Want to know the single-greatest factor that determines the success of a professional learning experience? It has much less to do with the learner, or the curriculum, than it does the organization to which the learner returns.

Michelin’s innovation guru once told me, “Most of the time, the problem is the problem.” My own innovation practice has taught me that my biggest problem is, I’m not sure what my problem is. Here’s a fantastic trick to fuel ideation.

David Kelley advises his students to make a practice that’s been taught at Stanford for decades. It’s the same thing Seinfeld does, and it’s a simple technique anyone wanting to do some breakthrough thinking can employ.

There’s not nearly enough airspace afforded the opposition that innovation faces inside of established organizations. While folks generally acknowledge that “the organizational antibodies attack” when they try to do something new, yet few are prepared to face resistance to their new ideas.

Lin-Manuel Miranda shares a key insight from the process of writing Hamilton. His experience resonates with countless other innovators: make time to think.

One of the prime directives of an innovation leader is to make experiments cheaper to run. Sometimes this has to do with technology; but often, it has to do with the institutional norms driving would-be-innovators’ assumptions and expectations.

The counter-cultural practices of Google X, Amazon, and 3M demonstrate that public celebration reinforces organizational values, especially when those values run contrary to conventional business rules.

The single-most enjoyable hour of work each week is the hour I deliberately shed the “teacher’s” cap and put on the student’s. Instead of showing up to talk, I show up to listen. But boy does it take intention to protect that time.

Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs both illustrate that the sterile calculus of today’s valuation-obsessed start-up culture doesn’t put nearly enough premium on a particularly elusive ingredient: love.

Kim Scott writes, “Slogans like ‘Move Fast & Break Things” are rallying cries for accelerators. But there’s a lot of mythology here…. If you really want to do something new, figure out a way to decelerate.”

It’s been over two since I last worked in regular physical proximity with folks beyond my immediate team at Stanford. Of all the things I miss the most, I must say that eavesdropping is near the top of the list.

The need to “think outside the box” is a common refrain.

But how does one do it?

It’s not nearly as complicated as you might think.

Most breakthroughs sneak up on us, and can easily recede from our memories. Appreciating the small breakthroughs is an important step in rewiring some of our default ways of working.

Maya Angelou and Thomas Edison gave me permission to keep my space messy. It’s not unlike one of those detective whodunits, every available surface covered in conspiracies. If you peeked into my garage, you’d probably think, “I hope he finds the killer…”

Sometimes, the best way forward in solving a problem is to allow yourself to retreat. Operative word here being, “allow.” It is profoundly uncomfortable to choose to work differently, when it doesn’t really look like work.

We tend to think in terms of polish, and being presentable. Jake Karls, founder of Mid Day Squares, flips the script and turns this assumption on its head. He shares his unexpected formula for crafting deeply engaged fans.

The single-most enjoyable hour of work each week is the hour I deliberately shed the “teacher’s” cap and put on the student’s. Instead of showing up to talk, I show up to listen. But boy does it take intention to protect that time.

I’m a closet statistics nerd. Good for me, because innovation is a numbers game. One of my favorite counterintuitive statistical truths is expressed by Bayes’ Theorem, which can effectively bend the odds.

It’s hard to imagine more different characters than LinkedIn Founder Reid Hoffman and John Steinbeck. And yet when it comes to sparking creativity, they share an unexpected hack.

The evidence is clear: back-to-back meetings strain our cognitive function. One innovation leader I know has created a rule to make sure he shows up ready to sprint.