The secret to problem-solving and creativity is curiosity. Generating ideas to find the best of the best. By generating ideas you start by asking lots of questions. By being curious. By thinking widely and not discarding ideas too soon. By convergent thinking.
We often forget to encourage our employees to be curious. An employee who has no perceived customer skills, or ability to communicate well or the inability to be a good team player gets immediate and escalating attention. The employee with no curiosity, on the other hand, is no problem at all. Lumps are easily managed.
The same thing is true for following instructions. We usually like employees who don’t ask a lot of questions and do not question the status quo.
Yet, without the question “why?” there can be no here’s how to make it better.
So we want to share a story to illustrate the value of why you need to ask why.
We are always on the lookout for good stories. Stories to illustrate points we are emphasizing. So we read a lot. Today’s story is about generating ideas. Ideas from convergent thinking.
The story is about why you should ask why. It comes from Ideas Champions. A consulting company like ours (but bigger and more well-known), specializes in creativity, innovation, team building, and leadership. All favorite topics of ours. So we keep up with this team.
The story is about a big problem at one of our favorite monuments – the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC.
Simply put, birds — in huge numbers — were pooping all over it, which made visiting the place a very unpleasant experience.
Attempts to remedy the situation caused even bigger problems since the harsh cleaning detergents being used were damaging the memorial.
Fortunately, some of the National Parks managers assigned to the case began asking WHY — as in “Why was the Jefferson Memorial so much more of a target for birds than any of the other memorials?”
A little bit of investigation revealed the following:
The birds were attracted to the Jefferson Memorial because of the abundance of spiders — a gourmet treat for birds.
The spiders were attracted to the Memorial because of the abundance of midges (insects) that were nesting there.
And the midges were attracted to the Memorial because of the light.
Midges, it turns out like to procreate in places where the light is just so — and because the lights were turned on, at the Jefferson Memorial, one hour before dark, it created the kind of mood lighting that midges went crazy for.
So there you have it: The midges were attracted to the light. The spiders were attracted to the midges. The birds were attracted to the spiders. And the National Parks workers, though not necessarily attracted to the bird poop, were attracted to getting paid — so they spent a lot of their time (and taxpayer money) cleaning the Memorial.
How did the situation resolve? Very simply.
After reviewing the curious chain of events that led up to the problem, the decision was made to wait until dark before turning the lights on at the Jefferson Memorial. About as simple a solution as you could get. Right?
That one-hour delay was enough to ruin the mood lighting for the midges, who then decided to have midge sex somewhere else.
No midges, no spiders. No spiders, no birds. No birds, no poop. No poop, no need to clean the Jefferson Memorial so often. Case closed.
Now, consider what “solutions” might have been forthcoming if those curious National Parks managers did not stop and asked WHY:
Hire more workers to clean the Memorial
Ask existing workers to work overtime
Experiment with different kinds of cleaning materials
Put bird poison all around the memorial
Hire hunters to shoot the birds
Encase the entire Jefferson Memorial in Plexiglas
Move the Memorial to another part of Washington
Close the site to the general public
Technically speaking, each of the above “solutions” was a possible approach — but at great cost, inconvenience, and with questionable results. Not great solutions.
Key takeaways
Now, think about YOUR business… YOUR life.
What problems are you facing that could be approached differently simply by asking WHY…. and then WHY again… and then WHY again … until you get to the real definition of the problem?
If you don’t, you may just end up not correctly defining the problem. Not good. Nothing worse than solving the wrong problem. So put in enough time to understand and define your problem. Don’t leap to problem-solving before you do. Lots of whys help us explore and thoroughly define the problem.
Remember to practice these problem-solving skills as well as ask lots of why questions to form new ideas.
Do you have problem-solving, creative learning experiences that are good at generating ideas? A story you would like to share?
Need some help in capturing more improvements for your staff’s teamwork, collaboration, and learning? Creative ideas in running or facilitating teamwork or continuous learning workshop?
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy continually improving your continuous learning?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on continuous learning from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Is Learning a Significant Teaching Product of our Schools?
Why Questioning is Critical to Learning and Problem Solving
10 Things Wrong with Today’s Education Curriculum
Embracing Change is Key to Improving Continuous Learning
The problem is never how to get new ideas into your mind, but how to eliminate the old ideas. What is the difference between a good idea and a great idea? Good ideas come along all the time and help people solve minor problems in work and daily life. Great ideas appear less frequently. Generating ideas like these require more work to execute.
Great ideas aren’t necessarily the result of highly-paid think tanks or drug-induced vision quests in the desert. Sometimes they are unexpected moments of inspiration that help keep the napkin companies in business.
