Taking the NO Out of InNOvation 17 Taking the Out of InNOvation by Mike Brown a Brainzooming book
Transcript
a Brainzooming book Taking the Out of InNOvation by Mike Brown
Taking the NO Out of InNOvation 17
NO Out of InNOvation Taking the By Mike Brown Thank You Chuck
Dymer for sharing the possibilities of innovation Greg Reid for
introducing the impact of visionary thinking Jan Sokoloff Harness
for instigating creativity daily Cyndi, my wife, for reintroducing
me to the greatest creative force around 2008, Mike Brown Taking
the NO Out of InNOvation
Were told NO so many times in life dont break the rules, dont
make mistakes, dont express your opinion, dont do things youre not
good at, dont violate norms. While some NOs are valid and well-
intentioned, they can create a cumulative resistance to
experimenting, pushing boundaries, and openness to learning from
mistakes. Thats a problem when trying to be more innovative because
innovation springs from experiments, going outside traditional
boundaries, and often discovering what works by finding out what
doesnt. For those susceptible to being limited by this type of
thinking, becoming more innovative depends on developing
perspectives to enhance your innovativeness. Thankfully, these
perspectives can be developed by using specific innovation
techniques. Taking the NO Out of InNOvation 1
Taking the NO Out of InNOvation touches on eight perspectives
and approaches to enhance innovativeness in you and your team
through being: Introspective understanding your creative strengths
Diverse building a creative team with complementary strengths
Forgetful refreshing your perspective A Borrower putting a twist on
existing ideas Open to Possibilities finding new ways to look at
business and life situations Inquisitive collecting and using great
questions to see situations in new ways A Creator prioritizing
possibilities and getting started bringing them to fruition
Persistent tenaciously pursuing possibilities Taking the NO Out of
InNOvation 2
Introspective A first step in enhancing innovation is
understanding where youre most and least creative. Talents of
greatest interest and passion present the strongest opportunities
for creativity. Identify your distinctive talents those talents
closely associated with you where you continually improve, you use
them to benefit others, and Hidden Talents theres an electricity
when you engage in them that attracts people. Are there any of your
distinctive Use these questions to help identify your distinctive
talents: talents that are What things motivate me to get up every
morning? hidden ones? If so, figure out How am I of greatest
service to others? how you could better benefit What functions,
talents, & skills do I use (or have used) that provide others
by sharing the most fulfillment in my job, family relationships /
duties, spiritual these talents life, and personal interests /
hobbies? more frequently. How would I spend my time and attention
if I didnt have to work? Look for opportunities to broadly apply
distinctive talents in business and personal situations to increase
your sense of innovation. Areas that dont enliven you, and in fact
drain energy from you, are ones in which it is more difficult to be
creative. If you are looking for innovation in these areas, youll
need other ways to address them. Thats where diversity comes into
play. Taking the NO Out of InNOvation 3
Diverse Theres no single creative talent sufficient in and of
itself to spur innovation; creativity is expressed in so many
different dimensions. To bring your innovative perspective to life,
complement your own talents with a great creative team that
contributes various talents and points of view. Check to ensure you
have a full range of creative personalities among your informal
creative teams members. Its beneficial to have at least Employ both
left (analytical, one person on your team displaying each of these
characteristics: quantitative) and right (creative, intuitive)
brain thinking approaches within Artistic Diverse your creative
team to get Funny Quirky whole brain thinking. Inventive /
Mechanical Playful Stylish Spontaneous Adventurous Curious
Well-Read Pop-Cultured If theres a talent missing, identify a new
person for your creative team that expresses their innovative
approach in that manner. And if you dont have a creative team that
you can reach out to, start building it! Just remember first share
your talents with your team before tapping into theirs. Youll truly
love the impact that this creative exchange will have on your
ability to innovate! Taking the NO Out of InNOvation 4
Forgetful While experience and conventional wisdom provide
attractive guiding principles to help speed decision making, they
also sit between you and potentially wonderful new insights. To be
more innovative, you need to be able to selectively turn off
conventional wisdom and functional knowledge to allow new,
unconventional possibilities to emerge. How do you do that? Heres
some help. When you need an innovative approach to a common
situation, use a few brainstorming guidelines and a 3-step approach
to generate 100 new ideas. First the guidelines: Conventional
Wisdom is a little like the wrapping paper Keep it fast, furious,
and short dont spend hours looking at a on a present. It is
functional situation from one perspective. Break the time into 20
minute and may even be very segments, looking at a challenge from
several angles. attractive itself. But it stands between you and
Say what comes to mind dont self-censor or censor others when it
whatever cool new thing comes to new possibilities. Encourage wild
ideas. Emphasize youre being given. To get to quantity over
quality. Rule out critical evaluation at this stage. the great new
surprise inside, you have to first tear off the Say ideas aloud.
