Awesome article from Tim Brown, the CEO of IDEO, on how companies can truly innovate…and why innovation is the lifeblood to your company’s success.

My Favorite Part

The biggest barrier (to innovation) is needing to know the answer before you get started. This often manifests itself as a desire to have proof that your idea is worthwhile before you actually start the project: “show me the business proof that this is going to be a good idea.” You can understand this, of course, because it’s an attempt to mitigate risk. But wanting to know whether you’ve got the right idea—or the assumption that you’ve got to have a business case—before beginning to explore something kills a lot of innovation.

In other words, stop trying to measure the idea, while it’s still being baked…have a little bit of trust in the people you’ve hired or are working with.