Tag Archives: Variation

Innovation Quotes of the Day – May 29, 2012


“If you get people to ‘freely’ talk about innovation, its importance, its impact and can ‘paint’ the future in broad brush strokes, they achieve a growing clarity and enthusiasm and that often missing critical component – a sense of shared identity.”

– Paul Hobcraft


“The United States leads the world in innovation because it has created the perfect storm of a risk tolerant citizenry, where failure is sometimes a badge of honor, and a government that invests in basic research, helps to commercialize it, and for the most part tends to go out of the way from a regulatory standpoint.”

– Braden Kelley


“Organizations love to run the aforementioned innovation processes through the middle of the enterprise which is designed to eliminate variation. Think about your metrics, hurdle rates and stage-gate systems and it becomes clear that these practices are designed to created stability through standards, policies and similar controls. Innovation moves from the outside of the bell curve, where risk and reward are reversed, and moves to middle over time.”

– Jeff DeGraff


What are some of your favorite innovation quotes?

Add one or more to the comments, listing the quote and who said it, and I’ll share the best of the submissions as future innovation quotes of the day!

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Innovation Quotes of the Day – May 28, 2012


“The more successful an organization becomes the bigger it gets. The bigger it gets the more it focuses on optimizing its resources. The more it optimizes it resources the more it eliminates variation. Innovation requires variation. We have seen the enemy and he is us.”

– Jeff DeGraff


“It is in identifying which of The Nine Innovation Roles are vacant (or sub-optimally filled) that you will be able to see some of the areas where your efforts are likely to come up short, and then can take actions to improve your chances of innovation success.”

– Braden Kelley


“It is not enough to simply go through the motions. In order to build our abilities, cognitive or otherwise, we must think about what we’re doing, concentrate while we’re doing it and then review what we have done. Further, we need to seek out mentors and peers who will critique our efforts.”

– Greg Satell


What are some of your favorite innovation quotes?

Add one or more to the comments, listing the quote and who said it, and I’ll share the best of the submissions as future innovation quotes of the day!

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Innovation Quotes of the Day – May 27, 2012


“So healthy paranoia is the friend of innovation. Complacency is the enemy – be ruthless in driving it out of your business.”

– Kevin McFarthing


“There are Nine Innovation Roles that need to be filled on every innovation project team, and filled well, for each individual innovation effort to be successful – and the skills necessary to be successful in each role should be cultivated in the organization.”

– Braden Kelley


“Variation, or hedging as it’s called in the venture capital community, is essential because it accelerates the failure cycle and quickens the discovery of the valuable solution. Innovation requires deviation; deviation requires deviants.”

– Jeff DeGraff


What are some of your favorite innovation quotes?

Add one or more to the comments, listing the quote and who said it, and I’ll share the best of the submissions as future innovation quotes of the day!

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.