Hana Krskova, Yvonne Breyer
8 min
In an increasingly volatile global business environment, organizations face the urgent challenge of maintaining competitiveness through innovation. While previous research has extensively explored concepts such as growth mindset, discipline, flow, and creativity in isolation, the authors identify a gap in understanding how these elements interact to support the innovation process. This paper addresses that gap by introducing the M.D.F.C. Innovation Model, providing a unified framework designed to help leaders, managers, and educators foster innovative capacity in themselves and others.
The M.D.F.C. model consists of four teachable input factors that function in an iterative, circular loop to produce innovation:
The authors argue that these elements are not merely separate traits but are interconnected. For example, a growth mindset encourages the persistence required for disciplined practice, which in turn facilitates the state of flow, ultimately fueling the creative process that generates innovation.
The authors propose that the M.D.F.C. model offers significant value for educators and industry leaders. By embedding these teachable skills into curricula and corporate training programs, institutions can better equip individuals to address ill-defined problems and respond to rapid change. Future research is required to empirically test the model and explore potential variations across cultures, industries, and demographics.
In times of change, such as during periods wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, organisations must innovate, as otherwise, they will perish. The only acceptable way forward now is about exploring avenues for increasing innovation in order for businesses to survive. The purpose of our paper is to put forward a conceptual model of factors with the potential to positively influence innovations to assist aspiring leaders and managers in addressing challenges in the future when uncertainty may be the norm rather than the exception. The authors introduce a novel M.D.F.C. Innovation Model, comprising the concepts of a growth mindset (M) and flow (F) as well as the skills of discipline (D) and creativity (C). While the elements of the new M.D.F.C. conceptual model of innovation - as separate areas of study - have been extensively researched in past studies, the authors have combined them into one model for the first time. The opportunities stemming from the proposed new model are numerous, with the implications for educators, industry and theory discussed. Developing the teachable skills outlined in the model can bring benefits for both educational institutions and employers, as more employees could be equipped to look forward, be innovative and bring new, creative solutions to ill-defined problems. The model is equally suitable for individuals wishing to embrace thinking outside of the box to reap the benefits of enhancing their capacity for innovation in all aspects of their lives.
Sam: Walk us through the mechanism. What gets the process started?
Alex: A growth mindset: believing that abilities can develop through learning and effort. In this model, that means willingness to try unfamiliar approaches, including approaches that might fail. The contrast is a fixed mindset, where protecting the appearance of ability can discourage difficult tasks.
Sam: Willingness doesn’t necessarily produce sustained work, though. Is discipline supposed to bridge that gap?
Alex: That’s the proposed connection. Discipline means managing attention, effort, structure, and time, rather than simply obeying rules. The authors describe removing distractions and maintaining focus. Their higher-education literature also treats responsibility and intention as parts of discipline.
Sam: Discipline can sound opposed to creativity: structure on one side, freedom on the other. How does their argument handle that tension?
Alex: They treat it as a productive combination. Creative work can involve playfulness, but developing an initial possibility into something complete requires persistence. The paper draws on accounts of creativity that put discipline at the centre, not outside the creative process.
Sam: Can you make that connection concrete without turning it into an abstract chain?
Alex: One example in the document is piano practice. Repetitive practice can feel dull, and discipline helps sustain attention long enough to progress into flow. Flow means deep absorption in a task, sometimes with a loss of the sense of time.
Sam: But enduring a dull task isn’t automatically flow. What conditions does the paper say make that state more likely?
Alex: Clear goals, concentrated attention, and immediate feedback all help. The challenge also needs to match the person’s skills closely: demanding, but achievable. The authors connect that balance to continued learning, because maintaining it can require developing skills and seeking harder challenges.
Sam: So the proposed role of discipline is to support engagement, not to make every tightly scheduled task creative.
Alex: Yes. The argument is that disciplined focus can help create conditions for flow, which the literature links to creativity. It isn’t evidence that imposing more structure always produces better ideas.
Sam: The model’s letters sound like a sequence. Does it really run from mindset through discipline and flow to creativity?
Alex: That’s how the authors first introduce it, but they explicitly say the process is not linear. Creative ideas may reinforce confidence in learning. That can encourage further effort and another search for absorbing challenges. They propose a reinforcing loop, not just a set of steps.
Sam: That makes the theory richer, but also harder to establish. What evidence do they offer beyond a plausible story?
Alex: They cite studies supporting particular relationships. One involved about twenty-three hundred managers, comparing growth-minded managers with fixed-minded colleagues. The cited study reported greater leadership among the growth-minded group. That supports a workplace connection, but it doesn’t test this innovation model.
Sam: And leadership isn’t the same outcome as implemented innovation. Does the evidence for flow get closer to the proposed mechanism?
Alex: One cited study involved 178 Dutch music teachers. It also included 605 music school students. It found a link between teachers’ and students’ flow experiences, which the researchers examined as a possible crossover between them.
Sam: That suggests the learning environment could matter, but it doesn’t show that training discipline caused flow or innovation.
Alex: Correct. The paper also draws on a review of 177 articles about growth mindset in human resource development. That provides breadth around one component. None of these examples establishes that the complete package outperforms its individual parts.
Sam: So the amount of supporting literature shouldn’t be mistaken for a measured benefit from the combined framework.
Alex: That’s my reading. This article uses no new data, and the authors explicitly say it is not a systematic review. It offers a theoretically motivated synthesis. It cannot tell us how much innovation would improve after adopting the model.
Sam: What would educators or employers actually do differently if they took the proposal seriously?
Alex: The authors recommend teaching inquiry: asking questions that uncover problems and opportunities. They suggest embedding the model in education and corporate development, rather than treating creativity as a rare gift. At work, they advocate supporting learning, improving focus, and restructuring tasks to make flow more likely.
Sam: That could be useful as a training framework. But how much of organisational innovation can a model of individual capabilities cover?
Alex: The authors acknowledge that innovation has many possible influences, while this model selects only these inputs. They also describe innovation as a team sport, because no individual holds all the necessary knowledge. So I’d treat it as a partial framework, not a complete account.
Sam: What research would most directly move it beyond that status?
Alex: Empirical tests of the combined model come first in their research agenda. They also propose examining differences across cultures, career stages, and industries. Structured instruction in schools is another suggested test, alongside possible contributions to sustainability-related innovation.
Sam: Who should read the full document, and where should they start?
Alex: Researchers in innovation, management education, or workforce development. Start with “Interactions between the elements” to examine the proposed connections. Then read “Directions for future research” before treating the educational or workplace recommendations as established practice.
Sam: And what should everyone else carry away?
Alex: The useful shift is to consider these capabilities together, rather than expecting creativity to work alone. But a plausible connection is not yet a demonstrated intervention. Remember this: innovation may be teachable, but this particular recipe still needs testing.
Sam: Thanks for listening.