Fryer: Which of these skills do you think is the most important?

Dyer: Weve found that questioning turbo-charges observing, experimenting, and networking, but questioning on its own doesnt have a direct effect without the others. Overall, associating is the key skill because new ideas arent created without connecting problems or ideas in ways that they havent been connected before. The other behaviors are inputs that trigger associating — so they are a means of getting to a creative end.

Gregersen: You might summarize all of the skills weve noted in one word: “inquisitiveness.” I spent 20 years studying great global leaders, and that was the big common denominator. Its the same kind of inquisitiveness you see in small children.

via How Do Innovators Think? – HBR Editors Blog – Harvard Business Review.

Via Rajesh Jain