The Seven I's of Innovation

"Look harder" Rafiki tells Simba, gesturing towards the still water. It's a pivotal moment in The Lion King, one that's stuck with me far beyond its intended audience age range. And probably because it’s the greatest movie ever made. I can recite most of the film from start to finish and those songs were some of the first I learnt on the piano (perhaps I need to see if I can still play them!) As Simba peers into his reflection, he sees not just himself, but his father - a moment of profound recognition that changes everything that follows. This scene, seemingly simple, carries a profound truth about innovation: real change begins not with looking outward, but with the courage to look deeper at ourselves.

Innovation has become one of those words that's simultaneously overused and misunderstood. We slap it on job titles, department names, and corporate mission statements like a coat of fresh paint, hoping some of its magic will rub off on our organisations. It's become the corporate equivalent of a luxury brand - everyone wants to be associated with it, but few understand what makes it genuine. In 2025, with AI reshaping industries and economic pressures mounting, the need for real innovation - not just its buzzword cousin - has never been more critical.

But genuine innovation - the kind that transforms organisations and creates lasting value - isn't a hype or a bolt-on feature. It's a culture, a mindset, a way of being that needs to be carefully cultivated and consistently maintained. Through years of working with organisations across multiple sectors, I've observed that successful innovation cultures share seven core elements - what I call the Seven I's of Innovation. Each represent a crucial aspect of creating an environment where new ideas don't just emerge, but thrive and translate into meaningful change.

I spoke about these for the first time in Bucharest at AIDucation25 and I’m in the throes of turning this into another book (what am I doing?!). At this conference, there were lots of amazing workshops, presentations, stands and conversations about innovative use of AI. People brilliantly talked about strategy and big picture thinking. Workshop leaders pulled principles into practice with awesome tools and policies. My keynote, which was right in the middle of the day, focused on cultural values and norms that could (or maybe should) be in place if we are to make any innovation possible and stickable. 

Introspection: The Courage to Look Deeper

I want to return to that moment with Rafiki and Simba - I do on a pretty regular basis anyway. What makes it powerful isn't just the mystical appearance of Mufasa in the water. It's Rafiki's insistence that Simba look harder, look beyond the surface. The wise mandrill (he’s not a baboon!) doesn't immediately tell Simba what he'll see - he creates the conditions for discovery. This is exactly what genuine introspection requires: the courage to look without knowing what we'll find.

In innovation terms, this represents our willingness to really examine our assumptions, our processes, our beliefs about what's possible. It's about creating space for uncomfortable truths to emerge. When was the last time your organisation truly looked at itself in the mirror? Not the polished version presented in annual reports or investor meetings, but the real reflection, complete with blemishes and blind spots?

This kind of organisational introspection isn't comfortable. It requires admitting that our current ways of working might not be the best ways. It demands that we acknowledge our blind spots and biases. It means asking difficult questions: Why do we do things this way? What assumptions are we making? What are we afraid to change? The discomfort this creates isn't just normal - it's necessary.

Martin Heidegger's concept of "unconcealment" (or "aletheia" in Greek) offers a powerful framework for understanding this process. He argued that truth isn't something we construct or invent, but rather something we allow to reveal itself by removing the barriers that keep it hidden. In organisational terms, this means that innovation often starts not with creating something new, but with uncovering what's already there - the opportunities, insights, and possibilities that our everyday assumptions and habits have obscured.

Very often, breakthrough innovations come not from adding complexity, but from stripping it away - from seeing what was always there but hidden by our preconceptions. When James Dyson observed that industrial sawmills used cyclonic separation to remove dust from the air, he wasn't inventing something new. He was seeing something that was always there but hidden from view in the context of vacuum cleaners. This is unconcealment in action - the ability to see beyond our established patterns of thinking to reveal new possibilities.

Intent: The Power of Purpose

Innovation without purpose is just novelty - a shiny distraction that ultimately leads nowhere. Our second 'I' - Intent - addresses the fundamental question that drives all meaningful change: Why? Not just why we want to innovate, but why we exist as an organisation, why what we do matters, and why change is necessary.

