What's your innovation mastery level? | Bangkok Post: business

CREATIVITY UN-LTD

People like to know how they rank _ think of handicaps in golf, the coloured belts in karate, and degrees in education. When Apple's Steve Jobs passed away, it made me think about levels of mastery in innovation, distinguished by different levels of knowledge, experience and achievement. The Innovation Mastery Pyramid is a classification system for innovators. As you move up the pyramid, the breadth and depth of knowledge, experience and achievement in innovation increases, while the number of your peers decreases.

Bozos The basement of the innovation mastery pyramid comprises those who do not value creativity and innovation, despite the evident benefits. We use Steve Jobs' term for non-performers to label those who dismiss innovation _ because of unawareness, inability, or stubborn ignorance _ as innovation "bozos".

Dreamers Innovation dreamers are a step above the bozos. Innovation is commonly defined as ideas plus action or implementation. Dreamers create ideas, but fail to do anything about them, whether out of laziness or complacency, fear of ridicule, or being too busy.