A walk like a leopard, being brave as a lion, and be agile as a gazelle are few traits that help make one innovative. I am fascinated to explore ways on how to be a more effective innovator.

‘If you’re afraid’, depicts that you may be close to something really good. A saying from Italian novel The Leopard says: ‘If want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.

To process the failures and learning from it will help continue to learn from it with a vision. So, the change in a niche around the individual makes him or her more resilient to be innovative with the perceptions that find them best suited to innovation.

Walk like a leopard

A different perspective is a good thrust to become innovative. One’s existing patterns and habits have to be compromised for innovative thought. Novel and refreshing insights are the potential ingredients to be innovative. A fundamental question is: what are the needs of potential customers?

A leopard walks to challenge and face all the frictions shows the essential concepts to be learned from such a cunning and stealthy camouflaged hunter. Saying and not saying what to do, is the best way to get great insights to behave like a leopard sneaking up on its prey.

As loud as thunder; brave like a lion

A lot of aggression against acceptance of such great new ideas will be havoc in the normal life-fitting pattern. Mass killings would raise questions as to ‘Who would want this?’ There is no end to innovation. That’s when it really starts. It has to be like a mother-child protective relation as a lion defending its little cub and never feel outranked when others try to snub you. Instead, inspire them. Surprise them. Convince them. Be brave.

Gazell(e)ion agile ideas

Smart ideas from a flash of subconscious minds transform the ideas to the written invoices. Specifying, developing, prototyping, testing, altering, implementing and changing concepts reflects the agility and robustness of a gazelle. In my experience from practice, innovation really is a balancing act. It’s all about the right balance between:

• Today and tomorrow’s businesses
• Reality and creativity
• What is outside the box and what is inside the box
• Quantum thinking and feasibility
• Customer’s and company’s interests;
• Breaking rules and feasibility to existing patterns
• Risks and rewards

When you manage to walk as a leopard, be brave as a lion and be agile as a gazelle, you will deal with all those challenges in a better way. What one should take out of this is remember beautiful Mahatma Gandhi’s words saying ‘Be the change you wish to see in the world’. 

If I can’t fix it at first, I will keep working at it to find a way to do it and this usually pays off. I wish a lot of innovation success to the young, aspiring and energetic minds of tomorrow and wish them to be the luckiest and most successful founders, unscathed.