Viktor Frankl, the psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor who I seem to refer to in almost all of my articles, observed that humans are fundamentally meaning-seeking creatures. "Those who have a 'why' to live," he wrote, "can bear with almost any 'how'." His insight, born from unimaginable circumstances, applies powerfully to innovation culture. Teams driven by clear, meaningful intent innovate differently from those simply chasing the next new thing. Their innovations tend to be more focused, more resilient, and more likely to overcome the inevitable obstacles that arise.

“Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it.” Viktor Frankl

But here's where many organisations go wrong: they mistake targets for purpose. "Increasing market share by 20%" isn't a purpose - it's a metric. True intent runs deeper. It's Wikipedia's commitment to make knowledge freely available to everyone. These purposes create what Simon Sinek and James Carse call the "infinite game" - where the goal isn't to win, but to keep playing, to keep pushing boundaries, to keep making progress. Someone said to me recently that many organisations tend to value what they measure instead of measuring what they value. That hit. 

The philosophical concept of "telos" - the end toward which all things strive - offers a useful lens here. Aristotle argued that understanding something's telos was crucial to understanding its nature. In innovation terms, understanding your organisation's true purpose - its telos - is essential to directing innovation efforts effectively. Without clear intent, innovation becomes a series of random experiments rather than a coherent journey toward meaningful change.

This kind of purpose-driven innovation requires courage. It means being willing to say no to opportunities that don't align with your core intent, even when they're profitable or prestigious. It means making long-term investments in capabilities and relationships that might not show immediate returns. Most importantly, it means being clear about what you won't do, as much as what you will.

What's your organisation's true intent (or yours as an individual)? Not the mission statement hanging in reception, but the real reason we go to work each day? The answer to this question shapes everything that follows in building an innovation culture.

Inquisitiveness: The Engine of Innovation

'Ignorance killed the cat; curiosity was framed', wrote C.J. Cherryh. This third 'I' - Inquisitiveness - challenges the age-old warning against asking too many questions. In fact, it suggests that not asking questions is the real danger. The familiar saying about curiosity killing cats has long been used to discourage those who ask too many questions, who probe too deeply, who challenge the status quo. But Cherryh's twist reveals a deeper truth: it's our failure to question, to explore, to wonder that truly limits us.

This principle isn't about casual interest or surface-level questioning. It's about cultivating a deep, persistent curiosity that drives genuine innovation. Think about children and their endless 'why' questions (I say ‘children’ but…) They haven't yet learned to accept 'because that's how we've always done it' or ‘because I said so’ as an answer. This natural inquisitiveness, before it's trained out of us, represents the purest form of innovative thinking.

In innovation terms, this translates to a belief that there's always more to learn, more to discover, more to question. It's about maintaining what Zen Buddhists call 'beginner's mind' - approaching each situation as if seeing it for the first time, free from preconceptions.

But cultivating organisational inquisitiveness requires more than just encouraging questions. It needs psychological safety - the confidence that asking 'stupid' questions or challenging established wisdom won't lead to ridicule or repercussions. It needs time and space for exploration. Most importantly, it needs leaders who model curiosity themselves, who demonstrate that not knowing something is the beginning of discovery, not a sign of weakness.

The real innovation killers aren't failed experiments or wrong answers - they're unasked questions. When we fear looking foolish more than we desire understanding, when we prefer comfortable assumptions to uncomfortable truths, we close ourselves off from the very insights that could transform our organisations.

Interdependence: The Power of 'We'

Many of you know that I had the privilege in 2018 of going to the Google Innovator Academy in Copenhagen to work on an educational challenge I wanted to solve. The premise of the programme (and much of Google’s own innovation) comes down to three simple words - 'How might we?' This phrase, now adopted by design thinkers worldwide, encapsulates our fourth 'I' - Interdependence. Each word carries crucial weight: 'How' suggests solutions exist - it’s practical - whilst 'might' indicates possibilities rather than certainties - it’s potential -, and 'we' acknowledges that innovation is inherently collaborative - it’s plural.

