The Innovation Genome is a way of thinking about and strategizing growth within yourself and your organization. It identifies four different methods of innovation—Create, Control, Collaborate, and Compete—each with their own pros and cons. Every person and every organization has a dominant logic that determines the way they see the world and approach innovation. The Innovation Genome helps you identify your dominant logic and understand your strengths and weaknesses. Each of the four quadrants represents a different dominant logic. The goal is to incorporate other modes of seeing into your own, to find people who fill in your blind spots and complement your own strengths and weaknesses. Individually, the four quadrants are wildly different approaches to innovation. It is important to make them work together and, as a whole, create an organic system of growth.
The key here is constructive conflict or positive tension. When dissimilar people come together, they may clash and disagree, but that conflict can become a good thing as people come up with new ideas they wouldn’t have thought of on their own.
