We are really simple creatures.
As I listened to a successful business leader of innovation I was dumbfounded at how even one of the most advanced organisations can use just a few different techniques and suddenly they’re classed as ‘innovative’. I have great respect for de Bono popularising creativity and expressing a few useful tools. And it is probably because of this that an organisation just selecting the first thing that occurs to them happens.
Perhaps it’s an explanation of why McDonalds does so well: Don’t give your customers too much choice!
Even if you felt called to use de Bono’s suite of techniques, ignoring the fact that none are validated (and that many other schools of thought exist), I remain bemused that a ‘leader’ of innovation would just choose the first technique that comes to hand. Not that the techniques themselves are poor in themselves – but surely an innovator would be called to look beyond the obvious?
If you want to use de Bono, go beyond the 6 Hats – they’re great, but they’re just the beginning. A scientist should explore water logic, action shoes, ToLoPoSoGo and a bunch of ideas outlined in Serious Creativity… AND look to other sources of thinking on creativity.
We set our standards so low… even people who innovate often end up just innovating enough. With the rise of Asia in an era of abundance and outsourcing, the only way that the developed world can continue to demand the sort of quality of life that it has grown accustomed to is through lifting up the value chain. We don’t get that by digging deeper holes: We get that by freeing our minds…
Take off the handbrake, unleash the throttle and explore the things that you’ve never thought possible… That is the path to genius.
Daniel Smith
Here’s the 100 word summary of a training presentation that I made…
Transform creativity into innovation by organizing your ideas. Whether you’re in a meeting, brainstorming or thinking on your own, convert your ideas into action by identifying it as one of three things:
- An outcome or action for your task list,
- Filed for periodic review, or
- Filed for reference.
Once you have actions on your task list, delegate them to the right person for the job. When you focus on what’s most important and do what you’re best at, you might start to notice yourself showing your talent – and even genius – being revealed.
Daniel Smith
Marissa Mayer (VP at Google) looked at the best decisions that she’d ever made and came up with two commonalities:
- She works really hard – big projects are an exciting challenge.
- She surrounded herself with really smart people. That’s the best place to learn and grow – as a result, she ended up as Craig Silverstein’s assistant for her first two years because he’s one of the smartest people she’s ever met!
- She believes in doing something that you’re a little not ready to do… that’s where you really explore and find your limits.
It seems to be working for her…
I like her nine notions of innovation too…
- Ideas come from everywhere
Google expects everyone to innovate, even the finance team.
- Share everything you can
Every idea, every project, every deadline – it’s all accessible to everyone on the intranet
- You’re brilliant, we’re hiring
Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin approve hires. They favor intelligence over experience
- A license to pursue dreams
Employees get a “free” day a week. Half of new launches come from this “20% time”
- Innovation, not instant perfection
Google launches early and often in small beta tests, before releasing new features widely
- Don’t politic, use data
Mayer discourages the use of “I like” in meetings, pushing staffers to use metrics
- Creativity loves restraint
Give people a vision, rules about how to get there, and deadlines
- Worry about usage and users, not money
Provide something simple to use and easy to love. The money will follow.
- Don’t kill projects — morph them
There’s always a kernel of something good that can be salvaged
I love her style… especially as captain of the pom pom squad and debate teams!
Daniel Smith
Innovation is cool. Everything that we see around us were once a figment of some freak’s imagination… a figment that, over time, became a spark, which lit a fire which drove an engine that made things change. To me, that process of innovation is fascinating!
One of the most challenging parts of innovation – and one of the things that makes it so fascinating – is the complexity. It’s not like we can wake up some morning and decide to have a Nobel Prize winning breakthrough innovation – the disruptive innovations that really make a difference usually come from unexpected places and not as a result of ‘hard work’.
It was interesting to see that 3M – the guys that came up with the Post-It note amongst a heap of other stuff – are running through that dilemma. A few years ago, they brought in a CEO who made them really efficient – using GE’s famous Six Sigma program – but who arguably drained out the culture and capabilities that yielded the innovation that made 3M the poster-child creative companies.
Read more about it here.
Daniel Smith
Changing things is great, though it’s important to keep making progress. And when you’re trying to do something amazing all the time, you have to make sure that you have spare time… otherwise, you’ll end up being late for everything a lot of the time. Back in the 1930s, Felix Pollaczek said this: “high capacity utilization and high variability in task-completion times can combine to create severe delays.”
So if you are committed to getting things done, keep focused on tasks whose duration you can maintain good control; if you are looking to do something amazing, don’t work too hard.
Then again, you could take a leaf out of Tim Ferris‘ book and just work for four hours a week… if you can eliminate time wasting habits, put your cashflow onto autopilot by outsourcing everything that you can, and keeping mobile by moving from place to place in a series of mini-retirements (ie work hard, play hard). I like his style…
I do love how there are so many ways to express the same thing. “Behonce’s Action Method” strikes me as being just a fragment of David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) approach, though it’s still a nice way of expressing the sentiment. I like to think that I come up with the odd novel thought from time to time… though maybe I ought be satisfied with just coming up with my way of expressing something. Yet I really do love their Action Pads and how they’ve created a product from their service experience!
Daniel Smith
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