8

INNOVATION

MAXMCKEOWN

An expert in strategy, leadership, innovation and how to create a better future. He works as a strategic
coach with Fortune 100 companies. He is best-selling author of The Strategy Book, The Innovation
Book and five other award-winning books, winner of the Commuter Read at the Chartered Management
Institute Book of the Year 2013. McKeown is also a popular keynote speaker at conferences worldwide.
Max has an MBA and PhD from Warwick Business School. He is a fellow of the RSA and member of
the British Psychological Society.

future MAKERS.TODAY

MaX McKeown

There is a lot of attention

paid to innovation economy now. Why?
natalia hatalska

I believe humans have always

had an innovation economy right from the
start. Being human is about ideas. Every other
creature on earth just does stuff. We think
about it and then we try to make our ideas
better. Then, we share our ideas, people copy
those ideas, and we live by our ideas. What
has altered perhaps now is that we are aware
that thats how we live, and instead of just
doing it, were trying to do innovation better.
We talk about innovation, look for it in other
people and strive to be innovative. It has become something that we care about and we
try to do deliberately.
max mckeown

nh

Is it infinite then?
mm Its infinite until the universe turns in on
itself, and we find out if theres anything else.
If youre religious, you might believe you carry
on, but most of us dont really know where its
going to go, because human progress is about
increments. Probably, our biology suggests that
we like to be safe sometimes, we like to be
excited and interested these other times, we
like to be loved. And these two or three things
will probably carry on, shaping the stuff were
interested in in the future.

Today, when we talk about innovation, we

think technology. But, innovation is not only
about technology, is it?
mm Its not. Its all new ideas made useful
its my definition. I would make a distinction nh In terms of innovation, what is more imporbetween insights, when you see something is tant: creativity or strategy?
possible, to an idea, where you think about
mm One of the things I talk about is the four
how you might solve it or improve it, to invenbrinks of innovation. This is really a fact how
tions, where you make your practical innovaour brain is organised. Theres the ability to be
tions finally useful. That could be anything. It
social, and all sorts of parts of our brain are encan be about jokes they can be innovative
gaged in that. There are the parts in our brain
or a way of being as a community. Marriage
that get to work, need to do things. Theres the
was an innovation, and now not getting marpart of our brain that worries about the future
ried is an innovation. These things go in cycles
and what its going to look like tomorrow, and
and waves, but its certainly not just technothen theres our creative brain, and it just likes
logy. Its services, lifestyle, culture, everything.
novelty and solving stuff. Each of these brain
parts rewards us with dopamine, making us feel
nh But isnt it like chasing the white rabbit? Were
better. Its about how these things all interact.
looking for the next big thing all the time, eveIt would be easy to just answer your question
rywhere.
and say, Its creativity or Its strategy. But it
mm Well, there isnt an end. Its always the beisnt. Its the way that all these things interact.
ginning. We dont know how it may or may
You can have the best strategy in the world
not end.
and completely fail, or you can have the worst
idea in the world and completely succeed. Its
nh

future MAKERS.TODAY

MaX McKeown

a mixture of circumstance and luck and your

ability to adapt between the two.

10

kind of personality that loves conformity so

much that if youre different to me, Ill try to
force you to be just like me. Theyre only happy
if were all the same. Theres another personality, completely different, that says I have to
be different, and you cant force me to be the
same. I think these two forces are ever-present
in life. But, if that creative maverick can succeed
in changing the way we do things, the conformist will do the new thing in just the same
conformist way as he used to do the old thing.

You said once that creativity doesnt depend

on the right people, but on the right conditions.
What did you mean by that? In companies, everybody expects people to be creative. If they are
creative, they can innovate. Maybe its not about
people then, but about companies themselves?
mm You can take the same people and put them
in a different country, in a different political
regime, or with a different boss, and they behave quite differently. So, you can hire people nh Diversity is crucial now. We cannot be the
from the same universities to do the same jobs same, because if we are all the same, we cannot
with the same chairs and tables. But, a tiny innovate anything.
difference in how you all act together
mm We dont even need lots of the same
makes a huge difference to what
people. We need difference for
ideas
you produce. In an idea-toxic
two reasons: one, because we
have to talk, they
environment, the boss or
are different, and all of us
have to have sex
your co-workers want to
have discovered that we
kill ideas, they want eve- with other ideas to create like being different. The inmore. Just like normal
rything to stay exactly the
ternet allows us to find
same as it is. People still try evolution. You need those people who share our differsets of chromosomes ence, and we realise were not
to be creative, but you kill
in order to create
the idea. Then, we have ideareally alone. So, theres that side
something else.
wasteful organisations that do
we psychologically need to be
like your idea but dont really know
different. Also, innovation works betwhat to do with it. Finally, there are ideater if you have lots of different ideas banging
hungry cultures, which are like, What is your
up against each other. You have opinions, I
idea? Share it with me, Im really interested, I
have opinions, we dont agree about everyread this thing in the paper this morning, What
thing, we need constructive conflict between
a cool joke Ive just heard, Look at this thing
you and me. Too often, people pretend to
on YouTube. Its just constantly interested in
agree and nothing new is ever created. You just
ideas. I think thats what I mean, to some exnod at what I say, I nod at what you say. I saw
tent, about environment that humans are
an interview earlier just like that with a man
interested and creative creatures.
not answering the questions and the woman
asking the questions not saying, Youre not
nh Not all of them.
answering my questions.
mm Some are less. I dont know if youve heard
of the F-test. Its a psychological test invented nh Lets talk about the start-up culture and startto study personality types. Theres a certain up environment. There is a lot of failures in there.
nh

future MAKERS.TODAY

MaX McKeown

What should they do to build on these failures?

