Moon in the dark night-3 Myths of Genius Debunked

There are three specific myths that surround our most beloved creators, and if you model yourself on those myths, you’re setting yourself up for failure. The myths are (1) the lone wolf inventor; (2) the eureka moment; (3) the myth of the expert. From new theories of physics and revolutionary patents to Toy Story and the iPhone, creators depend on their ability marshal the talent of large teams of people. Yet despite the readily available evidence that we tend to romanticize innovation, myths persist because we love telling stories in narrative form Click here to see what  Tim Sanders has to say  

Transcript –

There are myths of creativity and these myths are usually propagated by people that have romantic notions about heroes, romantic notions about eureka moments. And these myths of creativity keep people from collaborating and it causes them to be a lone wolf. And the research says it causes them to fail. So let me talk a little bit about those myths of creativity. In the world of sales and marketing I battle against three myths. Myth number one – the lone inventor. This is very dangerous because there is no such thing as a lone inventor. As a matter of fact there’s a lot of historical research that has debunked Einstein specifically in terms of inventions. Henry Ford. Not a lone inventor.

A classic example – Thomas Edison. In the invention community Thomas Edison is a brand. It stand for 14 people. Yes there was a figurehead named Thomas Edison. His name is on 10,000 patents. He did not invent a single thing. He marshaled people together and knew how to spot innovations and put people together like a creative soup if you will. Here’s a classic example. Steve Jobs. You ask the average person, say a millennial who uses a lot of Apple technology, who’s one of the greatest inventors of our time? They’ll say Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs once said I never created anything. All I did was notice patterns and put people together to finish projects. So think about it. If he doesn’t have Wozniak there is no original Apple, right. If he doesn’t have Ive there is no iPod. If he doesn’t have Tony Fadell there is no iPhone and the list goes on and on. Got a good friend of mine David Burkus who wrote a really wonderful book about the myths of genius. And he was telling me that it’s a romantic notion. And I remember when I first read this research years ago ‘No Lone Inventor’ it did kind of hurt my feelings.

I’m a musician in my past. I thought I wrote a lot of songs but according to the research I never wrote a song. I always collaborated with somebody. The song that actually made it to the record and made it on the radio had 15 to 50 hands on it. When I talked to David I said when I read your research it kind of hurt my feelings. And he goes it’s a romantic notion because we want to be heroes. We want to be as empowered as Ayn Rand. We want to think that we are The Fountainhead so this is how we tell the story. But until you believe that genius is a team sport you will never give up control. And this is the problem for a lot of people in sales. They don’t want to seed any level of control over their process to somebody outside of sales world because they don’t value those voices enough. But the research is clear on this. Miller Heiman Institute researched the difference between good and great. They call it world class organizations. They win. They sell 20 percent more than their nearest competitor. The only thing they have in common is they’ve broken this myth and they understand that every deal is about rapid problem solving and no one person can solve the problem on their own.