How to be really 'innovative' and 'successful'?

Innovation is such an attractive word in entrepreneurship. There are awards, there are conferences, there are huge events organised globally, physically and virtually especially in recent years to show people what is innovation and train them to understand and adopt the formula for innovation in businesses, established ones as well as startups.

Due to the excessive use of the word "innovation" in different fields, it has started losing its value and real meaning and purpose. Innovation is loosely defined and excessively used in hashtags, in branding, in marketing as a buzzword to add glamour to what isn't appealing otherwise due to a lack of effort, lack of focus and of the intention as well as the inability to understand and address real problems.

It's like anything and everything that's otherwise not concrete and solid in either business models, in processes or products adopt the word innovation to seek validation and credibility, to make their agenda run and boost numbers visibly and show themselves off as a success story. Innovation has become more to do with the external, visible, apparent results rather than the internal, real, deep and consistent processes one has to go through as an individual or company knowing that results will follow, products or services will be innovative if the process has been taken care of.

In today's day and age, it's not so difficult to be "successful" and "innovative" in the general sense given the resources and the access majority people have due to globalisation and new policies for political reasons at a family, national or global level. Resources - financial, human and technical - are accessible and available generally but may lack in efficiency and impact. The obsession is with a product rather than the process. The obsession is with looking successful rather than being successful. The obsession is with looking impactful rather than being impactful. The same holds true for innovation. The obsession is with looking innovative rather than being innovative.

The problem with innovation is that the focus isn't on the problem, to identify and address them, to research and develop processes that actually heal the world and solve problems in the world rather than creating them and then "creating solutions" that may in turn be more problems in reality. There are high chances that what majority claim as innovative could have been already done or is being done by someone somewhere from another culture or geography, past or present.

In the current era, it's important to understand that innovation is more about solving problems and identifying how to organise and categorise, how to insert and delete or rearrange the existing blocks of resources globally in the real context and real time, in the real way. Innovation is not about synonyms, giving another word to an existing idea or concept and claiming it as our own as an individual or company. Innovation could be arranging and categorising the blocks differently but mindfully, or using them in different fields where it hasn't been used before, mindfully again. Innovation could be using the existing blocks for a different audience, target group or through different channels, platforms and mediums consciously.

Innovation could be having a different perspective to a status quo in any field based on ground work or experiences of one's own or people close to us after making a sincere attempt and effort to solve the problem rather than blaming systems everywhere. Innovation could be adding a new block to an existing one based on the need, based on the ground work and seeing the positive results.

Most importantly, innovation isn't just for a company, it's also for our personal lives, in our relationships, in our marriages, in our parenting, in the way we groom, refine and define ourselves based on how we operate, how our processes are, be it our habits, our way of living and operating in personal and professional areas, internally and externally. Innovation is a mindset and if it's truly a part of a person then it will extend and reflect on the personal and professional areas too, in the relationships at home and at work, in the families we lead as well as the companies and nations we lead.