Generating InnovativeIdeasKeeping the InnovationPipeline FullKen Hudson

In ShortInnovation drives growth, profitability and sustainability. This book argues that the ability to innovate is the primary capability that every leader and business needs. But although most managers understand the importance of innovation, they don’t understand how to do it.

A useful way to think about innovation is to break it into two parts: the front-end (concept development) and the back-end (implementation). Contrary to prevailing logic, it is the front-end that poses the biggest challenge for managers. This is because the front-end tends to be fuzzy, chaotic and experimental, which is at odds with the largely rational, analytical processes taught at most business schools.

To overcome this hurdle, this chapter presents a four-stage system for generating front-end ideas.

building an individual and collective idea mindset1.

developing a shared understanding of a range of idea concepts2.

learning and applying a number of idea tools3.

embedding a number of idea practices.4.

This four-stage system will greatly improve your chances of developing breakthrough, business-building ideas.

The road mapEvery business started with an idea. Every new growth initiative will begin with an idea. Yet for most businesses, the generation of ideas, which is the lifeblood of their continued survival, is ignored or, at best, left to chance. My belief is that this situation is not sustainable.

In this book I will outline how you can greatly increase your chances of innovation success by adopting a more systematic approach to concept development. Why is this important? Because it is the front-end of the innovation process that for many managers causes the most difficulty.

From my experience, nearly all leaders in recent times have been schooled exclusively in a cost-cutting mindset.. As a result they have almost lost their ability to think in a more imaginative way. This will not be a problem if their operating environment does not change, but it presents a real dilemma if there is a new competitive threat, a shift in a consumer trend or if a new technology emerges.

It is not enough to tell managers that they need to be more innovative. They have to be given the right mindset, tools, concepts and practices to help them along their journey of imagination. For most managers this is an uncomfortable trip but it is a competency that every manager must possess. The good news is that concept development can be learned and enhanced, though for some it will not be easy. It requires effort, passion and commitment. Most of all, it requires leadership. Innovation cannot be delegated—it is far too important. The very growth of your brands, business and yourself depends on it.

My aim in this book is to provide practising managers with a road map to help them begin or enhance their innovative performance. Your competition can copy a single idea, but will find it very difficult to mimic a systematic, front-end idea capability.

The link between ideas, innovation and business growth Before discussing the dimensions of a front-end idea system it is important to discuss why it is important for your organisation. The winning organisations of the next ten years will be those that embrace innovation and build it as a core capability. Put another way, if you are not successful at innovation, your organisation will not be around in ten years.

I passionately believe innovation is vital because:

Innovation drives business growth1.

If you aren’t innovating your competitors are2.

If you don’t innovate, you compete on price only3.

If you don’t encourage ideas, your best talent will leave4.

Ideas, not innovation, drive success5.

Innovation requires imagination at the front end.6.

1. Innovation drives business growth

Ideas drive innovation and innovation drives business growth. Managers know this but they do not live it. They talk about how vital innovation is for success, yet find other more important things to do.

For many managers innovation is like a visit to the dentist, a necessary but often uncomfortable and, at times, painful process. It often takes a downturn in their business or a competitive threat for them to really engage in the process. For example, I talked to the CEO of a manufacturing business for six months, on and off, about the need for innovation and developing a range of different, new revenue streams, yet it was not until he lost a major Korean customer that he started to take it seriously. In the meantime, sales and profitability declined, retrenchments followed and

morale dropped. Now, said the CEO, let’s start innovating. Fortunately, we turned the ship around. But why did it have to come to this? Why ignore a skin blemish until it becomes a cancer?

If McDonalds, for example, can innovate, then any organisation can. McDonald’s business model is built around efficiencies and fixed processes. This model is the antithesis of the innovation process, which relies on trial and error, experimentation and breaking patterns. But somehow McDonald’s has found a way for both to profitably co-exist. The new Salad Plus initiative has led to an incremental business increase by offering customers a healthier alternative to their basic menu items.