This principle goes beyond simple teamwork. Systems theorist Peter Senge argued that the organisations that excel are those that understand their interconnectedness - both internally and with their broader ecosystem. Real innovation rarely happens in isolation. It emerges from the collision of ideas, the fusion of different perspectives, the unexpected connections between seemingly unrelated concepts.

“Collaboration is vital to sustain what we call profound or really deep change, because without it, organisations are just overwhelmed by the forces of the status quo.” Peter Senge

The myth of the lone genius inventor has done innovation culture a disservice. One person I talked about in The Ideas Guy epitomises many of these cultural values, including interdependence. Sir Tim Berners-Lee is credited with the development of the World Wide Web at CERN. Whilst often seen as the inventor, Berners-Lee himself emphasises that the Web emerged from a culture of collaboration and shared purpose. Today's challenges are too complex for solo heroics. They require diverse teams, cross-functional collaboration, and often partnerships across organisational boundaries.

“The original idea of the web was that it should be a collaborative space where you can communicate through sharing information.” Sir Tim Berners-Lee

Creating genuine interdependence means breaking down silos, fostering psychological safety, and building what Amy Edmondson calls 'teaming' - the ability to work together effectively even when team composition is fluid. It means valuing different perspectives not just as a nice-to-have, but as essential to innovation success.

Innovation isn't just about what we create together - it's about how we create together. The process of collaboration itself often yields insights that no individual could have reached alone. This is what makes the 'we' in 'How might we' so powerful: it reminds us that innovation's greatest breakthroughs often come not from individual brilliance, but from collective wisdom.

Insatiability: Never Settling for 'Good Enough'

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle.” Steve Jobs

Jobs' 2005 Stanford commencement address captured the fifth 'I' - Insatiability - perfectly. It's not about being perpetually dissatisfied; it's about maintaining a healthy restlessness, a constant drive to improve.

Jobs wasn't advocating for workaholism or endless striving without purpose (although he would probably be accused of the former). Rather, he was describing a mindset that sees 'good enough' as a stepping stone, not a destination. It's the same spirit that drove James Dyson through 5,126 failed prototypes before creating his breakthrough vacuum cleaner. This kind of insatiability isn't about perfectionism - it's about progression.

The key is balancing this drive for improvement with sustainability. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's concept of 'flow' (which I have again talked of often) offers valuable insight here. Flow occurs when we're stretched just enough to grow without being overwhelmed. In innovation terms, this means creating cultures that push boundaries whilst maintaining psychological safety and wellbeing.

But insatiability needs direction. Without clear intent, it can lead to burnout or scattered efforts. It's not about changing things for change's sake - it's about persistent, purposeful improvement. As Jobs emphasised, it's about doing work that matters, work that moves us forward, work that makes a dent in the universe.

The challenge for organisations is creating environments where this healthy restlessness can thrive without tipping into toxic pressure. It means celebrating progress whilst acknowledging there's always room for improvement. It means understanding that 'Don't settle' isn't a stick to beat people with - it's an invitation to grow.

Iteration: Better Than Yesterday

The slogan on my new t-shirt says it all: 'Better Than Yesterday'. This sixth 'I' - Iteration - embodies a fundamental truth about innovation: it's rarely about dramatic breakthroughs. More often, it's about consistent, incremental improvements that compound over time. It's about making each version better than the last, learning from what works and what doesn't.

This principle finds its theoretical foundation in the Japanese concept of 'kaizen' - continuous improvement. But where kaizen is often associated with manufacturing processes, iteration in innovation culture applies more broadly. It's about creating rapid feedback loops, testing assumptions quickly, and being willing to adapt based on what we learn. The key is making these cycles of improvement deliberate and systematic rather than random and reactive.

Software development gave us the concept of the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) - the simplest version of an idea that can be tested with real users. But the MVP isn't the end goal; it's the starting point. Each iteration builds on what we learn from the last, creating a cycle of continuous improvement. As Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn's founder, famously said, 

“If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late.” Reid Hoffman

The beauty of iteration lies in its permission to be imperfect. It acknowledges that our first attempts at anything new will likely be flawed, and that's okay. What matters is our commitment to learning and improving. Each iteration is an experiment, an opportunity to learn, a step toward something better.

