The Innovator's Mindset

Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

George Couros

• Publisher: Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc.
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780986155482
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Éducation
• Subtopic: Administration de l'éducation

The traditional system of education requires students to hold their questions and compliantly stick to the scheduled curriculum. But our job as educators is to provide new and better opportunities for our students. It’s time to recognize that compliance doesn’t foster innovation, encourage critical thinking, or inspire creativity—and those are the skills our students need to succeed. In The Innovator’s Mindset, George Couros encourages teachers and administrators to empower their learners to wonder, to explore—and to become forward-thinking leaders.

PART I: INNOVATION IN EDUCATION

In the first part of this book, we will focus on defining innovation, looking at both what it is and what it isn’t. Building on the understanding of innovation and why it’s critical in education today, we will focus on the characteristics of the Innovator’s Mindset. Examples will be shared, not with the intent to dictate what schools and educators should do, but to provoke thought and inspire you to create your own innovative approach in your practice as an individual and for your organization. There is an opportunity and necessity to create something new and better for our learners, both students and educators. For this to happen, the word “innovation” must be more than a buzzword in education—we will have to know what it is, what defines it, and what it looks like in practice.

Chapter 1: What Innovation Is and Isn’t

Change almost never fails because it’s too early. It almost always fails because it’s too late.

—Seth Godin^[7]

In an effort to bring the past alive, a historic tour of a Blockbuster store offers visitors a glimpse into the hardships of people who lived in the era of video stores. In a revealing video, reporters from The Onion interview period actors who explain that people once traveled great distances (sometimes six miles each way!) to rent and return movies. These poor souls lived in terror of never knowing if the movie they wanted would even be available!^[8]

The Onion’s video, of course, is a satirical look at a company that tried to continue operating as if the Internet didn’t exist. It was only a few years ago that video rental stores like Blockbuster were the best way for people to watch movies in the comfort of their own home. In some places around the world, these stores still exist. But in the Western world, cheaper and more convenient options (no travel required) have put most neighborhood video stores out of business.

The Internet completely changed the movie rental industry. Companies that took advantage of new technology, like Netflix with its DVD-by-mail and online streaming options, are thriving. Meanwhile, companies, like Blockbuster, that refuse to let go of outdated business models experience a slow, painful death.

Blockbuster had the opportunity to buy Netflix a few times, but declined.^[9] And by the time it attempted to start its own DVD-by-mail program, the company had lost its place as an industry leader. The hard lesson that Blockbuster and its fellow neighborhood movie rental businesses failed to heed is this: innovate or die.

Savvy leaders understand the need for innovation and, as a result, constantly reinvent their organizations. Starbucks, for example, started off as a business that focused solely on selling coffee beans. Today, it is the best-known “coffee shop” in the world. Howard Schultz, the company’s chairman and CEO, saw an opportunity to create a place where people would spend time away from home and work. Since its early days as a coffee bean roaster, the company’s leaders have continually sought to improve the business—they find new ways to brew its coffees, including using high-tech machines that “control brew time and temperature digitally, using cloud technology to update recipes, track customer preferences and monitor coffee makers’ performance.”^[10] They expanded the product line and now serve coffees and teas in a variety of forms and flavors. Starbucks is also known for its dedication to improving the way it serves its employees by offering life-friendly work schedules^[11] and helping pay for employees to receive a university degree.^[12]

Whether or not you like Starbucks coffee, the company is an example of an organization that is committed to constant improvement and adaptation to meet consumer demands. For Starbucks, change is about more than coffee or even survival; it’s about success.

New Opportunities

Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow.

—William Pollard^[13]

A common saying in education circles is, “We need to prepare kids for jobs that don’t yet exist.” In 2011, with that goal in mind, my superintendent, Tim Monds, and I created a job title: Division Principal of Innovative Teaching and Learning. It was a position that didn’t exist in our district (or any other district we knew of at the time). We did not want to re-title an existing position and end up doing the same old things; we needed something new, something completely different. Tim and I, and other members of the district’s leadership team, knew that a gap existed between what we were doing and what we needed to do. We also knew that if we were going to bridge that gap and create the kind of innovative organization we dreamed of, we needed to think differently.

I took on this position knowing that it was a bit of a risk. The risk came from the fact that there were no specific job requirements, only the expectation to help the district move forward. We were “building the plane in the air,” and there was a chance I might crash and burn. Thankfully, my superintendent understood that the administration would have to take some risks, like devoting a person and funds to this task of innovative teaching and learning, if they wanted the rest of the leadership team to follow suit.

