The DNA of Disruptive Innovators:The Five Discovery Skills That Enable Innovative Leaders to “Think Different”

How do you become an innovator? Fortunately, innovators are not born-they're made. In this chapter, authors Jeff Dyer and Hal Gregersen team up with Clayton Christensen, author of the bestselling "The Innovator's Dilemma," to explore the common traits shared by all innovators and demonstrate that these are learned behaviors, not cognitive capabilities. They reveal that today's top thinkers-such as Apple's Steve Jobs-achieve success by actively engaging with the world around them and pursuing exciting and different opportunities to accomplish something unique. In fact, there are five discovery skills that disruptive innovators must acquire: associating, questioning, observing, networking, and experimenting. While many business leaders tend to focus on honing their delivery skills, entrepreneurs and innovators must instead build the courage to start taking risks and cultivating their talent for discovery. The chapter concludes with a self-assessment that will help you evaluate your own discovery-delivery skills profile. This chapter was originally published as Chapter 1 of "The Innovator's DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators."