The ability to perceive the world in new ways is one of the key attributes of successfully creative artists, scientists and entrepreneurs. Skills in perception give us the ability to see what others don’t see, find hidden patterns, and make connections between seemingly unrelated ideas, objects, or events, that lead to new conceptions, or solutions to problems.
Peter F. Drucker observed that perception and mood are key factors in finding innovative opportunities. One way to change your perceptions is to reframe the way you look at things.
“The glass is half full” and “The glass is half empty” are descriptions of the same phenomenon but have vastly different meanings. Changing a manager’s perception of a glass from half full to half empty opens up big innovation opportunities.
All factual evidence indicates, for instance, that in the last 20 years, Americans’ health has improved with unprecedented speed—whether measured by mortality rates for the newborn, survival rates for the very old, the incidence of cancers (other than lung cancer), cancer cure rates, or other factors. Even so, collective hypochondria grips the nation. Never before has there been so much concern with or fear about health. Suddenly, everything seems to cause cancer or degenerative heart disease or premature loss of memory. The glass is clearly half empty.
Rather than rejoicing in great improvements in health, Americans seem to be emphasizing how far away they still are from immortality. This view of things has created many opportunities for innovations: markets for new health care magazines, for exercise classes and jogging equipment, and for all kinds of health foods. The fastest growing new U.S. business in 1983 was a company that makes indoor exercise equipment.
A change in perception does not alter facts. It changes their meaning, though—and very quickly. It took less than two years for the computer to change from being perceived as a threat and as something only big businesses would use to something one buys for doing income tax. Economics do not necessarily dictate such a change; in fact, they may be irrelevant. What determines whether people see a glass as half full or half empty is mood rather than fact, and a change in mood often defies quantification. But it is not exotic. It is concrete. It can be defined. It can be tested. And it can be exploited for innovation opportunity.
(Source: “The Discipline of Innovation,” Harvard Business Review; Aug 2002)
Use your perceptual and conceptual skills to find the gap between customers’ expectations and current reality. Ask and listen to what they have to say. Find out about their values, expectations and needs to uncover ways to fill the void. These insights will help you create innovations that your customers actually want.
