John Hagel III Quotes

When you attack a problem as though it were solvable, even though you don't know how to solve it, you will be shocked with what you come up with. It's 100 times more worth it. It's never 100 times harder.

If you want to think new thoughts that are different, then do what creative people do - get the problem reasonably clear and then refuse to look at any answers until you've thought the problem through carefully how you would do it, how you could slightly change the problem to be the correct one.

Some of the projects we've proposed over the years have been refused. But we never do other people's ideas; our ideas come out of our two hearts and our two heads.

No matter what problem you encounter, whether it's a grand challenge for humanity or a personal problem of your own, there's an idea out there that can overcome it. And you can find that idea.

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.

Our greatest lack is not money for any undertaking, but rather ideas, If the ideas are good, cash will somehow flow to where it is needed.

Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems.

Usually, the best ideas come from having to fix a really hard problem.

Sometimes big problems are best solved with lots of small and creative solutions.

I have some ideas on how to fix that. They're not very good ideas, but at least they're ideas!

I would consider myself an inventor at heart, or reinventor.

But innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we've been thinking about a problem.

He was thinking alone, and seriously racking his brain to find a direction for this single force four times multiplied, with which he did not doubt, as with the lever for which Archimedes sought, they should succeed in moving the world, when some one tapped gently at his door.

No amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of imagination.

My joking answer to this question is that I leave a bowl of milk out on the back porch every night for the Idea Fairy. In the morning, the milk is gone and there's a brand-new shiny idea by the bowl.

When you have an employee who's innovative in your organization, what are they thinking about in the shower? If they're working in an exciting place, they're not thinking what they're going to do over the weekend. They're thinking: 'How do I solve that problem?'

Letting your mind play is the best way to solve problems.

The first thing I look at is, 'Is the entrepreneur going after really big problems, to the extent that it feels scary when they talk about it?' You wonder if the idea is possible. I have seen that a lot of times, people go after small problems, and that's a sign that they are not confident.

The best people in this industry [technology] are the people who are trying to solve big problems.

Sometimes a problem will seem completely insurmountable. Then someone comes up with a simple new idea, or just a rearrangement of old ideas, that completely eliminates it.

I like... piecing things together because it gives you a product that you would never have come up with just sitting down and writing on a blank slate.

I love leaving the door open to good ideas. I love the collaborative swirl. I get charged by problem-solving, usually under some kind of stress - the sun is going down, and we have eight minutes, and we have to solve it. Great things come out of it.

We are all innovators, we all like to use our imagination, which is our greatest tool.

Sometimes the best ideas will come in the least inspiring places.

We're communicators, we're problem solvers, and we're lateral thinkers, and there's nothing that can't be improved with that. The world needs us, and we want to be needed.