There is a question that sits at the heart of innovation research and rarely gets a satisfying answer: can you actually teach someone to be more innovative? Not in the sense of giving them a process to follow, but in the deeper sense of changing how they think, how they respond to problems, and how they work with other people under pressure.
For a long time, the honest answer was “we think so, but we are not sure.” There was plenty of theory. There were promising case studies. But there was a lack of rigorous, longitudinal evidence showing that specific skills could be developed in measurable ways and that those changes would hold over time.
That has changed. Over the past decade, a body of research led by Prof. Jeanne Liedtka at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business has produced some of the clearest evidence we have about what it actually takes to build innovation capability in individuals and teams. The findings are both encouraging and challenging, because they confirm that these skills are learnable but they also reveal that most organisations are going about it the wrong way.
What the research says
The core of Liedtka’s research programme has focused on design thinking as a methodology for innovation. But the findings go well beyond any single methodology. What her team has uncovered is a set of underlying human capabilities that drive innovative behaviour, regardless of the specific process or framework someone uses.
The research identifies five clusters of skills that consistently show up in people and teams who innovate effectively.
Opportunity seeking. The ability to look beyond obvious solutions, explore broadly before narrowing, and resist the pull of premature commitment to a single idea. People who are strong in this area stay curious longer and search more widely before deciding.
Relationship skills. The ability to collaborate genuinely, build on the ideas of others, listen to understand rather than to respond, and work productively with people who see the world differently. This is not about being agreeable. It is about being genuinely open to perspectives that challenge your own.
Presencing skills. The ability to be fully present in a conversation or experience, to pick up on what is not being said as well as what is, and to make abstract concepts feel real and tangible for others. This cluster is less familiar in most organisations, but the research suggests it plays a critical role in empathy, sense making, and communication.
Reflection skills. The ability to step back, examine your own assumptions, learn from experience, and adjust your approach based on what you are discovering. Reflection is the skill that allows all the others to improve over time. Without it, people keep repeating the same patterns.
Scientific reasoning skills. The ability to treat ideas as hypotheses rather than conclusions, design experiments to test them, and respond to evidence even when it contradicts your expectations. This is not about being a scientist. It is about bringing a rigorous, honest approach to uncertainty.
What makes this framework different from many competency models is that it is grounded in observed behaviour, not aspirational descriptions. The research did not start with a theory of what good innovators should be like. It started by studying what effective innovators actually do, across a wide range of industries, roles, and contexts.
What this means in practice
The most important practical finding from this research is that these five skill clusters are not fixed traits. They are behaviours that can be developed through structured practice.
This is a bigger deal than it sounds. Many organisations treat innovation capability as something you either have or you do not. They hire for it, or they identify “high potentials” who seem naturally good at it, and they invest heavily in those individuals. The research challenges this assumption directly. It shows that people at all levels and across all backgrounds can develop these capabilities, given the right conditions.
The right conditions, according to the research, include three things.
First, people need to see where they currently stand. Self awareness is the starting point. A validated assessment that reveals how someone currently approaches opportunity seeking, collaboration, reflection, and the other clusters creates a foundation for targeted development. Without this, people tend to overestimate their strengths and underestimate their gaps.
Second, development needs to be sustained. The research consistently shows that one off interventions have limited lasting impact. The programmes that produce measurable, durable change are the ones that extend over weeks and months, with regular practice opportunities woven into daily work.
Third, the learning needs to be experiential, not just conceptual. Understanding a framework is not the same as being able to use it. People develop these skills by practising them in real situations: reframing a real problem, running a real experiment, having a real conversation where they have to listen beyond their own perspective.
Why this matters now
These findings have always been relevant, but two things make them especially urgent right now.
The first is AI. As artificial intelligence handles more of the analytical, pattern matching, and content generation work that used to require human effort, the skills that remain distinctly human become more valuable. The five clusters in this research, opportunity seeking, relationship building, presencing, reflection, and scientific reasoning, are precisely the capabilities that AI cannot replicate. They involve judgement, empathy, self awareness, and the ability to navigate genuinely novel situations where there is no training data to draw on.
The second is the pace of change. Organisations are facing challenges that are more complex, more ambiguous, and more interconnected than anything they have dealt with before. The old playbooks are not working. What is needed is the ability to learn quickly, experiment confidently, and collaborate across boundaries. That is exactly what these skills enable.
Common misreadings
As this research has gained attention, a few misinterpretations have become common. They are worth addressing because they can lead organisations down unproductive paths.
“This is just about design thinking.” It is not. Design thinking is one methodology that draws on these skills, and it was the starting context for much of the research. But the five skill clusters themselves are methodology agnostic. They apply whether your organisation uses design thinking, agile, lean, or no formal innovation process at all. The skills are about how people think and work together, not about which framework is on the wall.
“You just need the right people.” The research directly contradicts this. It shows that these capabilities are distributed across populations and can be developed in virtually anyone with the right support. Building your innovation strategy around hiring a few “creative types” is both limiting and unnecessary.
“A workshop will do it.” It will not, at least not on its own. Workshops can be excellent starting points. They create energy, introduce new language, and shift perspectives. But without sustained follow up, the impact fades. The research is very clear on this: lasting capability change requires weeks to months of regular practice, not a single intensive session.
“These skills are too soft to measure.” They are not. One of the contributions of this research programme is the development of validated assessment instruments that measure these capabilities with the same rigour applied to any other organisational metric. The skills can be assessed before and after development, producing quantitative evidence of change.
Practical implications
If you are responsible for developing people or building capability in your organisation, the research points to several concrete actions.
For L&D teams: Start using assessment as the foundation of your programmes, not as an afterthought. Design for sustained development, not events. Focus on a small number of specific behaviours rather than trying to develop everything at once. And measure behavioural change, not just participant satisfaction.
For leaders: Model the skills you want your teams to develop. If you want people to be more reflective, be visibly reflective yourself. If you want people to test their assumptions, show them what it looks like when you test yours. Culture change starts with what leaders actually do, not with what they say they value.
For educators: Embed these skills into your existing curriculum rather than treating them as a separate module. Use the discipline specific work students are already doing as the context for developing broader capabilities. Give students language and evidence for their own development, so they can articulate these skills to future employers.
For individuals: You do not need to wait for your organisation to start a programme. Begin with self awareness. Notice how you respond when a problem is ambiguous. Pay attention to whether you listen to understand or listen to respond. Experiment with reframing a challenge before jumping to a solution. These small shifts, practised consistently, compound over time.
Limits and nuance
No research programme is without limitations, and it is worth being honest about what this body of work does and does not tell us.
Much of the research has been conducted in Western organisational and educational contexts. The skill clusters are likely to be relevant across cultures, but how they manifest and how they are best developed may vary in ways that the current evidence does not fully capture.
The research also focuses primarily on individual and team level capabilities. Organisational level factors, things like structure, incentives, governance, and strategy, play a significant role in whether innovation happens, and they are not fully addressed by a skills development approach alone. Developing individual capability is necessary but not sufficient. The system around people matters too.
Finally, the research shows that these skills can be developed, but it does not claim that development is easy or fast. Real behaviour change takes time, effort, and the right support. Quick fixes do not work. That is actually one of the most important findings: if someone is selling you rapid innovation transformation, be sceptical.