I somehow try to link this with the concept of
nurturing ideas that you talked about. The main
innovation comes from young people and their
garages. Now, they have the possibility to share
it on the internet and get funding. Its much easier. At the same time, they fail really badly.
mm In some ways, they have to fail. Lots of
people are trying to do similar things, theres
competition between ideas. One kind of failure
is: I tried my idea and it didnt work. Another
kind of failure is: I tried my idea, it did work,
but it wasnt the most popular idea. And thats
not really a failure, thats just competition. I
suppose, a start-up chooses between ideas, it
chooses which thing to focus on, but it might be
wrong, so it should keep some of its resources
and enough mental flexibility to realise, Weve
just spent a year on this, but somebody else
has come up with a better idea. Lets take that
other idea, copy it and start again. I think the
way to avoid terminal or final failure is to be
willing simply to change when you realise that
somebodys done something better than you.
To be humble enough to say, OK, we copy
that, we start again. Theres a really famous
study by Harvard Business School, which analysed people with MBas who went on to start
businesses, and half of them failed and half of
them succeeded. But, 90% of those people who
failed thought their idea was perfect and they
put all their effort and focus onto one idea, one
bet. 90% of those who succeeded said, We
think this might be a good idea, but who knows.
Do we need to talk with other people while
thinking about new ideas? In Poland, our mentality is that if we have an idea, we dont want
to share it.
mm Just in case someone steals it?
nh

11

nh

Yes.
Innovation requires sharing, necessarily.
This is idea sex. Ideas have to talk, they have
to have sex with other ideas to create more.
Just like normal evolution. You need those sets
of chromosomes in order to create something
else. Mice are used in experiments because
they breed very quickly. Fruit flies are used
in experiments, because they have multiple
generations, so you can play. Its the same with
ideas. If you just have one idea, maybe the idea
is not so good, and then you release it into
the world and its not ready. If you have lots
of competition and movement between ideas,
you find that youve got the thing you need,
and your neighbour has another idea, and you
put them together and move them around. So,
fast collaboration is hugely important and its
happening in places. Thats what Silicon Valley
is. Its walking along the street, meeting a guy,
giving him your idea, him stealing your idea,
you stealing it back, and eventually it works.
mm

You like to say that thinkers and makers, if I

understand it correctly, are separate and they
need to be very, very close. However, I think that
sometimes thinkers and makers are the same
person.
mm That was what I meant by the makerthinker. The maker-thinker is somebody who
does both and they are hugely powerful. Thats
Zuckerberg and Facebook, because he can
think of an idea and a strategy and then make
it. He doesnt need anybodys help to do the
first prototype and get it to market. He then
generates his own resources to do everything
else. Google did it, Disney did it, they could
all do the dream. So, yes, people can do both.
I think everybody does both a bit, but if your
strength is making, you need to find someone whose strength is thinking, and if your
nh

future MAKERS.TODAY

MaX McKeown

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strength is thinking and strategy, you need to

find someone whos actually good at making
things and doing things. If you combine that,
youve created something. I talked about kickass partners. You need to find your partner,
your somebody whos not really like you, but
you understand each other.
Do you believe in what Chris Anderson said
that because of the Internet, 3D printing, etc.,
we can all become makers at the moment?
mm Well, historically, it seems unlikely. I think
that people will play with technology, like now,
weve all heard the stats about more mobile
phones than people. But, a lot of people have
no idea what their mobile phone is. They dont
understand them.
nh

They dont even know that they are smartphones.

mm They dont even know what the term means
and they dont know how it works. They might
use Google, because its simple. If it was any
harder, nobody would use it. All you have to do
is tap, type and click. Because its very simple,
lots of people do it. The challenge with making
is in the description Chris gives of his grandfather making things. We have some other
examples about grandfathers and fathers making things. That was a minority of people who
did it. I think, really, it will always be a minority
of people who do it.

I think as ever, theres a Bell curve of intelligence in the world, just as theres a Bell
curve of everything. Somebody can be very
intelligent but very lazy, and somebody can
be very dumb and very hardworking. Were
this three-dimensional Bell curve. No, I think
its unbelievable that were becoming more
stupid. My seven-year-old can do more things
right now than a seventy-year-old in a university could do two thousand years ago. He can
understand all these amazing things.
mm

nh

Do you think that we are getting dumber, because technology simplifies everything?
nh

nh

He has the knowledge they didnt have.

mm Yes. He has advantages and he has to cope
with it. We will see, theres an effect that is
shown in IQ levels. They have gone up every
year for the past fifty or so years. Some people think thats because the tests are wrong.
What it really means is that the overall level of
cultural intelligence, things we just have talked,
increases every year, and because we are highly adaptable creatures, we cope. I think were
becoming more intelligent all the time, but not
everybody is going to be a maker, because not
everyone even wants to make stuff.