|
Succeeding
With Your Bright Ideas
by Robert B. Tucker
Everything you've accomplished in life began as an idea in
your mind. So how can you have more ideas? In my 15-year study
of business innovators in fields as diverse as software design,
advertising and banking, I have discovered that what separates
the people who stand out from those who don't is not superior
intelligence or superior education. Instead, it's the unique
way in which they work with their ideas.
Everybody has ideas. But innovators have a process for working
with their ideas that they can articulate.
Start the process of retooling your own idea factory by asking
yourself how well it has been manufacturing ideas lately.
Then use these eight guidelines to gear up your idea factory
again.
1. Give yourself periods of dream space.
With ever-increasing demands at work, most of us have considerably
less time for reflection and thinking. Decisions are made
hastily, without considering alternatives. Innovators avoid
this by giving themselves dream space.
Doug Greene, chairman and CEO of New Hope Communications,
a publisher of trade magazines in Colorado, has a standing
appointment each month to be alone. During what he calls "Doug
day," he plans a change-of-pace activity to allow him
to think through priorities, challenges, and the relationships
in his life.
2. Enhance your environment for maximum
creativity. Wayne Silby is cofounder of the Bethesda,
Maryland-based Calvert Group, a financial services company
that created the first social investment fund. Silby favors
floating in his isolation tank as a creative environment and
says many of his best ideas occur when he gets up at 4 a.m.
and begins work while listening to classical music.
3. Seek out idea-oriented people.
Innovators get a lot of their ideas from being around other
idea-oriented people such as friends, colleagues, co-workers,
and neighbors who are using ideas to fuel their own lives
and whose excitement inspires their own creativity.
Take a moment to consider the people you know who stimulate
your creativity. Plan to spend more time with these people.
If you're looking to meet more idea-oriented people, join
clubs and organizations in your field and community.
4. Audit your information intake.
What publications do you read? Is your information diet broad
enough? Lack of broad-based reading can hurt you. An effective
personal future-scan system must include broad-based reading
of high-quality material. Subscribe to a variety of publications,
even if you aren't able to read them all immediately. When
you're on a flight or have a block of unscheduled free time,
whittle away at the stack. Even if you only skim them, you'll
pick up a wealth of information, and you'll notice connections
and start seeing patterns of change emerge.
5. Focus on the source of ideas.
At a recent conference of architects, "Sources of Inspiration,"
attendees listed seeing other designs in magazines, serving
the complex needs of clients and users of the structure, enjoying
the process of creating the structure, and simply wanting
to create. Not too earth shattering, is it?
That leads to another misconception about innovators: their
ideas are completely original. In fact, innovators get ideas
the same way that everyone else does: Some they dream up,
and others they borrow. They take a little concept from here
and combine it with one they've found somewhere else. That
is not to suggest that you rip off someone else's idea and
represent them to the world as your own. Instead, the innovator's
talent is that he or she knows which ideas to borrow from
other fields.
6. Look for ideas by studying problems.
The late Bill Gore is perhaps best known for inventing Goretex,
the "breathable" but waterproof fabric. Gore used
to say his ideas came from studying problems. "I walk
through the plant and see a piece of equipment that's being
built in the shop," Gore said. "I inquire about
how it is designed. And I scratch my head and say, 'You know,
it would be so much better if it could be done this way instead
of that way.'"
Gore wouldn't have created a new invention if he hadn't walked
through the shop and saw the machine under construction. Look
around for parts of ideas you have yet to put together and
take advantage of ones that already exist. Ask yourself: how
could they be combined in new ways? What need could be met?
Where is the market, and who would use your idea?
You can learn the general skills by reading about how others
have solved problems in different situations and in other
fields. If you're a businessperson, read about problem solving
in genetic research. If you're an architect, read about problem
solving in fashion design. There are certain logical leaps,
steps, and processes that can apply to your ideas.
7. Devise a system to capture ideas.
"Ideas are like babies," Peter Drucker once wrote.
They're born small, immature, and shapeless. They are promise
rather than fulfillment. Particularly in their initial stages,
they are fragile. They have to be carefully fed, nurtured,
and protected." Innovators have perfected a process of
internal market research - trying their ideas out on people.
It helps the innovator discriminate between those ideas that
are "doable" and those that aren't. At some point
you have to be willing to put your idea out there to find
its strengths and weaknesses. In the initial stages, it is
important to protect the germ of an idea until you've really
examined it in your own thinking processes. Then test it on
some of your closest friends.
8. Invite skeptics to review your larger
ideas. While positive thinkers and possibility thinkers
are prone to like your idea no matter how far fetched, they
can actually lead you astray. They'll tell you that it's a
great idea regardless of the flaws. But when you seek out
skeptical thinkers, you're bound to get another perspective
on your idea.
Robert B. Tucker is president of The Innovation Resource,
a consulting firm specializing in strategic innovation. He
also is the author of Driving Growth Through Innovation: How
Leading Firms Are Transforming Their Futures (Berrett-Koehler
Publishing) and a frequent keynote speaker. He can be reached
at (805) 682-1012.
[ home
] [ profiles
] [ consulting
] [ keynotes
] [ products
] [ articles
] [ contact
]
|
