then draw it. For what I do, it can get very frustrating to work with design engineers who are affraid of a little risk and let their pessamistic behaviors drive their accomplishments. I mean no harm in what I just said, but the word “behavior” is exactly what I mean. If one could buy visualizing pills, I’d have a desk drawer full of ’em. Great subject, Mike.
These days anyone playing it safe in manufacturing are the folks taking the real risk! Whether their discipline is Process or Design Engineering or Marketing, Sales or Production, or those in the C suite making critical decisons, standing still and sticking with the status quo is dangerous in 2012. We are in the technology version of the industrial revolution in terms of product design, not to mention how this same technology has given us and our competition such global reach. Change your thinking, change your world. Innovator, risk taker, creator, enthusiastic…..combine those traits with a smart, analytical mind of an engineer and that’s who I would hire…
Mike;
This is another good one that gets forwarded.
For clarification (?):
“Engineers must get over their fear of doing new.”
substitution: “doing new” = change
and this can now apply to everyone (not just Engineers)
“Without a problem there can be no newness.”
substitution: “newness” = solution
Your belief #4, calls up fond memories of one departed.
“Problem definition is the most important part of problem solving.”
I got a poster from a mentor a long time ago. It stayed on the
inside of my office door for over a decades. Gone for longer than
that but the message as I remember it: Don’t treat the symptoms.
Identify the root cause and (k)now you have the right problem to
solve. Strike there.
The battles continue, Keep sending the ammunition.
Regards;
Doug
Dave, I like your focus on behaviors. I agree completely.
Visionaries in the design community see what “can be” and un-see “what is”. It’s this un-seeing that’s the trick. It’s the success of the current design (what is) and it’s associated lack of technical risk that blind us to what can be.
We think it’s easier to keep things as they are, but we’re unaware of the risk. But this is not a static game — if we’re not moving forward, we’re falling behind.
Mike