It's near impossible to always be right when you're innovating. It's easy to get emotionally invested in it, but you need to monitor its impact like a hawk and react if you don't like what you see. And if/when you pull it back, you want to do that communication with transparency and humility.
Interpretation
Innovation involves risks and mistakes; one must remain vigilant and communicate clearly when adjusting ideas.
This quote emphasizes that in the realm of innovation, it is challenging to be correct at all times, as the process is filled with uncertainties and emotional investment. It suggests that one should closely observe the outcomes of their innovations and be ready to adapt when necessary, doing so with honest communication that reflects humility.
In practice
In a business meeting discussing new product development, you might say this quote to highlight the importance of flexibility.
Most innovation is not done by research institutes and national laboratories. It comes from manufacturing - from companies that want to extend their product reach, improve their costs, increase their returns. What's very important is in-house research.
In Israel, a land lacking in natural resources, we learned to appreciate our greatest national advantage: our minds. Through creativity and innovation, we transformed barren deserts into flourishing fields and pioneered new frontiers in science and technology.
I believe innovation is the most powerful force for change in the world. People who are pessimistic about the future tend to extrapolate from the present in a straight line. But innovation fundamentally shifts the trajectory of development.
My view is there's no bad time to innovate.
If every effect of any new products or methods were required to be known before they could be produced and marketed, they would not be true innovations - and thus not represent new knowledge of what people would like, if offered.
Predicting innovation is something of a self-canceling exercise: the most probable innovations are probably the least innovative.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.