Innovation Expert Encourages 'Promiscuity of Ideas'

DENVER — The ability to innovate isn't a rare quality possessed by a select few. In fact, one expert says, it's no different than being able to cook.

"If you've ever cooked a meal, you have the same ability as anyone else I this world to lead innovation, because innovation at the end of the day isn't necessarily about invention," explained Luke Williams, New York University professor and best-selling author of Disrupt: Think the Unthinkable to Spark Transformation in Your Business. "It's about taking the ingredients that you and pretty much everyone else has available and just seeking a new arrangement."

Williams delivered a keynote address at the joint CUNA's America's Credit Union conference/World Council of CUs conference here earlier this week emphasizing what he called "the promiscuity of ideas" and the notion that great thinking can only come about through a mixture of diverse ideas, cultures and backgrounds.

"Worry less about your success rate of new ideas and initiatives, and worry more about your experimentation rate," he advised the audience.

The next major disruptive idea in the credit union space isn't likely to come from credit unions, he cautioned, reminding that it's now common to see industries that don't have anything to do with one another becoming competitors, such as the way Uber, an app, disrupted the entire taxi cab business.

That's especially pertinent to credit unions, as more and more players from outside the traditional FI background enter the financial services space — and that could have major implications for credit unions trying to attract young members.

"The challenge for the next generation of credit union leadership and everyone in this room is to find a way to be the disruptive change, to lead the disruptive change," he said. "If you're really going to commit to leading the disruptive change... if you're really going to drive disruptive change, you have to let go of the notion that this is going to be a comfortable process.... It's terrifying. It's uncomfortable for yourselves, your members and your community."

Williams also cautioned credit unions not to over rely on big data to fuel their innovations.

"Analysis of data is important, but it only gets your 50% of the way there," he said. "The other 50% has to come from the human imagination."

During the innovation process, he suggested, credit unions should consider how many decisions and practices that affect their business were crafted by someone else in a different day and age. Williams also advised targeting situations where other FIs have grown lazy and complacent.

"The potential for reinvention of the credit union movement is all around you."