Why Creativity and Idea Generation matters!

We all know ideas are a dime a dozen, especially for those with creative entrepreneurial spirits. Just because you have an idea, doesn’t mean it’s going to be successful. But the next piece in the idea puzzle is rarely mentioned; no one talks about this, many forget this step. Ideas often start out with a theory and then carry out research to prove/disprove their theory. Filtering ideas in a productive, healthy way is to do some research, bounce the idea off your trust circle, let the idea sit on the table, breathe life into the idea and eventually reconfigure the theory to end up at a solid idea that can be built upon. This is why I value idea storming sessions with entrepreneurs, teammates and leaders. In short, ideas are solutions to problems and are important as they provide a creative spark. Opportunities, on the other hand can lead to a desirable and viable business. (If you want to me to walk you through these differences, DM me)

I’ve been very lucky to have worked with some very talented, successful, creative people. Our white board in the office was a magical place, we’d list ideas in black. The idea would stay on the board till someone picked up the green marker and added facts, data, experience.. or another idea. Magical! And when you work on a high performing team, the ideas are excellent.

A good idea is essentially a solution to a widely experienced problem or challenge, but if your vision is narrow you will miss the good ideas. Time and time again. Creativity is important to me, it is an intellectual resource, the ability to create new possibilities, new ideas and new conclusions, it is flexible and lively. Creativity is also a skill that cannot be automated or outsourced. It’s an exercise to be practiced daily. Effective creativity, the kind that also drives growth and business performance comes from working the challenge and having in place culture and practices that can foster sparks of insight and then shepherding the insights into tangible business outcome.

Creativity and idea production are not valued in many organizations. Folks prefer to avoiding creative thinking, people are able to simply get on with their job. Asking too many questions is likely to upset others. Many organizational practices reduce one’s scope of thinking and focus only on the narrow, but without reflecting on purpose or the wider context. For me this is where many organizations fail.

When someone tells me they have an idea, I immediately broaden my lens and consider the following:

1. What is the value in this idea?
2. How big can we grow this idea from our current place? What space can it move to?
3. How big do we want to grow this idea? How much energy will it take?
4. How many people will this idea affect?
5. Have I removed my bias? This can include implicit bias or affinity bias and a bunch of other bias’ we bring to our organizations and meetings.
6. Can I or we turn this idea into an opportunity?

I’m sure everyone remembers when Jobs showed a reporter a device in 2007, said person looked at the iPhone’s touch-screen keyboard and frowned. Jobs smiled and said: You will learn. And sure enough, here we are in 2020 … developers invented apps and interfaces and users learned how to rapidly type on touchscreens. Better versions are still being developed, problems are being fixed along the way and and new capabilities will likely never stop.

If you have an idea for a new technology or new product test it on the smartest most open minded people you know. Watch to see if the idea captures their imaginations, likely these are the folks have the gravitas, grit and vision to make big, long-term bets. They know how to transform an idea into an opportunity. If you do not have these folks in your trust circle. Network and find them!

Your extreme users are useful later. They likely embrace many weak forms or compromised versions of ideas and technology that seems more familiar, serious, and safe. Consider these your mainstream users.

Create a space for yourself to be creative, exercise your creativity often. Build creative exercises into your workflow for you to break away from the safety of tradition and create something different, something original. If your current organization does not allow that. Create your own space.

Weak technologies and ideas will always adapt to the world as it currently exists. Strong innovative and creative ideas and technologies adapt the world to themselves. Progress depends on creative ideas and innovative technologies. Innovation gains from a broader outlook though, an ability to see potential connections between different subfields, the capacity to question certain assumptions and to think differently.

Hope this helps to inspire you to keep generating creative wacky ideas. And if you have an crazy idea … I am always open to hearing it.