Back to the School of Innovation Basics: Innovating Like a 5-Year Old

“Children solve problems in a non-linear fashion, their magpie imaginations collecting, sorting, rearranging all those glittering daydreams into a nonsensical world they treasure.” – Erica Wolfe-Murray

What if, to advance with innovation capability, we simply need to go back to basics? What if we could harness that same innovative instinct, imagination, and mindset we had as kids?

I firmly believe in this philosophy. I even spoke about it in IIEX APAC this year and am re-sharing the key ideas.

At its core, innovation is about seeing the world of consumers with genuine curiosity, challenging norms, daring to ask what’s possible, and creating something new that uniquely and better solves real consumer problems. Yet despite billions of dollars invested, 70–90% of innovations fail. Why? It’s not for lack of trying, but often due mainly to poor market-product (or problem-solution) fit.

We as researchers are best positioned to help close that gap!

Insights and Innovation are Messy, and That’s the Point

Most companies (and yes, even researchers) think that having a lot of data gives us good insights. The reality is most are data-rich but insights-poor. Uncovering actionable insights is hard, messy, and non-linear. The world’s most innovative companies embrace the mess, and experiments new ways to get deeper, more differentiated insights.

Take artificial intelligence, for instance. It’s not about using the shiniest AI tools. It is best used strategically to augment human speed and efficiency in discovering new insights. AI can inspire new ideas, accelerate idea incubation, and enhance marketing execution (Coca-Cola AI Christmas ad anyone?). Successful AI adoption pairs technology with the basics: well-defined business problem, clear hypotheses, and innovating for speed and efficiency.

Consumers Are People, Not Data Points

Behind any successful innovation with strong market-product fit is a simple principle: A consumer is a person, not a datapoint.

Too often, we fall into the trap of taking abstract statistics and quant data as consumer truths. We forget they represent real humans with lives beyond our categories. Deep insights come from seeing the world through their eyes—understanding their goals, aspirations, and frustrations. This requires empathy, active listening, and the courage to imagine novel solutions that create meaningful difference in their lives.

Why Kids are Natural Innovators

If we as researchers and innovators feel stuck, we might need to remind ourselves of our inner 5-year-old. Kids are unfiltered thinkers. They are natural masters at solving problems with a mix of curiosity, observation, and play.

They:

• Associate wildly: They remix seemingly unrelated dots from different contexts into entirely fresh narratives and ideas.
• Question fearlessly: They ask “Why?” until answers satisfy their natural quest to understand how things work (first principles).
• Observe deeply: They are expansive observers and can pay attention to details we adults often miss.
• Network openly: They’re social and builds on each other ideas, creating bigger and bigger magical worlds with other kids.
• Experiment playfully: They have a huge appetite to try new things and continue iterating and improving… all while having fun!

These are the same critical innovation behaviors that Clay Christensen, Hal Gregersen and Jeffrey Dyer wrote about in the Innovators’ DNA.

 

As adults, we tend to lose these qualities, favoring structured methods over playful exploration. But what if we balanced both?

The Process of Playful Innovation

Insights and innovation work shouldn’t daunting. In fact, iterative, small-scale experiments often deliver the biggest wins. Here’s how an innovation team I coached approached a recent challenge to find organic yet disruptive innovation opportunities in low-growth, deflationary market:

1. Fall in love with the Consumer Problem: In just one week, our team spent nearly 500 hours in qualitative immersions, connecting with 600+ consumers. We resisted the urge to solve until we have a very clear and nuanced understanding of the big tensions consumers face. The team found it refreshing to see consumers and their lives outside of our very blinkered category views, first-hand.
2. Co-Create and Prototype: We didn’t just ask consumers what they wanted; we involved them in building solutions. Using rapid consumer feedback tools, like on-the-day qual and overnight quant, and teams discovered the power of real-time consumer input to validate assumptions and create consumer-centric solutions. This contrasted sharply with boardroom brainstorming and internal voting that the teams are used to, where we often lose sight of what’s important to our consumers.   
3. Test and Learn (and Play): Rapid prototyping and playful experimentation resulted in 80% of our prototype ideas outperforming benchmarks. Real progress indeed. Who knew having fun with arts and crafts could lead to better solutions?!The metrics and overwhelming positive feedback are proof of the power of creating the space to bring out curiosity and collaboration.

The metrics and overwhelmingly positive feedback on the experience prove the power of creating a safe space for curiosity and collaboration to improve innovation results.

What’s Next?

To elevate our roles as researchers and innovators, we must increase the value we create through our insights and solutions. Yes, we need to efficiently deploy our current best practices and continuously experiment with new tech-enabled tools and methods. But the biggest unlock is rigorously applying the basics: associating, observing, questioning, networking, and experimenting. And having fun! We need only to relive our 5-year-old selves!