The Eureka Myth

Innovation, cast as the triumph of human imagination, may be the most romantic discipline in business. And the eureka moment, that epiphany of total clarity in which a breakthrough invention or discovery occurs, is the most romantic aspect of innovation. In fact, the eureka moment still looms so large in the folklore of business that it overshadows the historically far more important matter of how an invention reaches the marketplace as a practical innovation. As companies turn their sights anew to top-line growth, it is time to see the eureka moment—indeed the whole gestalt of “breakthrough thinking”—for what it is: largely a myth.