At the gym recently, I was reading closed captioning for Maria Bartiromo’s CNBC show “The Business of Innovation.”
The conversation turned to small innovations – the idea that many (maybe most) innovation efforts wind up creating a string of “singles,” with few “home runs.” It was a great reminder from the show’s experts that there’s value in an ongoing innovation effort yielding a steady stream of modest, directionally correct improvements that add up over time.
While it’s probably unrealistic to think you can create one big innovation success after another, repeated small advances can ideally set you up for major breakthroughs!