Think Bigger: How to Innovate

Sheena Iyengar

3 ideas

  1. Choose-Decompose-Compare-Combine Innovation Method

    Innovation follows a repeatable six-step process: define the problem, break it into sub-problems, identify your target audience and their wants, search for existing solutions inside and outside your domain, combine those borrowed pieces into novel arrangements, and test the resulting mental map against others' perceptions. The creative leap is not invention from nothing but the deliberate recombination of solutions that already exist elsewhere.

  2. Big Ideas Come From Recombining Old Ones

    No idea is genuinely new; every breakthrough is a fresh combination of pre-existing elements pulled from different contexts. Innovation is therefore a matter of widening the pool of source material you draw from and improving how you connect distant pieces, not waiting for original inspiration.

  3. Borrowing Solutions From Distant Domains

    The most powerful innovations come from importing a working solution from a field unrelated to your problem, because nearby domains have usually already been mined by competitors. Deliberately scanning far-away industries, disciplines, and contexts for analogous mechanisms expands the range of combinations available to you.

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