I want my organization to innovate and influence broader culture with our products

CAVING -- Trusting the creative process to lead you towards profitable discoveries

The cool part about this tool is, while discovery takes longer, requires more uncertainty, and asks us to be more patient and vulnerable than we’re used to, the work that results is truer, better and bolder. Apple's approach to innovation derived from its founder's personal philosophy about discovery. Jobs famously said that customers don’t know what they want until you show it to them. He said he never relied on market research, and believed that his team's task was to read things that were not yet on the page. That's the discovery. Because the nature of innovation is, it's an unexplored cave. It's the thrill of the hunt. Every creative endeavor begins by announcing to yourself and your team, okay everyone, now we’re going to do something we’ve never done before. In short, you don't know what you're looking for until you find it. You don't know where you're going until you get there. Now, this might sound like a zen koan that a guru in a robe delivers to his students on mountaintop. It's frustrating as hell and can make your brain cramp. But it's exactly what innovating feels like. You have to trust the process to lead and teach you. What's more, you have to reassure all the people on your team, who may not even be able to conceptualize your idea in its nascent state, that it's still worth pursuing. It might not work, but it also might change everything. You never know until you start. Inception, the best film about innovation ever made, portrays a thief with the rare ability to enter people's dreams and steal their secrets from their subconscious.