UC Davis Professor on the Importance of Ingenuity
Andrew Hargadon, Charles J. Soderquist Chair in Entrepreneurship and Professor of Technology Management at UC Davis Graduate School of Management, wrote recently about the role of ingenuity in breakthroughs.
Discoveries and innovations in business do not come from raw genius, he writes, but from the ability to conquer obstacles with creative solutions.
Hargadon uses the example of Norman Heatley, who discovered the first methods of propagating penicillin in great enough amounts for further study. Heatley however, notes Hargadon, was overlooked for the Nobel Prize in in 1945. It was awarded to his research teammates, Alexander Fleming and Ernst Chain.
“Heatley didn’t have the sudden insight that sparked a big idea. Rather, he put into practice the hundreds of small insights necessary to make a big idea real, figuring out how to get things done against all odds — enabling a major scientific breakthrough in the worst of wartime Britain.” Hargadon writes.
Other examples Professor Hargadon offers are that of Google (not the first search engine); the lightbulb (invented forty years before Thomas Edison successfully marketed it); and the iPod (which emerged half a decade after the first mp3 players).
Norman Heatley was able to keep his penicillin research active only through creativity and his ability to work despite the dearth of resources brought about by World War II. He was able to cobble together the tools that he needed by using what was available, including a discarded bookcase, plumbing pieces, and an old doorbell.
The trick for today’s business innovators is to “find their Heatleys” writes Hargadon. “Transcripts and test scores don’t predict how people will face real-world challenges. Heatley had formal training in biology and biochemistry, but he also possessed technical skills in optics, glass- and metalworking, plumbing, and carpentry, and a willingness to use these skills to quickly build and test new ways of getting things done given the available resources.”
About the Author
Maggie Boccella
Maggie Boccella, a lifelong resident of Philadelphia, is a freelance writer, artist and photographer. She has consulted on various film and multimedia projects, and she also serves as a juror for the city's annual LGBTQIA Film Festival.
