Be original

Be Original

Most companies want to be more creative, more innovative, more imaginative. They realise that within their organisation are hundreds of fascinating, ground-breaking, shocking, unworkable, revolutionary, conservative, mundane, challenging, insightful and money-making ideas. If only they could harvest them, sort the wheat from the chaff and use these ideas to turn their organisation in to the leader in its field.

So what stops them? Here’s just a shortlist:

1. What if there are too many ideas and we can’t cope with the sheer quantity?
2. What if the ideas are cutting edge but unworkable?
3. What if the whole process of accessing these ideas and implementing the best ones leaves us out of pocket?
4. What if staff get the idea that they can influence policy, products, ways of working…Will we have unleashed a monster?
5. What if we find out something we would rather not know?
6. What if we invest in a creativity project only to discover that the way we do things now was the best way all along?
7. What if the ideas are rubbish?
8. What if we don’t know where to start?
9. What if the ideas threaten our position? What if the ideas make me dispensable?
10. What if we come up with a great idea only to find someone else came up with it first?
11. Don’t we have to fix our current, pressing problems first before we can start thinking about new ideas?
12. We’re already doing this really well. Why do we need to look at this again?

I could go on.

And I can tell you from personal experience, having recently added a new dimension to my business after a long creative thinking process, that it is scary. There are times when you wonder why you didn’t just keep things as they were. There are times when you worry you’ve opened a can of worms and you have no idea what to do next. And there’s the realisation that, having embarked on the road towards transforming your business, it’s never actually finished. You’ll always be tweaking and refining and discarding as your needs, the industry’s needs and the needs of clients change.

I’m not making it sound very attractive am I? In the coming weeks and month’s I will be addressing these inhibitors to creative thinking and sharing tips about how to become more creative as an individual, as a team and as an organisation. Creativity and the ability to think big, think differently, think futuristically is becoming a prized commodity in business. Those that demonstrate they can do this will be fast-tracked to positions of leadership.

Why? Because it’s the next “business revolution”.

Every generation has its business revolution and those that refuse to take part get left behind.

Take the various technology revolutions – the spinning Jenny, the printing press, the personal computer – they all transformed the way business worked. Those that predicted the changes or adapted quickly could survive. Those that refused to admit times were changing were all but destroyed. (A few survived by making a feature of their “old-fashioned way of doing things”. These were the exception).

We had the service revolution – companies realised that they could no longer compete just on price, they had to offer “added value”. Those that didn’t could no longer attract or keep customers.

We had the loyalty card wars – retailers knew the value of repeat custom and devised a whole variety of offers to keep their customers tied to one company. Everyone got in on the act. They couldn’t afford not to.

So what’s next? Increasingly companies are recognising that what differentiates them now can’t just be service (everyone’s doing it), can’t just be price (margins are too tight), can’t just be technology (it moves too fast)…it has to be tapping the minds of their people. It will be “intellectual value” that differentiates one company from another in future. Customers will go where the fresh approaches are. We’re all “early adopters” now.

Many companies are already doing this – Nissan created its innovative design department back in 1979, revolutionising the way motor vehicles were incepted. SAS? Other?

So you won’t be the first. Just make sure you’re not the last!

Tips: Making ideas less “scary”

One factor that puts companies or individuals off exploring a wide range of ideas is fear of the implications. However, generating ideas doesn’t actually commit you to anything. You have choice and these choices range from doing nothing to transformation and even reinvention. Realising this (and explaining it to other people) will make the process of ideas creation less intimidating -

1. Ignore it – Sometimes, once you have stood back and considered alternatives to your current approach you decide to do nothing. What you already do is the best option going forward. The exercise has still been useful – now you have complete confidence that your decisions are still valid, still stand scrutiny and still take you where you want to go.

2. Tweak – Sometimes the only action you’ll need to take as the result of thinking creatively about a problem is to adjust what you do now. This might mean developing a process you currently use and taking it to the next level or making a few minor adjustments so it works a bit better. Incremental upgrades like this can give your team or business the edge.

3. Evolve – Sometimes an idea generated through creative thinking highlights the natural evolution of something you already do. As my executive coaching evolved I realised that I was actually doing more than coaching on occasion. I named it “Creative Thinking Partnership” and made the distinction clear in my own mind and in the minds of clients. It wasn’t intentional. It happened. I noticed it was happening and I became transparent about this evolution.

4. Revolutionise – Some ideas will have significant impact if implemented. There will be radical, dramatic change. As we’ve seen this isn’t the only outcome of creative thinking but it is always a possibility.

5. Start again – Finally, a creative thinking process can expose fundamental flaws that go to the heart of what you do currently. Even revolutionizing isn’t enough. All the evidence is telling you to cut your losses and start again with a new, properly conceived idea.

When starting a creative thinking process you can specify the parameters e.g. “We’re looking for ideas for upgrading what we do incrementally” or “We want to be radical. What’s the most outlandish suggestion you can think of?”

You can classify ideas according to the categories above – those that involve doing nothing up to those that mean starting from scratch.

You can use the categories to persuade cautious people in your team or organisation to participate in thinking creatively. You can assure them that participation does not mean commitment to radical change.