"Great Innovators Tell Stories Too," Says Langdon Morris

Professor Langdon Morris, chief executive officer and senior partner of InnovationLabs, revealed that he did not complete his college and wouldn’t recommend anyone following his footsteps. However, he made it good as he had worked with his father who was an architect since he was very young. There, he learnt the ropes first-hand in architecture for many years before his interest in business picked up. Together with another three business partners, their respective firms later became an innovation consulting firm.

Today, Morris is recognised globally as one of the top thinkers, consultants and authors on innovation and strategy. His work focuses on developing and applying advanced methods in innovation and strategy to solve complex problems with very high levels of creativity. The Leaderonomics Show host Roshan Thiran caught up with Morris to learn more about his personal leadership journey in innovation.

Here are some key takeaways from the interview:

• Creativity and innovation are not the same. Creativity is the process of coming out with ideas, while innovation is the process of creating values for others based on those ideas.
• People are afraid to innovate because in innovation, we often don’t know what we’re doing. We’re more afraid about the risk rather than the change itself.
• Small- and medium-sized enterprises need to innovate to get ahead of the game. These skills can be taught.
• In innovation, learn the art of storytelling from the business perspective rather than for entertainment. As innovators, articulate your innovation through storytelling. A good example is the late Steve Jobs.