The Four Lenses of Innovation: A Power Tool for Creative Thinking

ChallengingOrthodoxies

Perhaps the first thing that comes to mind when we think about Renaissance innovators is their contrarian spirit. It was a time when people began to ask skeptical questions that had never been asked before, and to challenge deeply entrenched beliefs that had long been taken for granted. For example:

Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler asked:

“What if the Earth is not the center of the Universe? What if it revolves around the Sun along with the other planets?”

Martin Luther asked:

“What if the papacy and the dogmas of the church are actually wrong? And what if we could read the Bible and listen to sermons in our own language, instead of in Latin?”

Petrarch asked:

“What if a person can achieve great things in this world without being ungodly? What if God wants us to use the intellectual and creative powers he gave us to their fullest potential?”

Andreas Vesalius asked:

“What if the dominant theories of human anatomy that have been unassailable for a thousand years are fully misguided? What if the human body functions completely differently than we have been taught? And what if we started dissecting some dead bodies to find out the truth?”

Paracelsus asked:

“What if everything we know about medicine is nonsense? What if certain chemicals and minerals, used in the right dosage, would be a far better way to cure illnesses than traditional practices? What if ...