🤔 Very interesting, Paul.

Innovation is an fascinating concept. It's what drives exiting change in the world around us. At the same time, I have always thought there was a flaw in the "innovation paradigm" that has bugged me on and off for a very long time.

An innovation, historically compares itself to what came before it. The iPhone as an example, is compared with the flip-phone and is deemed a miracle of technology.

And in some ways it might very well be, but at heart, it's still just a phone. The camera is better. The memory is vastly improved. The Apps to download - endless. But from a usability standard - the calls often fall off and basic functions tend to be glitchy. So, true innovation?

To Innovate means to renew or to create something new. Much of innovation today is linear - it refines and redefines what already is, into new shapes and sizes, but doesn't venture too far off the path.

A mortgage was a simple instrument and a distant predecessor of the securitized assets that caused the 2008 crash. They were considered highly innovative. But toward what end?

I believe that the next generation of leaders have to untether themselves from the norm, from the ideas they see whirling all around them, and seek the as yet unknown factors.

They must set aside what everyone is doing and using and restate the problem as if it were seen for the first time - and then innovate back from that statement. In this way, disregarding what is and focusing on what could be. The present version of something is often a distraction because it tends to limit the potential for something new.

As always Paul, thanks for stirring up the possibility of things. 😊👌