We've got some great big problems in our world. We have to figure out how to feed 10 billion people. Too many people can't access clean water, quality healthcare, and reasonable education. We have to figure out what to do about climate change, income inequality, and more. Innovators need to rise to the challenge!

I'm not very good at sitting still.

Creating the new increasingly is more than 50 percent of a top leader's job.

I'm suggesting that principles meant to deal with uncertainty that occurs naturally can be useful to manage the uncertainty that characterizes any new idea.

Good innovators are careful observers, network extensively, run experiments, ask lots of questions, and find ways to bring diverse ideas together. Overarching all of this is an intrinsic interest in working through puzzles.

The number one thing I urge people to remember is it is all about being scientific about managing strategic uncertainty, while striking the important balance between being thorough and being flexible.

One of the biggest mistakes large companies make is creating innovation teams that mirror all the functions of the core business. Those teams make no progress because they spent forever updating each other on what they are doing versus really crushing the most critical problems they need to address.