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Types of innovation: Why it matters
For many people, David Galenson’s discoveries bring a message of hope.
- Contrary to the widespread belief that only young people can make significant breakthroughs, he finds repeated instances of artists making their greatest contributions late in their careers. That’s encouraging for people of an experimental frame of mind who make slow step-by-step progress.
- For those with a conceptual bent, Galenson’s findings are also helpful, because they lead to a technique for breaking out of the stereotypical pattern of a career that peaks early and only goes down from there. The technique is to find a new field for innovation, where a fresh approach and fresh ideas can make a difference.
STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
If you’re a person who hopes to be innovative, you can achieve that goal more easily if you know which end of the scale you’re on, because that will tell you about your particular strengths and weaknesses as well as the type of obstacles you’re likely to encounter and some time-tested methods for overcoming them.
A conceptual innovator needs new challenges, fresh territories to explore, because staying put can be the same as getting stale.
An experimental innovator needs time and patience, because staying put is necessary to achieve the sophisticated skills of maturity.
MID-LIFE CHANGES.
The difference between the two types of innovator can be seen especially clearly in middle age, since a mid-life crisis has radically different implications for conceptual and experimental innovators.
For a conceptual innovator, a mid-life shift brings with it the potential for new breakthroughs in a new field.
For experimental innovators, mid-career is a time for building on the foundation they’ve created and preparing to reach toward new mastery. A mid-life shift could undercut the mastery they have developed and force them to start over from scratch.
DON’T GIVE UP, SEEKERS
In an essay co-written with Joshua Kotin, Galenson defends the importance of experimental innovators: “Our society prefers the simplicity and clarity of conceptual innovation. … Yet the conceptual Bill Gateses of the business world do not make the experimental Warren Buffetts less important. Recognizing important experimental work can be difficult; these contributions don’t always come all at once. Experimental innovators often begin inauspiciously, so it’s also dangerously easy to parlay judgments about early work into assumptions about entire careers.”
The essay’s greatest message is for potential late bloomers: “Don’t give up. There’s time to do game-changing work after 30. Great innovators bloom in their 30s (Jackson Pollock), 40s (Virginia Woolf), 50s (Fyodor Dostoevsky), 60s (Cezanne), 70s (Eastwood) and 80s (Bourgeois).”
See also:
Tips for experimental innovators
Tips for conceptual innovators
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