Highlights on innovation psychology inspired by the Censemaking Newsletter.
Today we dive a little further into some of the headlines from our latest newsletter, recapping some stories on the psychology of innovation that might be of interest to you.
Change Your Mind, Change your Behaviour
McKinsey & Co recently published a new report on the role of mindsets in framing organizational change efforts. The authors stress that successful change is more likely when you make it both personal and institutional in nature and review some of the key techniques for both individual and organizational change that can successfully influence mindset shifts.
What does it mean? We often assume our colleagues (and ourselves) have the right mind-set for change, but Scott Keller and Bill Schaninger say otherwise. Ericsson has worked on an initiative to change mindsets in its organization and suggests five steps to help do it.
Further reading: Dweck, C. S. (2016). Mindset: The new psychology of success (2nd ed). Random House Digital, Inc..
De-biasing training
Training has with it an explicit perspective — a bias. But what if that perspective led us to certain blind spots that could result in missed opportunities and certain risks? A new study in the journal Psychological Science found that its possible to de-bias people through the use of video game-based training, with effects lasting weeks later.
Why does this matter? Innovators bring tremendous bias about their own products, potential, and pathways for change to their work. By employing de-biasing strategies in your team you can reduce the likelihood of fostering unhelpful biases in decision-making and judgement.
Innovation Labs & Failure
Creating ‘innovation units’ within organizations isn’t new, but it is becoming popular. But how much value do innovation labs deliver? Simone Baha Ajuha has looked at the data and found many fail and has suggested ways to improve their performance.
What does this mean? The lesson is that a lab without the culture to support it and the mindset shift to accompany it won’t produce results. Investment in culture-building is critical, not optional, for realizing value from innovation laboratories.
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