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Tips for experimental innovators
If you’re an experimental innovator -- a seeker -- you need time and patience, because staying put is necessary to achieve mastery of your field, complete with the sophisticated skills that maturity can bring.
Youth is a time for patience as you lay the groundwork for later accomplishments.
Mid-career is a time for building  on the foundation you’ve created and reaching toward innovative new forms of mastery. A mid-life shift could undercut your achievements and force you start over from scratch.
Beware of advice that’s relevant to conceptual innovators but not to you. For example, one frequent bit of advice for would-be innovators is to strike a balance between self-discipline and “letting go.” That might be of no use to innovators who succeed through persistence rather than by spontaneity. Another frequent suggestion is to pursue innovation by making connections between disparate ideas, including “thinking outside the box.” That probably isn’t fruitful advice for people whose innovations grow gradually out of a deepening mastery of their craft rather than through new ideas.
This excerpt from the “Arts of Innovation” blog demonstrates what can happen when experimental innovators make bad choices in mid-life. The examples are Renoir and Pissarro:
Galenson is now addressing the question of why some experimental innovators peak in their 40s while others keep going strong to the end of their lives.
“Understanding why some experimental artists remain creative longer than others may … help us to increase the productivity not only of artists, but of innovators in all intellectual activities,” he writes.
In a draft paper, titled “Wisdom and Creativity in Old Age,” he contrasts Renoir and Pissarro, whose best works came before age 50, with Cezanne and Monet, whose gradual experimental approach resulted in the creation of revolutionary works in the final decade of their lives. Monet’s water lily paintings, for example.
In a nutshell, Galenson’s finding so far is that Renoir and Pissarro were experimental innovators who failed in later life because they tried to take a conceptual approach, adopting radically new styles and techniques, while Cezanne and Monet were experimental innovators who kept plodding along.
Put another way, Renoir and Pissarro gave in to the temptations of a mid-life crisis, which is a good idea for conceptual innovators but a bad move for experimental innovators.
See also:
Why it matters
Tips for conceptual innovators
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