One of my first jobs in this position was to actually understand what innovation meant for our school district in the context of teaching and learning. We couldn’t have innovative teaching and learning without first defining what that meant and how it could look for our teachers and students. This is not to say there were not innovative educators in our school district before this position was created. In fact, I knew quite a number of educators both inside and outside of our school district who were (and are) extremely forward-thinking in their approach to teaching and learning. But that innovation happened in pockets, and we wanted innovative teaching and learning to become the cultural norm in our school district.

Have Schools Forgotten Their Why?

Sometimes it scares me to think that we have taken the most human profession, teaching, and have reduced it to simply letters and numbers. We place such an emphasis on these scores, because of political mandates and the way teachers and schools are evaluated today, that it seems we’ve forgotten why our profession exists: to change—improve—lives. But, as speaker and author Dr. Joe Martin says so well, “No teacher has ever had a former student return to say a standardized test changed his or her life.”

Shortly after I took on the position of Division Principal of Innovative Teaching and Learning, I watched a TED Talk by Simon Sinek, author of the best-selling book Start with Why. In his presentation, “How Great Leaders Inspire Action,”^[14] he explained that all great organizations start with their “why” and then move toward the what and the how.

I believe education’s why is to develop learners and leaders who will create a better present and future. When I use the term leaders, I’m not talking about bosses but people who have influence over and can make an impact on the world. Likewise, the term learner is not limited to students; educators must have the opportunity to develop both as learners and leaders. Anyone in any job or position—students, teachers, and administrators—can be a learner and a leader. But to develop these traits in our people, we must empower them; we must inspire innovation, rather than demand compliance.

My focus, and the why of this book, is developing schools that help individuals embrace the Innovator’s mindset. When forward-thinking schools encourage today’s learners to become creators and leaders, I believe they, in turn, will create a better world. That’s my why, and it’s the way, I believe, we must approach the what and the how of our work as educators.

Defining Innovation

Innovation is a common term in many educational circles today and has been used a number of times in this book already. But what does it actually mean—especially in the terms of education?

For the purpose of this book, I’m defining innovation as a way of thinking that creates something new and better. Innovation can come from either “invention” (something totally new) or “iteration” (a change of something that already exists), but if it does not meet the idea of “new and better,” it is not innovative. That means that change for the sake of change is never good enough. Neither is using innovation as a buzzword, as many organizations do, to appear current or relevant.

Note, too, that I said innovation is a way of thinking. It is a way of considering concepts, processes, and potential outcomes; it is not a thing, task, or even technology. As Carl Bass, CEO of Autodesk, explains in his TEDx talk “The New Rules of Innovation,” “Innovation is the process by which we change the world…. It’s the practical application of ideas and technologies to make new and better things.”^[15] So although many organizations approach innovation as if the word is synonymous with technology, it isn’t. Technology can be crucial in the development of innovative organizations, but innovation is less about tools like computers, tablets, social media, and the Internet, and more about how we use those things.

Another word that is often used interchangeably with innovation is transformation, which is really more about dramatically altering the work educators do. Although I can see why some administrators are calling for transformation, the truth is innovation—in our thinking as individuals and organizations—is within easy reach; no dramatic shifts required. Katie Martin, director of professional learning at the University of San Diego Mobile Technology Learning Center, eloquently explains the importance of leadership in developing an innovative mindset:

There is no substitute for a teacher who designs authentic, participatory, and relevant learning experiences for her unique population of students. The role of the teacher is to inspire learning and develop skills and mindsets of learners. A teacher, as designer and facilitator, should continually evolve with resources, experiences, and the support of a community. It is becoming increasingly clear that we don’t necessarily need to transform the role of teachers, rather create a culture that inspires and empowers teachers to innovate in the pursuit of providing optimal learning experiences for their students.^[16]

Establishing an innovative culture doesn’t require transformation. However, it does require leaders who will develop and sustain systems that support “optimal learning experiences” and who value the process of creating and refining ideas.

Innovation Starts with a Question

According to Chicago-area teacher Josh Stumpenhorst, “Innovative teaching is constant evolution to make things better for student learning.” Josh suggests that it is not teachers who are at the center of the classroom, but students—not as a whole, but as individuals. To create this type of environment, the question that must be asked every day is, “What is best for this learner?” Individualizing education and starting with empathy for those we serve is where innovative teaching and learning begins.

As we consider what’s best for each learner, we must also think about how what we’re teaching will impact his or her future. For example, one question I have asked many educators is, “In our world today, what is a student more likely going to need to be able to write: an essay or a blog post?” This question pushes some people to a place of discomfort (which is the point), but it also makes them think about what’s relevant to today’s educational needs. It isn’t an either/or question. It is a question de...