Can you think of your last unexpected moment of inspiration? We’d love to hear it … please add it to comments below.
Related: The Secrets to Building an Innovative Culture
The big challenge of generating great ideas is freeing you from the conventional, mundane thoughts that occupy most of your brain time.
How do organizations come up with new ideas? And how do they use those ideas to create successful new products, services, businesses, and solutions?
To answer these questions, a team of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York spent time observing radical innovation projects such as IBM’s silicon-germanium devices, GE’s digital X-ray, and DuPont’s biodegradable plastics. Their key finding? Most of the ideas behind these projects came from “happy accidents” rather than some ongoing process to generate ideas.
In more than a few cases, individuals or small groups were simply “freelancing,” working on ideas on their own initiative rather than being directed by some “new venture” board or other idea management system.
Given these results, let’s examine 10 myths of generating new ideas:
Generating ideas … people love change
Myth
Many people believe everybody loves to change and be changed.
Fact
The simple fact is that there is a ton of people who resist any kind of change. They are very risk adverse and change makes them very uncomfortable.
How to generate innovative ideas … rewards
Myth
Many people believe that the best ideas come where the best incentive rewards are offered.
Fact
Daniel Pink discussed research in his book “Drive” where rewards were shown to have a modest effect on generating new ideas at best and negative effect in the worst situations. Pink demonstrated that with the complex and more creative style of 21stcentury jobs, traditional rewards can actually lead to less of what is wanted and more of what is not wanted.
Must have completely new?
Completely new
Myth
The belief is that most ideas are composed of totally new thoughts.
Fact
The simple fact is new ideas are built from the combining of older ideas. The novelty comes from the application of the idea or combination of idea and application, not the idea itself.
Activities to generate ideas … past experience and expertise
Myth
Team members often sit back in hope that the smartest or most experienced among them will come through. Smart is certainly important, as is experience, but the best ideas from those on the fringes of the subject area or an entirely different subject area expertise.
Fact
Those who continuously come up with the newest ideas are ones who are great at cultivating minds from different fields and are able to most efficiently connect the dots. Old lessons from a different field applied to the new field.
We can certainly find many examples of teams where cohesiveness abound.
Fact
But the simple fact is that conflict is equally as important as cohesiveness in generating ideas. Many companies build conflict into the ideation process for this reason.
The saying goes that if you have the best mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door.
Fact
This path is not the usual case, however. Often the best ideas are rejected initially. There are many examples … here are two good ones. Kodak invented the digital camera and never took it to market. Smith Corona built a superb word processor and yet decided to stay with the typewriter, its bread and butter.
Epiphany
Myth
Many assume that the best insights come to us in a flash of brilliance.
Fact
The best ideas typically require a time of incubation in our subconscious. We do best when we constantly shift from one task to another to allow our minds to do something different for our best idea germination.
In your genes
Myth
The best ideas come from the best combination of genes.
Fact
No evidence supports an “idea” gene or personality type. On the other hand, there is a wealth of evidence that shows there is potential inside of everyone. The best place to see this is in young children.
Best ideas always win
Myth
The cream always rises to the top. And the best ideas are like the cream.
Fact
But the simple fact is that the best ideas are not necessarily or readily recognized as the best. Most often, they never get to the winner’s circle.
The lone wolf
Myth
Most people tend to believe that the best ideas come from single, very smart individuals.
Fact
The truth is that most breakthrough ideas come from collaborative teams. For example, Thomas Edison had 15 other inventors working with him. Likewise, Michelangelo had 13 other painters helping paint the Sistine Chapel. The best teams are diverse and include both new and more experienced collaborators.
If you are looking for additional resources in creativity and innovation, one of my favorite experts is Gregg Fraley. You’ll find lots of good stories and examples to learn from in his blog.
Summary
As we change at a faster and faster pace, ideas adequate yesterday are no longer are good enough. And with digital disruption facing an increasing number of industries, most firms must come up with the best ideas for change or move to a slow failure. The myths of new ideas must be set aside to let the new idea facts take over.
So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you.
Do you have a lesson about making your learning better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
It’s up to you to keep improving your ability to learning to learn. Lessons are all around you. In many situations, your competitor may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.
It’s up to you to keep improving your continuous learning from all around in your environment.
