Think like a God

Think Like A God 

In his fabulous book “Rules for Revolutionaries” Guy Kawasaki outlines his manifesto for creating and marketing new products. Product innovation is the glamorous side of creativity – the bit everyone thinks of when they think of creativity and innovation in a business context.

However, Kawasaki’s rules apply just as effectively when used to innovate new management approaches, change internal processes and reinvent distribution channels.

In his first chapter, Create like a God, he explains what creative people do in order to generate their ideas. Typically it was believed that innovation happened either in a flash of inspiration or when individuals sat and considered a problem for a long time. But Kawasaki argues that it is “how” rather than “how long” people think that makes all the difference.

Step 1 is something we have looked at a lot in these newsletters – identifying and then dumping the conventions and assumptions that lie within your field of expertise. Every industry has these – “It’s the way things are done around here”. As soon as you identify what they are in your industry or company you can start to call them in to question.

Step 2 he calls “Prod”. Look at the obstacles which prevent you doing the best job possible.  Now try to remove these obstacles with a fresh solution.

Step 3 is Break the Rules. Look at how things are done now and see if you can break the rules to invent something new. The Grateful Dead encouraged fans to make bootleg recordings of their gigs. The Rule was “bootleg is bad”. They said “Bootlegs increase our fan-base, bring more people to the gigs and that results in more album sales”.

Step 4 is “Be Lucky” although there is a reason why some people are luckier than others. Be open minded to finding ideas where you weren’t looking for them and to finding solutions to problems you weren’t trying to resolve. When Teflon was invented it was intended originally as a refrigerant. When the lab looked at its qualities it realised the product could be used in other ways (initially to coat the noses of bombs and then on kitchen equipment).

Keep these four steps in mind next time you are called upon to be creative. Remember – creativity isn’t about how long you think about a problem, but how you think about a problem.