2. If you aren’t innovating, your competitors are

Question: Who are your most dangerous competitors? Answer: Those who compete on imagination and passion.

Why does one of the world’s most established airlines, Qantas, worry incessantly about Virgin Blue, a relatively new entrant? It is because Richard Branson’s airline has captured the imagination of the flying public. Qantas also knows that it is slow to innovate (can you remember any great ideas emerging recently from Qantas?)

It is not only your direct competitors that you have to worry about. A few years ago the milk producers could not explain why consumption was decreasing. After examining their obvious competitors (for example, water, fruit juice and soft drink) they came to an amazing insight: the real competition was McDonalds. In the past ten years McDonalds has successfully changed the breakfast habits of thousands of people. What is the one thing that you do no eat at McDonalds? Breakfast cereal. No breakfast cereals—no milk. The milk producers simply had to think more innovatively about their competition.

3. If you don’t innovate, you compete on price only

Without a continuous flow of ideas you leave your business open to competitors, and consumers will become tired of your product. With no other way of deciding between different offerings, consumers will focus on price. If this happens, you will face increasing pressure to reduce your price, thus decreasing your profit margins. If the product does not sell, you will decrease your price further and create your own negative cycle. To break out of such a cycle, you need to continuously innovate and add value. The consumer will reward you with greater loyalty because of your efforts to deliver new and exciting solutions, even if the occasional one doesn’t work.

Consider the case of Blu-Tack, produced by Bostik. It was an exciting innovation; a product you could use at home or at work to stick things together or up on the wall. But recently, 3M have started to offer giant ‘Post-it® Notes’ at a premium price. So, all of a sudden, people who use large bits of paper (for example, in workshops) have the choice between an old-fashioned adhesive (Blu-Tack) and a quicker and easier, but more expensive, alternative. One player competes on price, the other on innovation (at a higher margin). Move over Blu-Tack.

4. If you don’t encourage ideas, your best talent will leave

The best and brightest will want to work in organisations where their ideas are encouraged and supported. Some of the hardest fought battles now and in the future will be those around trying to attract and retain talented staff. One of the best ways to do this is to build an organisation where individuals are encouraged and rewarded for ideas and initiative.

If an organisation provides no opportunities for people to create, evaluate and test their ideas than they will move to places that do. If leaders truly believe that their people are their greatest asset, then they must encourage the whole person—that includes their head, heart and imagination.

5. Ideas, not information, drive success

Information has become the new raw material. The magic is what managers do with this raw material. We all have to become modern day alchemists and learn the skills to transform information into ideas.

Insights are not enough; they also have to be transformed into workable concepts. This will require non-linear jumps. This chapter provides you with a four-stage system to help you make these imaginative leaps.

6. Innovation requires imagination at the front-end

A useful way to think about innovation is that it contains a front-end and a back-end.

The front-end is the idea and concept development stage.•

The back-end stage is concerned with planning, testing and rolling • out of any new product, service or process.

It has been my experience that most managers are very good at the back-end stage. They can plan, manage and drive through new initiatives. After all, that is what they are taught at business school. For the most part, the back-end requires a rational, logical approach, a great deal of perseverance and contingency planning.

Many managers who are skilled at the back-end process can also devise front-end ideas, but the trouble is that their ideas often lack imagination or creativity—they are not innovative. For example, a me-too idea at the front-end will still be a me-too idea at the back-end (albeit a more efficient one). Don’t believe me? Ask yourself (or your team) when was the last time the business had an original, surprising and engaging idea.

If something can be imagined, it can be built. The next section will provide you with a front-end ideas framework to stimulate your imagination. The rest is up to you.

Building a front-end system for creating new ideasIdeas are the true heroes of innovation. Of course, they need to be implemented with energy and commitment at the back-end. But a big idea can change your business (and life).

So don’t listen to the prevailing logic that implementation skills are the key to innovation. Organisations need managers who can actively search for, value and nurture a great idea; and who can thrive in the chaotic, ambiguous and fuzzy front-end of the process.

