Do you know your unique Innovation Style? If you want to jump right into finding out, take our free diagnostic assessment here. It takes about two minutes.
If you want to learn more about what it is and why it matters, keep reading.
Every leader and organization has a distinct innovation fingerprint: a unique combination of how strategy is set, resources are allocated, decisions are made, and people are managed. At Platypus Labs, we call this your “Innovation Style,” and we built a diagnostic assessment to help you discover yours.
The Innovation Style Finder places you into one of 16 innovation archetypes across four key dimensions: strategy, implementation, resource allocation, and people. Each archetype captures a set of signature traits, problem-solving tendencies, decision-making patterns, and watch-outs.
The archetypes are represented by characters, like:
The Maverick, who charts their own path with infectious confidence, moving at startup speed and rallying talent with bold vision. The watch-out? That swagger can tempt you to overpromise timelines or tack on “just one more feature” without concrete milestones to keep things grounded.
The Scientist, a meticulous experimenter driven by discovery, producing high-caliber outputs and viewing failed experiments as valuable data points. The watch-out? The pursuit of perfection can delay shipping indefinitely, and the “boring bits” of operations tend to get ignored in favor of the next fascinating experiment.
The Cowboy, an unapologetic outsider, operating on its own terms with fierce independence and a MacGyver mindset. The watch-out? That self-reliance can quietly become isolation, and a reluctance to change with the times leaves you vulnerable when the market shifts underneath you.
Every archetype has its own version of this dynamic: a core strength that, left unchecked, becomes the very thing holding the organization back.
We’ve worked with hundreds of organizations on innovation, and the pattern we see over and over is teams full of smart, motivated people who are somehow pulling in opposite directions. Projects splinter, resources scatter, momentum flatlines.
The Innovation Style Finder is designed to surface those hidden assumptions and give your leadership team a shared language to move forward together.
Take the assessment and find out where you land. It might just change how your team tackles its next big challenge.
To your creative success…
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