Editor | On 25, Sep 2018

Darrell Mann

Whenever we experience a pair of potentially conflicting attributes – creativity and patience, say, or resourcefulness and naivety, or X and Y – its always possible to construct a 2×2 matrix. When we solve the conflict and get the best of both attributes, we find ourselves in the ‘breakthrough’ quadrant. This is where we’d like to be.

The most common situation, if we can’t solve the conflict is we get one-out-of-two – either X is good and Y is bad, or vice-versa. These are the ‘frustration’ quadrants. This is when our innovation opportunity is most visible. These are the zones that cause us to describe frustration as the mother of innovation.

The place we don’t really want to be is the worst-of-both-worlds quadrant. This is the anger or hopelessness zone. Neither anger nor hopelessness are the mothers of innovation. They usually mean we’ve already conceded defeat, or, more likely, don’t know how to get started. When we exhibit anger or hopelessness its usually a sign that our creative brain has shut down.