Are you one that believes that innovation and creativity can be learned? We are among that group. We also believe in suggestions to boost innovation for business opportunities through effective collaboration. Through a series of sparks and not a single flash of insight.
Collaboration drives innovation because ideas
always emerge from a series of sparks – never a single flash of insight.
Are you an innovative person? Problem-solver? Learner? All of the above? We consider ourselves in the group of all of the above.
Our continuous goal? Obtaining the best innovation. And at the top of our focus areas? Studying and understanding the problem at hand.
Albert Einstein once
said that if he had an hour to solve a problem, he’d spend 55 minutes thinking
about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions. That is our way of
thinking. But not most people.
Creativity and innovation don’t often happen in a vacuum. As the author Steve Johnson says, chance favors the connected mind. When people are together, talking, laughing, thinking, exploring — they’re going to throw out ideas.
As Robert Weisberg pointed out in his excellent book, Creativity: The Myth of Genius, great creative thinking arises out of rather ordinary thought processes. Genius is, of course, helpful, but not essential and many of those that are considered geniuses have fairly normal IQs.
So the secret to unlocking creativity is not grabbing for wild ideas or waiting for divine inspiration, but through knowing your field, defining good problems, taking useful ideas from separate domains, and tenaciously seeking out effective solutions. That’s within the reach of all of us.
Creativity comes from combining ordinary things in extraordinary ways.
These ideas trigger something in someone else’s mind, and it snowballs. Before long, this group of folks has developed an innovative solution that wouldn’t have been possible without the collective collaboration.
Don’t fall prey to the myth that only some people are innovative and you’re people are not of the chosen few. We are all innovative; it’s just a matter of figuring out in what way.
So find things you’re curious about and are interesting to you, use your imagination a little, stay motivated and work at it, and surround yourself with others who are doing the same. The best way to avoid those nasty silos.
Nobody likes a silo. Or a stovepipe for that matter. These insular structures restrict the flow of information, which makes it hard to coordinate action and adapt to change. In some cases, it can even lead to disastrous consequences like the General Motors ignition switch scandal. So it should be no surprise that managers try to break down silos whenever they can.
The problem is that when you reorganize to break down one kind of silo, you inevitably create others. If, for example, your company is organized around functional groups, then you will get poor collaboration around products. But when you reorganize to focus on product groups, you get the same problem within functions. The answer is to not try to eliminate silos, which are inevitable and often have important benefits but to connect them effectively. Yet that’s easier said than done.
How do you and your team boost innovation? Here are 10 suggestions to improve your ability to exercise ideation within your team:
Encourage risk-taking
Zappos as a company is known as much for its culture as for its innovative business model. The company has built a business that is growing rapidly by allowing individuals the freedom to take creative risks without that overwhelming sense of fear or judgment.
They tell their employees to say what you think, even if it is controversial. Make tough decisions without agonizing excessively. Take smart risks. Question actions inconsistent with our values.
Another interesting example: A software company in Boston gives each team member two “corporate get-out-of-jail-free” cards each year. The cards allow the holder to take risks and suffer no repercussions for mistakes associated with them.
At annual reviews, leaders question their team members if the cards are not used. It is a great way to encourage risk-taking and experimentation. Think this company comes up with amazing ideas and innovations? Absolutely.
Be a detective
Be a detective.
Creatives and innovators always
have enquiring minds. Are you and the team asking enough questions to get
deeper and understand the problem as much as you can?
Make quiet time
Most ordinary days of the average worker includes an enormous amount of multitasking. Multitasking is, of course, is very destructive to the time and space of good innovative thinking. Set time aside for team members’ quiet time to stimulate and let the mind wander until ideas flow.
Challenge good
The phrases good
enough, this has always worked, and this is all the time we have to devote to
this problem, etc. are very destructive to team innovation. Avoid these at all
costs as they are enemy #1 to the best results.
Foster autonomy
We all prefer control over our environments. According to a 2008 study by Harvard University, there is a direct correlation between people who have the ability to call their own shots and the value of their creative output.
An employee who has to run every tiny detail by her boss for approval will quickly become numb to the innovative process.
The act of innovation is one of self-expression. Granting autonomy involves extending trust. By definition, your team may make decisions you would have made differently.
The key is to provide a clear message of what results you are looking for or what problem you want the team to solve. From there, you need to extend trust and let them do their best work.
Divergent thinking
Try the quantity
approach to new ideas. Use brainstorming to improve divergent thinking. Study
and then connect ideas to get new ideas.
Add play to the equation
When looking for
fresh new thinking to create more innovation, shake things up by adding some
fun and play to the process. It always has the ability to shed the stress and
pressure on a team
Explore new experiences
Open up your new idea
thinking. Do things in new and untried ways. Avoid the set ways of being
innovative.
Experiment
Try to experiment.
Do as much
experimentation as you can. Don’t worry about failures and allow the team to
question any and all assumptions and consider even the craziest ideas.
Always ask why
Here is a favorite
story that explains this technique quite well. 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 in 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. They nailed the understanding of the problem, so an
innovative but simple solution was much easier.
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.
The bottom line
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 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.
The truth is that innovation is never a single event. It requires the discovery of new insights, the engineering of solutions around those insights, and then the transformation of an industry or field. Technology does not produce progress by itself, we need to find important problems for it to solve and then must change how we work in order to take advantage of it.
So while smartphone apps are cool and add convenience to our lives, the real impact of digital technology lies in front of us, when second-order technologies are applied to completely new problems.
Remember to practice these problem-solving skills as well as asking lots of why questions to form new ideas.
All you get is what
you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and
apply new creative ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Try. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy improving your creativity, innovation, and ideas?
Do you have a lesson about
making your creativity 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 him on Twitter, and LinkedIn.
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