Frederik Pferdt served as Google's first-ever chief innovation evangelist. Here's the top lesson he taught to encourage the company's creative culture, he says.
A former Stanford University adjunct professor of design thinking, Pferdt worked at Google for 12 years, serving as its first-ever "chief innovation evangelist." In that role, Pferdt created the company's Innovation Lab and co-founded the Google Garage, where employees across divisions and disciplines gathered to collaborate and experiment on new ideas.
"I basically observed a need in the organization," notes Pferdt, who says he decided to leave Google in 2022. "Everybody talks about innovation, and you could obviously see a lot of innovation happening. But at the same time, there was no, I would say, 'Google way' to innovate." The idea: Being proactive about creating the future you want is better than feeling anxious or uncertain about what's coming. By being open, curious and forward-thinking, you're more likely to spot potential opportunities for yourself, says Pferdt.
You can develop this "mind state" by training your brain to embrace six traits, Pferdt wrote in his book "This is the first step to countering anxiety and uncertainty, Pferdt says. To spot future opportunities, you have to embrace the unknown by thinking optimistically to find potential good in a new, possibly even scary, situation.Perpetual experimentation:
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