What kind of innovator are you: Cezanne or Picasso?

According to Malcolm Gladwell, innovators can be classified into two distinct groups depending on whether they are “conceptual” or “experimental”. A very typical conceptual innovator was Pablo Picasso, who had a great idea which he executed it almost perfectly for a little while, then unfortunately faded. Whereas Paul Cezanne, the experimental innovator, worked harder and harder at his expertise, which continuously improved his work.

So, have you ever thought what kind of innovator are you?

Malcolm Gladwell is a senior writer for “The New Yorker” whose work often deals with the unforeseen implications of research in the social sciences, repeatedly and extensively using academic work, particularly in the areas of sociology and psychology. Gladwell’s first work, The Tipping Point (2000), discusses the immense consequences of small scale social events, while his second book, Blink (2005), explains how the human subconscious interprets events and how past experiences allow people to make informed decisions very rapidly; both of these works became international bestsellers.

I came to know Malcolm Gladwell not because of his books, though. What really captivated me about Malcolm Gladwell was the opening speech he gave at the NCTM National Conference in 2008. In his speech, he classified innovators into two distinct groups depending on whether they are “conceptual” or “experimental”. A very typical conceptual innovator was Pablo Picasso, who had a great idea which he executed it almost perfectly for a little while, then unfortunately faded. Whereas Paul Cezanne, the experimental innovator, worked harder and harder at his expertise, which continuously improved his work. It is therefore not a surprise that Picasso created his most valuable works when he was only in his mid–twenties. On the other hand, Cezanne’s most valuable works came in his much later years and resulted in being 15 times more valuable than his earlier works.

Gladwell moved on with other examples that include the Eagles (conceptual innovators) versus Fleetwood Mac (experimental innovators), and Herman Melville (conceptual) versus Mark Twain (experimental). He continued to talk about how the American society readily embraces the Picasso models; the music industry is unfortunately not thriving the way it used to, because we are simply in search of immediate successes and we are no longer patient enough to support the experimental innovators to create the albums that will last forever. The same applies to the automotive industry in the US where excellent cars have been produced exploiting the brilliant ideas of the conceptual innovators while in the mean time the Japanese automotive industry has grown with a relatively slower, but ever increasing pace producing environmental friendly and fuel efficient vehicles whose performance are comparable to those produced in the US.

Regardless of the area of concern, it is evident, as pointed out by Malcolm Gladwell, that success is the outcome of hard work and persistence, and the American society really needs to re-think the way we educate our children, especially when it comes to teaching math.

Gladwell gave the example of an international math contest where those countries who did well in this contest were the ones who demonstrated persistence and dedication to filling out a really long survey right before the contest, so he made the following inference: “How well a country does well in math doesn’t have to be measured with math questions.”

Gladwell also gave the example of a very hard mathematics test administered to a group of American students and a group of Asian students. While the American students left the room giving up after a few brief attempts to solve the questions, discovering that they were indeed too hard, the Asian students never gave up until the proctors said their time was up.

All in all, I agree with Malcolm Gladwell means: we must be persistent with our dedication and hard work until success arrives; and when it does, we must not do what Picassos do. Every achievement must constitute the basis for the next one. Eventually, when there is no one left to compete with, we must keep competing, with ourselves this time, trying to push our boundaries consistently for the better. This, my friends, is how we can advance ourselves and the communities that we belong.