When we went and studied the process of innovation, we found that innovators shared not so much a common set of personal traits, but a common way of looking at the world. Number one, they were contrarians. And by definition the way you create a strategy differentiation means that you violate industry norms. Number two, we found these people were “novelty addicts,” people who loved to be out on the fringes of what was changing, to see what was new. They were the people who went to the new restaurants, who saw the new movies, who were the first to vacation in new places. And therefore they were constantly seeing and experiencing things that other people were not. And thirdly, they were deeply empathetic with customers, not in a “we need to be customer led” kind of a way, but in “I really understand the unarticulated frustrations and desires and anxieties of the people around me and I want to do something about that.”
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