Innovation needs to be grown, not transplanted

It is sooo amazing to see/hear/read about all the buzz around innovation lately! There is such great momentum for pushing the envelope and making real changes to the system.

And with that awesome energy can sometimes come a “transplant” type of thinking.

“Let’s try that, here.”

And that type of thinking is kind of like cloning a plant that’s thriving somewhere and plopping it down somewhere else.

…and then wondering one or two years down the road why it’s not flourishing.

Was the soil right? Was there enough sunlight? Was it in the right temperature? Were there gardeners who were willing to tend to it? Was it even the plant you wanted?

Sometimes all we see is the plant – because it’s what’s most visible – but we neglect to think about all the factors that contributed to what helped it grow in the first place.

Sam Sherrat has a great blog post called Studio 5: It Took More Than 7 Days. Which gives great insight into the 3 years of thinking and planning that went into Studio 5 to make it what it is today. As well as this first post in a series where he breaks down (more specifically) the different stages of our evolution process.

So in keeping with my plant metaphor, here are some suggested steps to help you grow your own innovation!

First, decide what plant you want

Start with your own why. What do you believe about learning? What do you believe your children deserve? What do you believe about the future of education? What are you hoping to achieve or accomplish? What dream are you working towards? If you could sum up your mission in one sentence, what would it be?

Then, buy the seed

Commit to your mission. Write it down. Share it with stakeholders. Be transparent about the vision you will be working towards. Work towards poking and provoking thinking to help people value and believe in it.

Next, tend to the seed.

Germinate the idea. Take time to brainstorm possibilities. How could you achieve your “why”? What are all the different ways you could bring your mission to life? What may work, might work, could work….

Upskill the Gardeners

Take time to inquire as a staff. Give people a chance to expereince the type of innovation you plan to implement for students. Find resources to extend everyone’s thinking and understanding of whatever it is you want to do.

Prune the plant as it grows.

Continuosly, go back to your “why”. What are you doing that’s helping achieve it? What are you doing that’s preventing you from achieving it? What do you need to start, stop, continue in order to honour your original mission. Know that the process is iterative.

It’s so great that so many schools want to innovate, but if we want our innovations to take root and really thrive we need to make sure that we are developing innovations that can grow and blossom in our specific contexts.. with our specific beliefs… our specific students… our specific teachers… our specific community.

Start with your “why”.

Brainstorm all the possible “how’s”.

Decide on some “what’s”

Give it a try.

And be prepared for endless iterations.

Copy and paste the process, not the innovation. 

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