He/she is sensitive enough to "discover" problems that affect people's lives and amply creative to arrive to unique solutions. Naturally a risk taker, that hates routine. His/her second brain preference is on the upper right brain hemisphere and this is related to the communicator type personality. It means that your target human being excels in communication and therefore understands perfectly what it takes to add people to his/her cause. In other words, he/she is very persuasive and, for most, reliable.  Their third brain preference lies on the upper left hemisphere of the brain, which is related to organizational skills. This means that you target human being is - on top of everything else- well organized and planned. In other words, he/she is a task accomplisher. By now, you should be wondering whether I am describing a human being or Super Man or Wonder Woman. Your doubts are well founded, as these super heroes are very, very hard to find. In fact, in our Innovation X-Ray study we only found 2,98% of people with those characteristics. And, if you love data, you'll love to read this: 40% of those earned a salary of 30.000 or less euros a year...

So, how to conquer super heroes? I'll give you some tricks, but please bare in mind that if I had all the secrets I would not be writing this article... I'll be rich.

1. First you need to detect them and the only way to "see them coming" is in action. Think about Clark Kent when he was working in his office at (don't remember the name) the journal. He was just one more employee who passed unnoticed as he was working on something under his capabilities. Now when crisis arrived and he felt he was needed, then Clark Kent became Super Man. This means, that this year is your year to discover the super heroes in your business.


2. Once you have a slight clue of who those super heroes might be (don't play smart, don't think you already know, because if you think that way... you are not an innovator, who by the way are also open-minded) ask them to take a brain preference test. So far, you can do that for free at www.procesoi.com. If you cannot get them to take the test, send me an email and I'll help you discover it without a test.


3. You've identified them, and now what? Recognize. Yes, that simple. Find a way to say (it could be official or casual) "you are a truly important person for this organization and we want you to be thrilled at work. How can we do it?". Remember questions are more important than answers. It's simple. It works.


4. Create spaces, virtual or physical, for innovators to get together, collaborate among each other, have open discussions about business or life and come up with innovations for your company.

Need is the utmost element in innovation. If there is no need, there is no change. Yes, it's great to have a very good place to work where employees feel happy, well paid, highly recognized and motivated. Yet, if you need to transform your organization into innovative one just break out that 'corporate comfort' which many times translates into 'corporate conformity'.

Having mentioned "need" as a key innovation ingredient, think about the example I've mentioned about Apple. We all need to remember it took Apple to be close to bankruptcy to accept a total business transformation. Think about Google and how it emerged from nothing in the middle of a global economic crisis. Think about the BRIC countries and how they are improving their economies and how suddenly they became both an opportunity and a threat to the rest of the developed economies: Brazil, Russia, India and China.

Inspiration is another ingredient. Most of the times, NEED brings in inspiration. However if this economic crisis did not bring yet the need into your business, you might want to provoke some inspiration. Again, think about it this way: when you meet someone and you immediately feel infatuated by that person, even if you are not creative, sparks of creativity invade your brain at the same rhythm hormones accelerate. With innovation, the same thing happens: you need to bring in inspiration to your team members. And, going back to the same life example, remember that thank goodness we don't all feel infatuated by the same people. So, don't be lazy and don't just think that what will inspire you, will inspire your team. Inspiration, as motivation and infatuation, should be absolutely personalized in order to work in its full power.