Secret 3

DISCOVERY

Spark Daredevil Learning

Security is mostly a superstition. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.

—HELEN KELLER

Archeologists excavating the pyramids discovered wheat seeds that dated back to around 2500 BC. As in the tradition of antiquity, the seeds were there for the dead pharaoh to eat if he got hungry. The find was important because it would enable scientists to determine what variety of wheat was in use in the ancient world and could be invaluable for engineering new types of wheat.

Out of curiosity, the scientists planted the forty-five-hundred-year-old seeds in fertile soil and an amazing thing happened. They grew!

Innovation is the process of awakening, nurturing, and growing—just like the wheat seeds. Sometimes innovation is pure serendipity. Mark Twain wrote, “Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.” Some of my favorite accidents include Popsicles, potato chips, and Silly Putty. But most innovation—especially the kind that involves your customer’s imagination—begins with an intentional pursuit. It is driven by a purpose but cultivated by a propensity to discover, to learn. If passion is the sunlight in the development of ideas, learning is its soil.

Your customer’s imagination is deeply attracted to growth. Growth, like imagination, requires discovery and a daredevil-like confidence to let go of a fear of mistakes and embrace something new and different. Discovery, like imagination, involves tinkering around and experimenting, replacing old opinions with new truths. Secret 3 is about ramping up the attraction of mutual discovery as a means to draw out the imagination of your customer. Discovery embraces imagination like an old friend with a familiar history. There are fruitful ways to promote your customer’s imagination’s attendance at that reunion.

I grew up on a farm in South Georgia, where we grew corn and hay for our livestock. My dad always talked about the importance of rich topsoil. We planted cover crops in the winter to protect the topsoil from being washed away; when seeds were planted, we added fertilizer to enrich the topsoil. I remember as a child thinking that “rich” must mean there was treasure buried in the fields—I envisioned the gold, silver, and precious jewels that pirates pursued. While the form of my treasure was off the mark, my concept of nurturance for en-rich-ment was on target. Learning is a fertile, bountiful context for the growth of ideas.

Sometimes, the perfect combination of seed, soil, and weather would come together and we would get a bumper crop. The giant corn stalks would reach for the sky in a seemingly death-defying way. They would tower over all the other crops planted nearby. My father would tell me they were like a bunch of teenagers trying to outdo each other. He always animated the things we grew as though they had a spiritual life, not just an agronomic one.

“We have a bunch of daredevils,” my father would tell my mother as he took off his farm hat that looked like a French-style pith helmet. “Hope we don’t get hail before we get ears of corn.” He seemed proud these cornstalks would take the risk to grow beyond their normal rank and pay grade. So it is with co-creation partnerships.

Learning requires the bravery to say, “I don’t know,” the humility to say, “I am open to being wrong,” and the passion to say, “I am not letting setbacks inhibit my pursuit.” Innovation takes daring to persevere despite criticism or rebuke. “When you innovate,” said Oracle cofounder and executive chairman Larry Ellison, “you’ve got to be prepared for everyone telling you that you’re nuts.” Co-creation partnerships are always learning and learning in out-of-the-ordinary ways.

Discovery is a forever feature of all innovation cultures. And it is a poignant attraction for your customer’s imagination. It has three parts (figure 5). First, it involves helping your customer feel like a valued part of a coalition engaged in the incubation of ideas, a welcome arena for divergent views and irreverent perspectives. Second, it is about presence, a “be all … there” emotional place filled with animation, full attention, and wide-awake consideration. And finally, it is a context for imagination chi—a high-energy means to stretch the imagination in order to discover, invent, and originate.

FIGURE 5. The elements of partnership discovery

Discovery, like imagination, is a door opened only from the inside. It starts with a context—an incubation alliance—that encourages door opening to allow your customer’s imagination to exit. This is a cauldron fired up by obvious humility, laser-focused presence, and above all, freedom of expression. It is a relationship jam-packed with awe, wonderment, and the courage for full disclosure. It entails acknowledging and making room for what you do not know. And it requires exorcising anything that creates fear in the relationship.

Discovery fuels innovation when those involved are omnipresent, meaning they are emotionally present in all ways. I label it “be all … there.” It means being “on” and remaining “on.” It includes energizing by example. Athletes call it “leaving everything on the field or court.” This cheerleader-for-learning orientation can awaken the imagination, getting it on the team bus bound for innovation.

Discovery sprouts ideas by stretching the imagination in new ways. Why do great athletes or acrobatic performers stretch before a contest or performance? The short answer is to loosen up their muscles so they are less likely to be injured. But the deeper answer is to invite the stimulation of chi—the Chinese word for life force or breath of life. Chi is what makes a live body different from a corpse. And a strong life force is associated with aliveness, alertness, and presence. Have you noticed runners or gymnasts shaking their hands before lunging into action? It is the body’s relationship reaction to chi. For innovation, wise pursuers use special stretches to awaken the imagination.

In the three chapters ahead, we will unearth new concepts and practices in the creation of a climate of incubation and explore ways to bring “wide awakeness” to the relationship. We will also explore in an entertaining chapter how to stretch the spirit and practice of imagination with your customer. We have all heard the phrase “stretch of the imagination.” What would that be like if it were the spirited version of a physical workout in the gymnasium of ideas?

So is it discovery or learning? The answer is “yes!” Some learning is rote and repetitive like the muscle memory of a dancer; some involves retention of facts and formulas like preparing for a high school test. These types of learning yield performance. But discovery-centered learning produces insights, inventions, and progress. It is treasure-hunting learning, not answer-knowing learning. Thus, the process of discovery and this type of learning are almost interchangeable.