Developing Personal Innovativeness

The goal of Mindset Trek is to develop and strengthen students’ innovativeness, or their ability to create new value. Value for themselves as innovators and entrepreneurs; for their employers; for their communities; for all of us. This happens in two ways. 1) Students gain an understanding of how innovation works, the fundamental similarities shared by all types of innovation. These principles apply regardless of the specific context, challenge, or opportunity. And 2) Mindset Trek explains the cognitive capabilities and behaviors that innovation requires, and how to develop them.

Who is Mindset Trek for?

Mindset Trek is for anyone who wants to make the world better. It is appropriate for strengthening the innovativeness of entrepreneurs, engineers and scientists, as well as those involved in new product development, research & development and social change—anywhere the goal is to create new value. It is relevant to students in any discipline who want to strengthen their capacity to create, adapt, be resourceful, make astute observations, identify and pursue new opportunities, learn from experience, gain insight and make discoveries.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of Mindset Trek elearning, students will

• Understand the nature of mindset, and why it’s such a powerful influence on their ability to innovate successfully and create new value, including launching new ventures
• Have a clear sense of their own mindset, how it may support or hinder their ability to innovate, and what shifts they can make to enhance their innovativeness
• Understand how innovation works and be able the recognize and apply the Innovation Cycle to any innovation challenge or venture
• Gain a deeper understanding of how and why innovation tools like design thinking and lean startup work, and how to use them most effectively
• Be able to recognize the Status Quo Cycle and understand how it undermines innovation
• Have a personal strategy for developing their innovativeness and the Habits of an Innovator

Pacing and Structure

Mindset Trek is can be delivered in multiple ways:

1. Self-paced learning: Each module or “Trail” typically takes 15-20 minutes to complete. They can be completed separately or grouped at whatever pace someone chooses.
2. Asynchronous learning: An instructor or coach is free to have students complete Mindset Trek at whatever pace fits best with the larger curriculum and objectives. Each student maintains an account that they can access at any time.
3. Blended learning: Optional instructor-led exercises can be delivered in a traditional classroom or online, to further illustrate key concepts, provide engaging student experiences, and link the material to other innovation-related content, tools and processes.

IM Assessment

Mindset Trek elearning incorporates the Innovator Mindset® assessment, to provide students with detailed personalized feedback on their current mindset and guidance on how to enhance it. They then have an opportunity to retake the assessment to gauge their progress in making appropriate shifts. Innovator Mindset® is based on rigorous psychometric research. It has been validated and applied with groups that include scientists, engineers, product developers, IT professionals, executives, entrepreneurs, and many other diverse roles and professions in a wide range of sectors, including for-profit, non-profit and government.

Shifting Mindset

Mindset is a term that gets used a lot, often without a clear definition. Innovator Mindset is based on the concept of mindset as developed and extensively researched by Stanford Educational Psychologist Carol Dweck. She defines mindset as our “implicit theories.” It is our theories about how the world works, but they are implicit because we so often hold them subconsciously. So, they are frequently unexamined. These hidden assumptions can profoundly impact how we understand things, what we value and how we behave.

Mindset Trek uses the Innovator Mindset® assessment to reveal students’ mindset to them. So those unconscious assumptions become conscious choices. This gives students control over their mindset and the ability to reshape it in whatever way they choose—a powerful strategy for personal development. That self-awareness, combined with an understanding of what mindset is optimal for innovation, is what enables students to shift to a more innovation-friendly mindset—and gain the capabilities of world class innovators.

Innovator Mindset vs. Entrepreneurial Mindset

While there is no one agreed definition of an entrepreneurial mindset, it is generally thought to include such things as a bias for action, a sense that one controls one’s own fate, openness to new ideas, a tendency to see problems as opportunities rather than obstacles; and a desire to lead change, seek out new opportunities, and create new value for themselves and others. While these characteristics are widely observed among entrepreneurs and make sense intuitively, they have not been found to be strongly predictive of new venture success. They don’t do a good job of distinguishing between those entrepreneurs who perform exceptionally well and those less effective.

