Have you ever noticed a problem and thought, there must be a better way? Sometimes finding and implementing a solution seems daunting. But not to Josh Linkner, who showed during his keynote address on Monday many interesting examples of innovation that started with a small idea or a desire to find a better way to do something.

He calls it: Creating big, little breakthroughs.

From the Children’s hospital in Pittsburg that outfitted window washers with superhero costumes to cheer up young patients, to the highly successful, out-of-the-box resort-like design of a new suburban Henry Ford hospital, Linkner’s philosophy is that “Ingenuity is free, renewable, and limitless.”

The AORN Foundation-sponsored keynote speaker is the founder and CEO of five tech companies, a New York Times best-selling author, and a regular columnist for Forbes, the Detroit Free Press, and Inc. Magazine.

In his address, Linkner outlined five principles for innovation:

1. Start before you’re ready. Don’t wait for permission or a perfect game plan. You’ll need to pivot along the way.


2. Break it to fix it. At a time of rapid change disruption as we are in today, he said we owe it to ourselves, our patients, and our colleagues to carefully examine systems that appear to be working on the surface, deconstruct them and look for ways to improve them. Start with a blank page and give yourself permission to start new and discover what’s possible.


3. Fall in love with the problem, not with the solution. Study it from all angles. Remain committed to solving the problem.


4. Reach for weird. Take an unexpected approach, as the developers of a surgical tool called Stiff Flop did when searching for a way to make a tool that is sometimes rigid, but also flexible and can move around corners. They got the idea from a squid whose tentacles have that ability. He also encourages people to borrow an idea from another industry.


5. Fall seven times, stand eight. You’ve heard the saying “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” Same principle.

Ready to get started? Linkner offered Virtual Expo attendees access to an Innovation Tool Kit at this web address: www.biglittlebreakthroughs.com, with the code AORN. If you couldn’t catch Linkner’s session, the recording will be available in the on-demand library starting Aug. 10 through Sept. 24.