People generally prefer to be thought of as brilliant rather than merely hard-working, but hard work is more important to innovation.
Since the late Clayton Christensen coined the phrase in 1995, there’s been an obsession with chasing “disruptive innovation,” but this phrase is misleading. Most innovation—including disruption—is a gradual, incremental process, not a eureka moment.
Moreover, most innovation isn’t the product of a brilliant, lone genius.
Innovation mostly happens over time, through hard work and collaboration that unleashes collective intelligence. Brilliance emerges through the innovation process.
Innovation is seldom glamorous as it’s taking shape, but it’s courageous, consistent, hard work that matters.
