Beyond ‘The Innovator's DNA’: Systematic Development of Creative Intelligence in an Engineering Entrepreneurship Program

摘要

In a seminal paper published in the Harvard Business Review in 2009 and titled ‘The Innovator's DNA,’ Dyer, Gregersen, and Christensen argue that there are ‘five discovery skills that distinguish the most innovative entrepreneurs from other executives.’ The specific skills they identified through their research were (1) associating, (2) questioning, (3) observing, (4) experimenting, and (5) networking. All of these, they argue, can be deliberately cultivated (as opposed to being innate). The broader category they use to describe the confluence of these skills is ‘creative intelligence, which enables discovery yet differs from other types of intelligence [because it] engage(s) both sides of the brain.’ Associating, which they define as ‘the ability to successfully connect seemingly unrelated questions, problems, or ideas from different fields,’ is the culminating skill. They liken associating to ‘a mental muscle that can grow stronger by using the other discovery skills. . . .The more diverse our experience and knowledge, the more connections the brain can make.’ The article is only seven pages long and is more suggestive than prescriptive.