Write them all down on sticky notes so you can paper! work with
them later. Taking the NO Out of InNOvation 5
Forgetful 100 New Possibilities? Now the three exercises where
you can apply the guidelines: Exercise 1 Explore Connections: Ask,
Whats this situation like? Generalize your situation, select an
analogous one to it, and then apply attributes, lessons, and
possibilities from the analogous situation to your project. Set a
goal of 35 possibilities. + Exercise 2 Look Randomly: Select random
words, phrases, and images from a magazine and ask, What does this
word, phrase, or image suggest about possibilities for my
situation? Answer the question at least 35 times. Stuck for a good
magazine to use? Try Real Simple or any other big, picture-rich
magazine outside + your field of expertise. Exercise 3 Rewind &
Pair-up: Go back through your 70 new possibilities and start
pairing them up to generate at least 30 more of them. yields Pick:
With your 100 new possibilities there could be up to 20 new 100 New
Possibilities and ideas that you can select and innovatively apply
to your situation. Up to 20 Potential Ideas Beyond generating ideas
on your own, look at other sources from to Pursue! which to borrow
and improve upon ideas. Taking the NO Out of InNOvation 6
A Borrower In Hamlet, William Shakespeare wrote, Neither a
borrower nor a lender be. Sorry to break the news here, but he was
wrong. That's not good advice for being more innovative! When it
comes to innovation, its valuable to both borrow inspiration from
others (making sure that you modify and improve it) and to share
your ideas with others to see if they can enhance them in ways that
you couldnt. Here are four great ways to improve your borrowing
skills: 1. Read material outside your industry and expertise to
gain a fresh, new perspective. 2. Look for common things in other
industries that are foreign to your market. How can they be tweaked
and adapted for your business? 3. Go to a museum and look for ideas
you can adapt to business. (If you work in a museum, go to an
innovative business for ideas!) 4. Have someone completely
unfamiliar with your situation observe it. Ask, What works? What
doesnt work? What is surprising to you about this situation? What
would you recommend in this situation? Get out there and start
borrowing and lending your way to more great innovations. And dont
rule out possibilities that might at first appear unusual they
could be the best answers available! Taking the NO Out of
InNOvation 7
Open to Possibilities Its vital to become comfortable with
considering more possibilities than you could ever implement. That
includes embracing what you can learn from even apparently
unworkable ideas. These are building blocks to innovation an
impossible idea could be just the trigger to envisioning a very
possible reality. Actively cultivate your possibilities-generating
skills in these three ways: What if pigs Use proven techniques and
tools to bolster your innovation skills. COULD fly? Google
innovation creativity techniques brainstorming tools to look for
and test multiple techniques to stretch your thinking. Things you
think cant be changed didnt exist at some point in time. Ask: What
was that time like? If you were put back at that time, how might
you solve your challenge differently? Let someone completely
unusual solve your problem - maybe a famous person, a cartoon
character, or another business. How? Pick a character. List 10 ways
that they solve problems or similar situations to yours. Then for
each of the approaches, apply them to your challenge, generating at
least 3 new ideas for each one. Heres another Google search to do
Edward de Bono. Hes the father of lateral thinking and searching on
his name is a great starting point to check out thinking,
techniques, and books designed to dramatically expand the questions
you ask and possibilities you can imagine. Taking the NO Out of
InNOvation 8
Inquisitive Asking great questions helps eliminate many Nos
preventing innovation. Thought provoking questions allow people to
see things in new ways. Here are several to generate fresh looks at
familiar situations. Ask questions that place situations in more
extreme contexts, i.e. How could we make this as . . . Dramatic as
a Broadway opening? Cool as the design of Apple products? Exciting
as an overtime game? Simple as a babys rattle? Fun as a blockbuster
comedy movie? This question structure can be adapted, using
descriptors suited to your A key to solid strategic situation.
thinking is identifying what matters & addressing the Use these
questions to think innovatively about future threats: answers with
insight & innovation. What benefits does our company deliver?
If we didnt deliver them, who else currently would / could deliver
them? Here are questions to help identify what matters: What if our
company or industry never existed how would users satisfy their
needs? What does our brand stand for? Who are the niche players in
our markets today that could grow in What do we most want to
accomplish? prominence? How might they be defining our business for
us right How do we describe our now? best customers? Whats the
biggest These are just a few examples of innovation-prompting
questions. Test unknown in our business? these and others that
yield lots of possibilities for you to create. Taking the NO Out of
InNOvation 9
A Creator Something needs to result from innovation or its
simply an interesting mental exercise which is fine, but it makes
it difficult to pay the bills if it doesnt lead to results! If
youve generated a large number and broad range of possibilities,
its likely that up to 20% of them have real near-term potential. As
a result, its important to systematically prioritize and narrow the
list to those with the strongest potential. Heres one way to do it
Have each person on your team select ideas that they feel strongly
about pursuing. Use the formula below to approximate how many ideas
each person can choose for prioritization: Approximate Number of
Ideas in Total (5 * Number of Team Members Participating in
Prioritization) Then use a 4-box grid to allow individuals to place
their ideas relative to two dimensions: Potential Impact From
Minimal to Dramatic Implementation Ease From Easy to Difficult
Taking the NO Out of InNOvation 10
A Creator Before Discussion Typically, this initial idea
placement yields too many ideas judged to have dramatic impact
while being easy to implement. If true, these ideas are very
attractive! But often ideas will have less impact or may be more
difficult to implement than originally suspected. This is a great
opportunity to have group discussion on the initial placement of
possibilities. Be willing to move an idea if its clearly viewed by
the group as stronger or weaker than its original placement. The
result of this exercise should be a much more refined set of ideas,
with a good deal of input for selecting a few to further develop.
