The Innovation Code

Innovation happens when we bring together people of contrasting experience, opinion, and perspective. The clash of personalities is a necessary part of the innovation process - a process that seeks discomfort and requires us NOT to get along. DeGraff explains, to disrupt a market, we must first disrupt each other to harness the creative power of constructive conflict. This occurs in four distinct stages: assemble a diversity of perspectives, engage in the conflict, establish a goal or vision, and construct hybrid solutions.

The Innovation Code is centred around harnessing collaboration and innovation 

of the four dominant world views. These four character types have very different values and approaches, and their opposing views are utilised to inspire growth, self-improvement, and drive new ideas. The key attributes of each character are:

The Artist: open-minded perspective and encourages wild experimentation and rejection of conventions.

The Athlete: competitive, goal-oriented, focused on winning, and short-term gain.

The Sage: seeks harmony, connection, and togetherness.

The Engineer: seeks efficiency, quality, and processes

By understanding which category applies to you, the book first challenges the reader to disrupt themselves by reflecting on their own beliefs before understanding how this impacts their ability to drive innovation and form an effective collaborative team. It then offers several frameworks and scenarios for creating constructive tension with others to inspire hybrid ideas and processes. This helps all aspects of business innovation from disrupting yourself and inherent skill sets, to enterprise collaboration and building a diverse board of advisors.