The Physics of Innovation | Leading Blog: A Leadership Blog

By bringing people with different perspectives together to iterate ever-improving prototypes, and exposing the prototypes to users at each step, the change maker accomplishes key objectives: collaboration and inclusion build buy-in as people feel heard and are able to contribute their expertise.

Costly mistakes are avoided as innovations that are true departures from the status quo evoke counter-intuitive responses – good and bad. And, iteration feeds the next item on this list -- speed.

Taking multiple steps to iterate a prototype before declaring a readiness to go to market may feel like a slowdown.

But in fact, chunking down the work into iterative cycles can compress the time it takes to get to market with a product or service that works, and that people really want to own and use.

Some amount of resistance to innovation happens when people tied to a prior success see the next big thing as a repudiation of their past contributions.

Take the edge off this emotional impulse by signaling respect and empathy with a simple practice: Compliment with an ‘i’ then complement with an ‘e’.