After Discussion From there, its important to get going and create
an artifact soon! This allows you to see how an idea might function
when developed. Ideally, you need to be persistent and learn
quickly what might and what might not work as you create real
change from your ideas. Taking the NO Out of InNOvation 11
Persistent Innovation is a numbers game. Youve have to be
resilient in generating lots of possibilities, narrowing the list,
and learning from every one of them. An important aspect of that
persistence is being able to embody the characteristics of
Brainzooming. Whats Brainzooming? Beyond just supporting
innovation, Brainzooming implies quickly helping a group
innovatively address important issues by: Being an energy source
using enthusiasm to spark excitement. Providing approbation
reinforcing people for sharing ideas, creating a verbal reward that
engenders more ideas. Drawing out non-participants suffering from
self- or group censorship going out of the way to solicit input
from reluctant group participants. Making connections listening to
what people suggest and tying together things the group might miss
in the throes of ideating. Through Brainzooming and being a
cheerleader for creativity and change, you can ensure that both you
and your team are at your innovative best! Taking the NO Out of
InNOvation 12
More Places to Explore There are lots of great sources on each
of the topics in Taking the NO Out of InNOvation. Here are starting
points for further reading on each of them: Introspective Radical
Careering 100 Truths to Jumpstart Your Job, Your Career, and Your
Life by Sally Hogshead, Gotham Books, ISBN: 1- 592-40150-3. Diverse
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, Pocket,
ISBN: 978-0671723651. Forgetful ?What If!: How to Start a Creative
Revolution at Work by Dave Allan, Matt Kingdon, Kris Murrin, and
Daz Rudkin, Capstone Publishing Limited, ISBN: 1-84112-068-5
(www.whatifinnovation.com/). A Borrower The Marketer's Visual
Toolkit by Terry Richey, AMACOM, ASIN: 0814402135 Open to
Possibilities The Art of Possibility Transforming Professional and
Personal Life by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander, Harvard
Business School Press, ISBN: 0-87584-770-6. Taking the NO Out of
InNOvation 13
More Places to Explore Inquisitive 75 Cage Rattling Questions
by Dick Whitney & Melissa Giovagnoli, McGraw-Hill, ISBN:
0070700192 A Creator Made to Stick by Chip Heath & Dan Heath,
Random House, ISBN-10: 1400064287. Persistent The Art of Innovation
by Tom Kelley with Jonathan Littman, Doubleday, ISBN:
0-385-49984-1. (http://www.ideo.com). And of course, visit
www.creativeinstigation.com your one stop for checking out my
BrainZooming blog with daily articles on strategy and innovation
and the Creative Instigation blog from Jan Harness, my creative
instigation partner, that features daily insights on creativity in
all its forms. Embracing the attitudes and the associated
approaches described in this e-book will help you to eliminate,
walk around, or blow up all the NOs that stand in the way of a more
innovative approach in business and in your personal life. Have a
blast innovating! Taking the NO Out of InNOvation 14
Mike Brown Mike Brown is a frequent keynote presenter and
facilitator in the areas of marketing best practices, innovation,
and strategic thinking. He shares his extensive experience in these
fields through daily strategy and innovation articles on his
website, BrainZooming.blogspot.com. Additionally, hes co-authoring
and illustrating an upcoming book titled Creative Instigation about
spurring creativity in yourself and your team. Mike is Vice
President Market Strategy for a Fortune 500 transportation &
logistics company based in the Kansas City area where he leads the
research, business intelligence, marketing communications, and
e-commerce efforts. His personal branding approach has been
highlighted in Fast Company magazine and his material has been
featured in publications for the Transportation Marketing &
Communications Association, Frost & Sullivan, and the Business
Marketing Association. Contact Mike [email protected].
Taking the NO Out of InNOvation 15
ACreativityPrayer Lord, Thank you for creation itself and the
incredible gifts and talents you so generously entrust to me. May I
appreciate and develop these talents, always recognizing that they
come from you and remain yours. Guide me in using them for the
benefit of everyone that I touch, so that they may be more aware of
your creative presence and develop the creativity entrusted to them
for the good of others. Help me also to use your talents to bring a
creative spark and new possibilities to your world, living out my
call to be an integral part of your creative force. Amen. 2008,
Mike Brown Taking the NO Out of InNOvation