Generating lots of ideas works well for improvements, but it doesn’t help to spot new directions. If companies don’t change the lens through which they assess ideas, they won’t be able to identify the outsiders they should seek, know what questions to ask them, and recognize their most valuable input. As a result, they will tend to pick customers and other outsiders who support their current directions and dismiss ideas that lie off the beaten path…. In order to find and exploit the opportunities made possible by big changes in technology or society, we need to explicitly question existing assumptions about what is good or valuable and what is not—and then, through reflection, come up with a new lens to examine innovation ideas. Such questioning and reflection characterize the art of criticism.