An Innovator Mindset, as it is described and measured here, shares many if not all those characteristics. Furthermore, having a strong innovator mindset is associated with exception innovation performance—among entrepreneurs (35x profits, 70x revenues, 10x jobs created). It appears that it may be the “secret sauce” that enables exceptional entrepreneurial (and other innovation) outcomes. Innovativeness is treated here as the central capability that innovation and entrepreneurship require.

Exercises

The optional Innovator Mindset instructor-led exercises were originally intended for use in a live classroom, but many of them can be adapted for use online. They are designed to give students a relevant personal experience that is revealing and memorable, while reinforcing the elearning content.  Most exercises take no more than 10-15 minutes, so they can be used as engaging icebreakers or segues into related topics and innovation tools. The outline below provides specific suggested exercises for elearning segments. The exercise instructions also indicate where they best fit.

Complementing Innovation Tools

Innovator mindset is based on the premise that there is a common pattern to all forms of innovation, whether that occurs in nature, the sciences, technological development, new busines ventures or positive social change—anywhere new value is created. This pattern or Innovation Cycle is the core dynamic that drives innovation tools like design thinking, lean startup and creative problem solving, among others. As students learn to recognize and apply this Innovation Cycle, they gain a more robust understanding of how these tools work, why they are effective, and how to apply them. They also learn how to select appropriate tools for specific innovation challenges.

When students are introduced to these broader innovation concepts, they can apply innovation tools more proficiently. Using those tools then becomes practice and reinforcement for the Habits of an Innovator, that drive the Innovation Cycle. Students also gain a broader understanding of innovation that can be transferred to other contexts, challenges and opportunities.

A learning sequence that integrates mindset and tools might be:

1. Learn about the Innovation Cycle and its Phases
2. Learn the key steps (or a specific task) in an innovation tool, like Lean Startup
3. Determine how those steps map onto the Innovation Cycle
4. Explore the important distinctions and Habits of an Innovator, for that Phase of the Innovation Cycle, as they relate to that task
5. Have students discuss how they will complete that task in a way that follows and supports the Innovation Cycle.
6. Upon completion of that task, have students explain how that has followed the Innovation Cycle, and propels them further around that cycle.

This sequence can be repeated for multiple innovation tools, noting how each of those tools applies in the corresponding Phases of the Innovation Cycle, and where alternative tools may be appropriate.

The exercise Tools of an Innovator maps many commonly used innovation strategies onto the Innovation Cycle. This exercise, or portions of it, can be used to transition between elearning content and those innovation tools.

Coaching and Mentoring

Innovator Mindset® provides an excellent framework for coaching entrepreneurs and other innovators. Mindset Trek makes that easier by explaining key concepts and delivering personal feedback asynchronously. Coaches and mentors are then free to focus on personal development strategies that apply that feedback to the unique innovation challenges and opportunities that someone may be facing.

Grading

Where grading is appropriate, it should be based on completion and mastery of the Mindset Trek content. The exercises and quizzes students are given are designed to confirm mastery of that material before they move on.

Instructors should not grade students based on their Innovator Mindset scores. Improving those scores is one goal of this program, and a measure of its effectiveness. But it’s important not to create perverse incentives. To become effective innovators, students need to be motivated to seek genuine feedback that is not always complimentary but that helps them improve. When they feel a need to achieve the highest score that they can, this is compromised.

Research

Innovator Mindset® collects data from Mindset Trek for research purposes, possible publication and to enhance this offering. This data is kept confidential and no personally identifiable information is made public without the permission of the subject(s) of that data. This is disclosed in the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy on the Innovator Mindset website. Everyone who takes the Innovator Mindset assessment or Mindset Trek is prompted to read and consent to these policies.

Badges

Students who complete Mindset Trek are awarded a badge documenting that accomplishment, that they can add to their portfolio to share with employers, investors or others who may be interested.

Accessibility

Innovator Mindset is committed to providing equitable access to learning opportunities for all students. Mindset Trek has been designed and created with accessibility in mind. All videos are open or closed captioned, and other content is intended to be screen-reader friendly. We hope to soon have non-mouse (keyboard) navigation available throughout.

If any student or instructor has concerns or suggestions regarding accessibility, please contact us at [email protected]. Where possible, we will make accommodations, and prioritize improved accessibility in future updates.

Please direct any questions, comments or suggestions regarding Mindset Trek to

[email protected]