Not only do innovators have to deal with all of the fundamental challenges of innovation, they have to do so in an environment that often is implicitly hostile towards innovation.

The school at which you studied - design school, disruptive school, TRIZ school, user-centered innovation school, etc - determines the specific words you use.

History teaches us that many breakthroughs were happy accidents. Whether that's penicillin coming from Fleming neglecting to clean his laboratory before going on vacation or the team at Odeon trying a little side project that allowed people to communicate in real time as long as their message was 140 characters or less (which ultimately of course became Twitter), the unintended is often the transformational.

You have to chip away at it and shape it to let the winning idea emerge.

If you work on a new product launch, spent time in a new geography, or work to develop a completely new skill, you have no choice but to figure out new ways to solve problems.

I think the most important thing to do is to recognize the fundamentally different circumstances of pursuing growth.

Good innovators like to solve business crossword puzzles.