Need some help in improving the innovation process for you and your staff? Innovative ideas to help the differentiation with your toughest competitors? Or maybe ways to innovate new products and services?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options for innovation workshops to get noticeable results.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new innovative ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Do you have a lesson about making your innovation learning better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on continuous learning from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
The secret to problem-solving, creativity, and idea generation is curiosity. You generate lots of ideas to find the best of the best. Using convergent thinking idea generation techniques you start by asking lots of questions. By being curious. By thinking widely and not discarding ideas too soon. By convergent thinking.
Idea generation.
It’s not that they can’t find the solution. They can’t find the problem.
We often forget to encourage our employees to be curious. An employee who has no perceived customer skills, or ability to communicate well or the inability to be a good team player gets immediate and escalating attention.
The employee with no curiosity, on the other hand, is no problem at all. Lumps are easily managed.
The same thing is true for following instructions. We usually like employees who don’t ask a lot of questions, and not question the status quo.
Yet, without the question “why?” there can be no here’s how to make it better.
Idea generation techniques.
So we want to share a story to illustrate the value of why you need to ask why.
We are always on the lookout for good stories. Stories to illustrate points we are emphasizing. So we read a lot. Today’s story is about generating ideas. Ideas from convergent thinking.
The story is about why you should ask why. It comes from Ideas Champions. A consulting company like us (but bigger and more well-known), who specialize in creativity, innovation, team building, and leadership. All favorite topics of ours. So we keep up with this team.
The story is about a big problem with one of our favorite monuments – the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC.
Simply put, birds — in huge numbers — were pooping all over it, which made visiting the place a very unpleasant experience.
Attempts to remedy the situation caused even bigger problems since the harsh cleaning detergents being used were damaging the memorial.
Fortunately, some of the National Parks managers assigned to the case began asking WHY — as in “Why was the Jefferson Memorial so much more of a target for birds than any of the other memorials?”
A little bit of investigation revealed the following:
The birds were attracted to the Jefferson Memorial because of the abundance of spiders — a gourmet treat for birds.
The spiders were attracted to the Memorial because of the abundance of midges (insects) that were nesting there.
And the midges were attracted to the Memorial because of the light.
Midges, it turns out, like to procreate in places where the light is just so — and because the lights were turned on, at the Jefferson Memorial, one hour before dark, it created the kind of mood lighting that midges went crazy for.
So there you have it: The midges were attracted to the light. The spiders were attracted to the midges. The birds were attracted to the spiders. And the National Parks workers, though not necessarily attracted to the bird poop, were attracted to getting paid — so they spent a lot of their time (and taxpayer money) cleaning the Memorial.
How did the situation resolve? Very simply.
After reviewing the curious chain of events that led up to the problem, the decision was made to wait until dark before turning the lights on at the Jefferson Memorial. About as simple a solution as you could get. Right?
That one-hour delay was enough to ruin the mood lighting for the midges, who then decided to have midge sex somewhere else.
No midges, no spiders. No spiders, no birds. No birds, no poop. No poop, no need to clean the Jefferson Memorial so often. Case closed.
Now, consider what “solutions” might have been forthcoming if those curious National Parks managers did not stop and ask WHY:
Hire more workers to clean the Memorial
Ask existing workers to work overtime
Experiment with different kinds of cleaning materials
Put bird poison all around the memorial
Hire hunters to shoot the birds
Encase the entire Jefferson Memorial in Plexiglas
Move the Memorial to another part of Washington
Close the site to the general public
Technically speaking, each of the above “solutions” was a possible approach — but at great cost, inconvenience, and with questionable results. Not great solutions.
Idea generation techniques … key takeaways
Now, think about YOUR business… YOUR life.
What problems are you facing that could be approached differently simply by asking WHY…. and then WHY again… and then WHY again … until you get to the real definition of the problem?
If you don’t, you may just end up not correctly defining the problem. Not good. Nothing worse than solving the wrong problem. So put in enough time in understanding and defining your problem. Don’t leap to problem-solving before you do. Lots of whys help us explore and thoroughly define the problem.
If you are looking for additional resources for innovation, one of my favorite experts is Tim Kastelle. You’ll find lots of good stories and examples tolearn from his blog.
Remember to practice these problem-solving skills as well as asking lots of why questions to form new ideas.
Do you have problem-solving, creative learning experiences that are good at generating ideas? A story you would like to share?
Need some help in capturing more improvements for your staff ’s teamwork, collaboration, and learning? Creative ideas in running or facilitating a teamwork or continuous learning workshop?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy continually improving your continuous learning?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on customer service from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Stunning Customer Service Lessons and Their Examples
10 Guarantees of Poor Customer Service
How to Build Trust to Keep Customers Returning
Best Buy Lessons in Customer Service
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
