Creativity and innovation is not only my profession, but also my passion. In particular, I love thinking about new and better ways for people to systematically and reliably produce better ideas and innovation results. Unfortunately, my quest to create more effective innovation methods and thinking tools made me realize a related dilemma: What if someone used my innovation know-how to work for what I call “the dark side of innovation”?

What is the dark side of innovation?

Most things can be used for good and for bad purposes. Think of a knife. We use it to cut food, and some people use it to stab someone else to death. Or think of a medical drug: We use it to cure a disease, and some use it to kill themselves by taking an overdose.

Likewise, every effective innovation method is a “neutral agent”: People can use it to create good and evil ideas and results. What do you get when you enter a good, worthy innovation case into such a “thinking machine”? Meaningful ideas that improve people’s lives and make the world a better place. But what if people with ill intentions input a dark, evil innovation case into a potent innovation method? They may be able to produce “dark ideas” that worsen people’s lives and deteriorate affairs in the world; that’s the “dark side of innovation”. And of course, I don’t want to support “the dark side of the force” with any of my innovation methods; that’s the dilemma. So how to avoid the dangers of having effective innovation methods being abused for pursuing an evil agenda?

An antidote to prevail over the dark side

This month, I have begun writing on my second innovation book that will be titled “X-IDEA: The Structured Magic of Playful Innovation.” X-IDEA is an innovation process method and related toolbox that I created for my innovation company Thinkergy. The method can reliably guide innovation teams and individuals through an innovation project case toward meaningful ideas and results. While writing on the book, I realized that there is one powerful ingredient that —thank God— the dark side of innovation is missing and cannot acquire. Let me explain.

While working on an innovation case, X-IDEA invites you to adopt one archetypical role or conducive mindset in each of its five stages. Each role requires you to adopt a unique style of thinking that is needed in a particular stage. The five mindsets differ greatly from each other, however, they have one common ingredient: Courage. Without courage, regardless how hard you work on an innovation case in each stage, your results will be suboptimal:

• In the Xploration stage, you must step into the role of an Xplorer. Have the courage to travel into the unknown and look for new evidence that may disconfirm your cherished views, and to confront inconvenient truths that make you realize that your real challenge is typically something very different from what you first thought.
• In the Ideation stage, become a Child, who has the courage to suggest really bold ideas and wild ideas that are often the starting point of truly meaningful idea concepts.
• In the Development stage, be an Alchemist. Have the courage to practice a heuristic, experimental work style — and trust your gut or intuition about how to best connect the dots to end up with meaningful idea concepts.
• In the Evaluation stage, adopt the mindset of a Judge. Have the courage to speak up for an idea that you believe in, even if this goes against the preferences of dominant team members or impairs the harmony of the group.
• Finally in the Action stage, become a Champion who has the courage to “go through the pain period” and overcome all the obstacles and hardships associated with turning an idea into a tangible innovation output.

If you want to become a creative leader, courage is your starting point, too. You must learn to overcome your doubts, worries and fears to realize your creative potential. Your courage gives you the impetus to suggest ideas and act, and it is powered by empowering beliefs in your abilities and the worthiness of your cause.

What makes courage flourish?

Organizational environments that cultivate courage are libertarian cultures that are built on respect, trust, freedom, freedom of expression, freedom to be yourself, diversity, and passion for working on a joint worthy cause. You can find all or most of these cultural factors at work at companies that are widely known as innovation leaders. In contrast, courage typically doesn’t show in authoritarian environments characterized by power distance, politics, distrust, control, uniformity and sameness, (self-) censorship, and extrinsic motivation using a carrot and stick-approach.

Of course, these factors do not only matter on an organizational level, but also for countries. What do countries that are high up on global innovation rankings (such as the Scandinavian countries, the US, the UK, and Germany, among others) have in common? They are libertarian democracies that encourage their citizens to courageously think and act and freely express their individuality and opinions.

So what?

Imagine you were part of an innovation team working on an evil innovation project in an authoritarian organization or a dictatorial environment that is ruled by tight control, intimidation and fear. Ask yourself: Would you have the courage to mention an inconvenient truth that no-one wants to hear? Would you have the courage to suggest really bold ideas, wild ideas — or rather prefer to play it safe? Would you have the courage to experiment and tinker and use your gut to design idea concepts — or would you rather prefer to follow a “logical, scientific” approach to be able to justify your ideas? Would you be willing to speak up for an idea you believe in — or would you rather prefer to side with authority or the group majority? Would you be willing to endure weeks or months or years of hard work and be creative enough to come up with solutions to hurdle the obstacles that other people in the system put in your way? Would you risk your career, your personal freedom, or even your life for bringing out the best possible solution in this innovation project?

Conclusion: Let’s admit it. Innovation methods can be used to create meaningful innovations as they can be abused to create dark ideas that make the world a worse place. But even if a good, effective innovation method ended up in bad hands, there is hope: The henchmen working for “the dark side of the force” are unlikely to come up with ideas that do too much damage. Why? Courage doesn’t blossom in dark environments ruled by control, intimidation and fear. Fortunately, to deliver truly outstanding ideas and innovations with an effective innovation method, we still need brave people with courage to think and act freely and hearts to work on something they love and believe in.

© Dr. Detlef Reis 2015. This article was published in parallel in the Bangkok Post under the title “Don't be afraid of the dark side of innovation if you want to succeed” on 3 September 2015.