When I came to the Silicon Valley in 2001, I was this over-confident PhD from Austria, having worked in Germany, and just not having an all too positive view on the knowledge of my US colleagues. I was dismissive, negative, and just not receptive of input.Honestly, what can they teach me?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Until one colleague just told me \u201cMario, you don\u2019t belong here.<\/em>\u201d Her sentence stung and as painful as it was, I am eternally grateful that she was so candid. Those words pushed me. I started to think of my role and my goals, and what my contribution to life and society is. I realized that much of how I thought about things had to do with language. And I am not talking about language in the sense of mother tongue or secondary language, but in the type of words that I chose to communicate with others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This was nothing new to me, as I had learned about dialectics and speaking from Arthur Schopenhauer\u2019s pamphlet on winning arguments to Toastmasters with crafting and practicing speeches for every occasion. Language has a surprisingly huge influence on encouraging innovation and fostering creativity. Often one word can change everything and make or break your innovation efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Think of an innovation process that a Brazilian company had established. To promote an idea from one innovation stage to the next, experts were assigned as gate keepers<\/em> to validate the idea and give OK. Now just listen to the word \u201cgate keeper.\u201d How would you describe the role? I imagine a bouncer whose task is to keep ideas out. Just this innocuous word gate keeper lets a person in this role create an attitude against the idea and the person behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What is a better word? How about innovation scout<\/em>? This little change brings up other mental images. Images of a boy or girl scout, and they have to read the environment to survive and find their routes and paths through unknown territory. Instead of suggesting a passive, and rather reactive role as a gate keeper, your role as an idea scout turns into an active and even proactive role to find good ideas. That goes beyond just waiting at the gate, but roaming the wild to identify and encourage them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u2018Gate keeper\u2019 versus \u2018Idea Scout\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Yes, but\u2026\u2019 versus \u2018Yes, and\u2026\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n