What does it really take to innovate? For entrepreneurs and organizations, the pressure to get things right can sometimes become the very thing that holds innovation back. Fear of failure, fear of making mistakes, and the desire to appear like you have all the answers can make it harder to take the risks that meaningful innovation requires. Steve Brookstein, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Management of Innovation at the Saunders College of Business at RIT, has a simple philosophy: it takes someone very big to be small. Being willing to admit what you don’t know, learn from mistakes, listen to the people closest to a problem, and experiment along the way isn’t a weakness. It’s a critical part of building something that works. In this episode, Steve sits down with Alejandro and Mim to explore the growth mindset behind innovation and why failure can be one of an entrepreneur’s most valuable teachers. They dig into the principles of bottom-up innovation, looking at how ideas can emerge from the people closest to the work rather than always coming from the top. They also explore the stories of entrepreneurs and visionaries who transformed setbacks and failures into the foundations for extraordinary success. Innovation doesn’t happen when everything goes according to plan; it happens when entrepreneurs are willing to listen, experiment, fail, and try again.
In this episode, Steve Brookstein, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Management of Innovation at the Saunders School of Business at RIT, joins Alejandro and Mim for a conversation about the mindset necessary to lead and innovate in an entrepreneurial environment. They explain why embracing failure, humility, and an experimentation mindset is critical to your organization's success.
Steve shares his philosophy that “it takes someone very big to be small,” challenging the idea that entrepreneurs and leaders need to project certainty or have all the answers. Instead, creating the conditions for innovation often means being willing to acknowledge mistakes, listen to others, and learn from failure.
Listen in to explore how a growth mindset can transform the way entrepreneurs and organizations approach innovation, and how some of history’s greatest success stories emerged from failure rather than in spite of it.
In this episode, we explore:
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What if Instead? is produced with generous support from:
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Learn More About:
One Size Fits None: Time for an Entrepreneurial Revolution
One Size Fits None: Time for an Entrepreneurial Revolution on Spotify
One Size Fits None: Time for an Entrepreneurial Revolution on Audible
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SPECIAL EPISODE: One Size Fits None Time for an Entrepreneurial Revolution is available on Audiobook