In the future, cost cutting and remaining efficient will be absolute necessities but they will not be enough. The organisations that will flourish will be those which can harness the rational, imaginative and emotional energies of all their employees. They will be able to innovate across all aspects of their business, all the time. Their aim will be to constantly surprise their customers and partners. ‘What a good idea’ will be the ultimate response. But it will require a new range of idea concepts, tools and practices.

The front-end ideas system presented in this section will enable you and your team to re-energise your innovative efforts. It will provide a challenging and imaginative gym workout for the mind to help you improve your innovation results and return on investment.

If you want to improve innovation then you have to spend as much time, energy and resources on the front-end as you do on the back-end. This means that developing a flow of workable concepts should be the goal of every leader. This way you are constantly ahead of the curve with big, new concepts always in the pipeline. When you are testing a new concept, you are already evaluating another and simultaneously developing a new batch of concepts.

It will require the building of a four-stage, front-end, new idea system, as represented in Figure 1.

Figure 4.1 Front-end Idea System

Figure 4.1 Front-end Idea System

A front-end idea systemThis system begins with the building of an individual and collective idea mindset, that results in everyone openning themselves up to their own potential for creativity. The starting point for this stage is to reframe creativity as a flow of ideas.

The next step is to develop a new way of looking at ideas, which I call the idea concepts. The third step provides a kit of idea tools to enable you to create ideas. With a new idea tool-kit, your creative skills and confidence will improve. The challenge is then to embed your newfound creativity in a number of idea practices, which is the final step in the process

Idea mindsetsThe starting point in building a powerful front-end idea system is to build an individual and collective idea mindset.

A mindset is the sum total of our assumptions, beliefs, values and experiences. It is the prism through which we view the world. If you can change your mindset, you can change your actions (this also applies to groups). The biggest barrier to developing new ideas is your own belief

1. Idea Mindset

4. Idea Practices

2. Idea Concepts

3. Idea Tools

system which says ‘I am not creative.’ You need to reframe or break free of this self-fulfilling paradigm. Building an idea mindset is the most effective way to do this, but it will require a fundamental shift in your thinking about creativity, as illustrated in Table 1.

This simple expansion of the concept of creativity from ‘something that someone else does’ to ‘something that I can meaningfully contribute to’ has a profound effect. When we think about it, we all have ideas, whether at work or at home. It could be a new solution for the kids’ homework, arranging for two people to meet, or trying a new recipe for dinner.

I once challenged a major advertising agency to tell me the most mundane activity they do. They replied that the sending out of invoices was straightforward, routine and highly regimented. But they had an accounts receivable problem in that their clients often took 60 days to pay and sometimes longer. I suggested we could apply our creativity to this issue. Within ten minutes we came up with a number of simple, easy ideas that could have a major impact on their cash flow. For example, what if clients were offered a new print campaign if they paid their bills ten days early?

Current way New way

Creativity is art Creativity is a flow of ideas

Creativity is mysterious Creativity is a skill

Creativity is for special people Everyone can contribute an idea

Creativity is for special activities (for example, advertising and marketing)

New ideas can be applied to any activity (for example, new processes and structures)

Creativity is for special times (for example, an annual conference)

New ideas should be developed all the time

Table 1. Change how you think about creativity

The task is to ensure that everyone develops an idea mindset. It is not the responsibility of ‘someone else’ to develop ideas; it is part of everyone’s role. This means that everyone expects and wants to search for opportunities to demonstrate their creativity at work. If you can imagine the creative energy that this individual and collective mindset could produce then you begin to understand the power of what can be unleashed.

The idea mindset also ensures that people are more open to the ideas of others. It is a necessary platform to overlay the other elements of the front-end idea system.

Idea conceptsThe second stage is to develop a new understanding of the nature of ideas. If we can expand our perspective of what constitutes an idea then we can greatly expand our understanding of the idea process. I have called this new perspective an idea concept and have provided four that will help you reframe and expand your idea possibilities. They will help you to consider the important role of the idea receiver, separate the core idea from its execution, think about opportunity spaces and break out of the incremental cycle.

