One sunny afternoon in July 1977, David Bowie was gazing out of his window at Hansa Studios in West Berlin. Across the road he noticed a young couple kissing by the city’s infamous wall. He knew the people in question (and that they shouldn’t be doing what they were doing). But out of nowhere and with no warning, that simple moment would lead to a lyric that inspired the song ‘Heroes’.
This was during what would become known as Bowie’s ‘Berlin Period’ where he was experimenting with new ways of working.
Rather than putting music to words, Bowie was trying to do things the other way around and build layered melodies that would inspire his lyrics.
He and producer Brian Eno would give themselves creative dilemmas and use techniques to encourage lateral thought. It was like “making a frame before the picture” he would say later. “I’d write five or six chords and then discipline myself to create something with those. That would dictate how the song came out, rather than me and my sense of emotional self”.
The results were startling, although not always obvious at first. Heroes only made it to No.24 in the UK and never even charted in the US, but it’s now considered one of the most iconic tracks of our time.
The album of the same name wasn’t Bowie’s most commercially successful either. But it’s now some of his most critically acclaimed work and has inspired countless artists since.
But it’s a case study in how to think about innovation. Because what Bowie was effectively developing a framework to stop his creativity running out of control. He never had a problem coming up with ideas, what he needed was a process that cultivated one at a time in a much more methodical way.
To the uninitiated, this might look like a sure-fire way to smother invention. But Bowie was restricting himself to force prioritisation and achieve specific goals. He was creating a framework to steer that process and keep it true. He was pulling the innovation in, not forcing it out!
It’s just agile thinking applied to music.
If you’ve ever worked in a innovation environment, you’ll understand how easy it is to over-complicate the creative process. It can become a chaotic race against time rather than an optimised analysis of each application.
Bowie understood this and was creating a process – not just for himself – but so that he could force the whole of his operation to get behind it. That’s a lot easier of course, when you’re already David Bowie. But it’s also the secret to innovation.
Disruption in any environment, is never a seat-of-your-pants initiative. The most successful companies are the ones who figure out how to put a process around innovation development. They understand that they have to collectively address the challenge that is in front of them and not be defined by individual experiences and pre-conceived ideas of what good looks like.
But maybe more significantly, they understand that you have to stick with it. You can’t just revert to type when the operation hits some bumps. You need to realise that true innovation is not always obvious at first or what you might have envisaged at the start, but that’s ok.
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