What are Innovation Styles?

We are all unique individuals. Each one of us has different ways of expressing our talents, knowledge, values and interests. We all have an enormous capacity to be creative and innovative, but we express this potential differently. We approach innovation and change with our own unique blend of four Innovation Styles.

Modifying

Visioning

Experimenting

Each Innovation Style is a fundamentally different approach for driving the entire process of innovation and change: taking on a challenge, reaching breakthroughs, implementing them and making a real contribution through your work. This is a much broader concept than the creative thinking styles that teach "left-brain" and "right-brain" ways of thinking.

Even though you may have a preference for one Innovation Style, you have the seeds for all four styles as part of your makeup. Each Innovation Style is like a language, and while you may most easily express yourself in one or two, you can learn to use all four.

Your own score for the profile reflects your preference for generating ideas, bringing about innovation, and managing change in your life in the absence of a predefined structure. The profile measures how you like to be innovative rather than how innovative you are.

Knowing the Styles helps you to...

1. Generate a more comprehensive as well as creative set of ideas;
2. Depersonalize interpersonal conflict and build more synergistic work teams with diverse people;
3. Present your creative ideas and innovations more effectively;
4. Lead better creativity sessions;
5. Implement changes more effectively;

Regarding Intuition and Analysis

People who use the Modifying and Experimenting Styles most prefer to gather facts first then use their intuition to make sense out of the data. People who prefer the Visioning and Exploring Styles tend to use their intuition to develop hypotheses first and then gather facts to support those insights.

Background

This assessment tool was originally developed by William C. Miller. Miller was a senior consultant at SRI International, has taught at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, and is the author of two important books in the field of innovation, The Creative Edge: Fostering Innovation Where You Work (1987) and Flash of Brilliance: Inspiring Creativity Where You Work (1999).

A full validation study of the Innovation Styles is available upon request.

 Take the profile now! 

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