Want to learn the ideas in The Ten Faces of Innovation better than ever? Read the world’s #1 book summary of The Ten Faces of Innovation by Tom Kelley, Jonathan Littman here.
Read a brief 1-Page Summary or watch video summaries curated by our expert team. Note: this book guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by the publisher or author, and we always encourage you to purchase and read the full book.
Video Summaries of The Ten Faces of Innovation
We’ve scoured the Internet for the very best videos on The Ten Faces of Innovation, from high-quality videos summaries to interviews or commentary by Tom Kelley, Jonathan Littman.
1-Page Summary of The Ten Faces of Innovation
Beat the Devil
You may have been in a meeting where someone proposes an idea and another person asks for permission to play devil’s advocate. The second person then stomps on the idea, which kills creativity. Although this role is negative, it demonstrates that taking on a pretend persona can change your perspective completely. Role playing is a good way to encourage innovation.
Innovation is a term that needs to be explained. The 3M Company defines it as “new ideas, plus action or implementation, which results in an improvement, gain or profit.” However, that definition should also include the role of people—plural—in the process. Innovation doesn’t just happen; it requires determination and teamwork.
“Learning,” “Organizing” and “Building”
Role-playing can be a great way to help your company stay on top of market changes. The following are ten roles, organized into three categories (nurturing innovation), that you might want to use for role-playing in order to encourage new ideas:
“Learning roles” – The “anthropologist,” the “experimenter” and the “cross-pollinator” observe what other disciplines have to say. They create prototypes to test them out and explore different perspectives on their ideas.
“Roles” are the people who help you get your work done. There’s a “hurdler,” who helps you overcome obstacles, and there’s an “experience architect,” who creates structures that nurture innovation.
People can play different roles and it is beneficial for them to do so. They don’t need one person for each role in every situation, but they could have several people filling those roles at the same time. The experience of switching between these roles will help people think about new ideas because they’re coming from a different perspective than usual. You should make innovation an organizational-wide commitment instead of just doing it on a project basis.
- Anthropologists are people who immerse themselves in foreign cultures and observe them closely. This is a great way to innovate because it forces you to look at everything with fresh eyes. You don’t have any pre-conceived notions about what’s good or bad, so you can see things that other people might not notice. Look for ideas everywhere: your own intuition, daily actions and even the clutter around you.
You can’t learn how your customers use a product by asking them directly. They will clean up their answers for public presentation, or they might not know the answer themselves. So, watch what they do. Observe people in person or use technological aids such as videotaping to record them in action. Then ask open-ended questions from different perspectives to get a better understanding of their behavior and needs. Don’t ask an adolescent “What’s hot?” Instead, you should ask him or her what he/she would buy with a certain amount of money. Visit a newsstand and buy something that you don’t usually read; this will help you see your culture differently and understand your customers better.
- Experimenters are persistent about solving problems. They try lots of prototypes, make drawings, and build models. Then they take what they learn and start all over again. Many people don’t like making prototypes because they think the prototype should impress those who see it – but that’s not its purpose. If necessary, you can make a quick-and-dirty prototype out of things you’ve pulled from the trash. Your aim is to give your ideas a literal shape so you and others can grasp them and then improve them by comparing two prototypes to discern what works and doesn’t work in each one.