This approach transforms how we think about failure. When we're committed to iteration, there's no such thing as failure - only feedback. Every 'failed' attempt provides data that informs the next iteration. It's not about getting it right the first time; it's about getting better every time. It reminds me of that loop that Steven Bartlett often uses:

Feedback = Failure = Knowledge = Power

Ideation: Quantity Breeds Quality

“The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.” Linus Pauling

Nobel laureate Linus Pauling once declared that we need to have lots of ideas. Our final 'I' - Ideation - builds on this powerful insight. Pauling wasn't just a talented chemist; he understood something fundamental about creative thinking. Quality emerges from quantity. The more ideas we generate, the more likely we are to find truly innovative solutions.

It’s worth having a brief look at Pauling's own journey. His work on chemical bonds, which eventually won him the Nobel Prize, emerged from exploring multiple theories and approaches. But more importantly, his 'lots of ideas' weren't random shots in the dark. They were educated guesses, each building on previous knowledge and insight, each contributing to his understanding even when they proved incorrect.

But here's the crucial bit: generating lots of ideas isn't about mindless brainstorming (or thought-showering or insight overloads or whatever other term you find acceptable). It's about creating the conditions where quality can emerge from quantity. It's about understanding that our first ideas are rarely our best ideas - they're often the obvious ones, the safe ones, the ones others have already tried. The magic happens when we push past these initial thoughts into unexplored territory.

Psychology research backs this up. Studies show that our early ideas tend to be the most conventional, drawn from readily available examples and experiences. It's only when we exhaust these obvious solutions that we begin to access more original thinking. This is why techniques like 'forced connections' or 'random word association' can be so effective - they push us beyond our usual thought patterns.

The challenge for organisations is creating environments where this kind of prolific ideation can flourish. It requires psychological safety - people need to feel they can share 'wild' ideas without ridicule. It needs time and space - quality ideas rarely emerge under pressure to produce immediate solutions. Most importantly, it needs leaders who understand that not every idea will be a winner, and that's exactly the point.

Building a culture of innovation isn't about following a recipe or implementing a set of procedures. It's about creating the conditions where these seven principles - Introspection, Intent, Inquisitiveness, Interdependence, Insatiability, Iteration, and Ideation - can flourish together.

Like Rafiki showing Simba his reflection, we must first look deeper at ourselves and our organisations. We need clear intent to guide us, curiosity to drive us forward, and the wisdom to know we can't do it alone. We must maintain that healthy restlessness that Steve Jobs spoke about, whilst embracing the power of continuous improvement. And through it all, we must keep generating ideas, knowing that quantity often seeds quality.

But perhaps most importantly, we must remember that innovation isn't something that happens despite people - it happens because of them. It emerges from the complex interplay of human creativity, courage, and collaboration.

Key Takeaways

1. Challenge Your Origin Story. Examine not just where your organisation is, but how your past assumptions might be limiting your future. Sometimes what you think is your strength is actually your constraint.
2. Make Discomfort Deliberate. Create structured tension in your systems. Comfort is the enemy of progress - but random stress isn't the answer. Design your disruption.
3. Master Productive Dissatisfaction. Learn to distinguish between the restlessness that drives improvement and the perfectionism that paralyses it. Not all dissatisfaction leads to innovation.
4. Weaponise Naivety. Sometimes expertise is a liability. Fresh eyes see solutions that experience has learned to ignore. Build systems that preserve and protect 'beginner's mind'.
5. Engineer Serendipity. Innovation happens at intersections. Create deliberate collisions between ideas, people, and problems that wouldn't naturally meet.
6. Cultivate Constructive Conflict. Agreement is overrated. The most innovative cultures aren't harmonious - they're respectfully discordant. Build the capacity to disagree productively.

The future belongs to organisations and individuals that can cultivate these principles effectively. In a world of constant change, it's not the strongest that survive, but those most responsive to change. Building a culture of innovation isn't just about staying competitive - it's about staying relevant, staying curious, and staying human.