In Praise of Irrational Innovators | InnoBlog

I love my three young children immensely. So it’s hard for me to be fully rational about them. Of course they are the smartest, the best looking, and the most athletic. I’m not  alone — all parents are irrational. We lose sleep worrying about things we can’t control and take pride in ridiculously small achievements we had nothing to do with.

A similar type of irrationality affects innovators. Talk to an entrepreneur or a scientist about the idea they are working on — it’s just like talking to a parent of young children. They feel unduly proud when their team does something without needing their help. They endlessly worry about things that are well beyond their control.

It’s hard to understand these types of feelings until you actually experience  them. Actually, I’d even go a step further. As much as I love my kids, it’s hard for me to have the same connection with them as my wife does — for obvious reasons — but with innovation … well, it’s the closest a man can get to giving birth.

Irrationality can be a strong asset. Sure, a vast majority of new businesses fail, so a fairly rational person could easily justify maintaining the status quo. But our world is — unquestionably — a better place because people take risks that don’t quite make logical sense. Of course, irrationality presents challenges too. It can blind innovators to real problems and to important signals telling them to do something different. Yes, perseverance may be an underappreciated skill, but when paired with passion, it often leads to fanaticism.

So how can you toe the line between irrationality and fanaticism without pursuing a doomed idea?

Read the rest at Scott’s Harvard Business Review blog.

Scott D. Anthony is managing director of Innosight Asia-Pacific.

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