The sole purpose of a business is to grow. This can take on many dimensions – profits, revenues, market share, brand or community influence just to name a few. The road to growth is very simple. Innovation is required to drive growth. You make something better or new (products, services, solutions, etc.) and you sell to someone better or new (markets, segments, channels, etc.). Basically that’s it the rest is just fine print.

It sounds easy enough but of course it isn’t. This is because there are seven underlying issues, deadly sins if you will, that make leading innovation difficult and completely different from everything else you do in your business. But there is hope—simple things you can do to avoid the anguish and misery that often accompany the wide range of chaotic activities that produce valuable innovation.

First Deadly Sin: Believing You Can See the Future

The more breakthrough the innovation the more likely it will occur sometime in the distant future for which there presently is no data. Unless you posses a crystal ball and remarkable prophetic abilities, believing you can see the future first is delusional at best. Borders was a pioneer...