1. The idea exchange

In any business it is often not the quality of new ideas but the openness to receiving ideas that is the problem. For creativity to occur there must be an idea exchange, as illustrated in figure 2.

Figure 2. The idea producer and receiver interaction

Idea Producer

New, Bigger Idea

Idea Receiver

Bigger ideas emerge from the vibrant interactions and dialogue between the people who produce ideas and those who receive them. Hence, the quality of these exchanges will dictate the ultimate quality of an organisation’s innovation performance. Idea receivers have to listen and challenge but also be open to those ideas no matter how different or uncomfortable they are. They have to approach the exchange with a view to building on the idea rather than trying to tear it down. Moreover, I have found that the more open the receivers are to new ideas, the more confident idea producers become about presenting original, left-field ideas.

Most organisations, however, reward only the idea producers. If leaders devoted equal attention to the receivers of an idea, then creativity would flourish.

Some actions that leaders can employ to increase idea receptiveness include:

publicise idea receptive behavior•

encourage staff to look for the positive elements in an idea•

capture uncomfortable but original ideas rather than rejecting them•

place big ideas in a public place so people have time to get used to • them

be more open to new ideas yourself (lead by example)•

fund the more challenging ideas.•

2. Think core versus execution of an idea

I have found it very helpful to think of every idea as consisting of two levels: the core (or essence) of the idea and the current execution of the idea (see Figure 3).

Figure 3 The different idea levels

When we reject an idea, often what we are really saying is that we do not like the execution of the idea, though the core idea may still be valid. For example, the core idea behind a frequent-flyer program is to encourage and reward an airline’s best customers. Recently, a new airline was considering entering the market and felt it had to offer a frequent-flyer type program to match the competition and because of customer expectations. However, it wanted to avoid offering a me-too product, so it promoted a scheme whereby if you flew ten times with the airline you received the eleventh flight free. This was an entirely different execution but the same core idea. Notice that this program is not new to the world as it exists in many retail situations—even my local café has a similar frequent-users scheme. What is original, however, is the scheme’s application within the airline industry.

The other advantage of thinking of an idea as operating on two levels is that it allows you to borrow and adapt concepts from other industries and categories.

The core idea

The idea execution

3. Think opportunity space, not markets

Most managers are myopic. They have become trapped by artificial definitions of a market, segment or category. I recently completed an assignment with the leaders of a breakfast cereal manufacturer. They felt that the only way to grow the business was to take share from other manufacturers. This zero-sum game is expensive and produces only incremental ideas. To create better, bigger ideas we need to employ better, bigger thinking.

There are opportunities everywhere. Abandon your artificial, self-imposed category or industry definitions and think opportunity space instead. It will encourage you to be more creative and increase your chance of developing breakthrough ideas.

Client: Cereal manufacturer

Old thinking New thinking

They compete with all other cereal manufacturers

They compete in the opportunity space from when people wake up until lunch.

Key players:

Kelloggs•

Sanitarium•

Uncle Toby’s•

Key players:

McDonalds•

Other cereal manufacturers•

People who do not eat breakfast•

People who eat toast or muffins•

Table 2 Opportunity idea thinking

4. Break out of the incremental cycle

To create different ideas it is essential to try to escape what I have called the incremental cycle. If incremental targets are set (for example, what we did last year plus ten per cent), it leads to incremental thinking, ideas, actions and ultimately results. Most business leaders use this cycle yet bemoan the lack of fresh new ideas. It is safe but ignores potential opportunities to grow at a much faster rate. It also assumes that your competitors are satisfied with growing at a similar, incremental rate.

One way to break free of this cycle is to create a BHAG (big hairy audacious goal) for each of your brands, business units, products or processes1 (for example, to launch your next new product in half the time).

I once worked with a software company that was about to launch a new product. Its aim was to get ten per cent of potential users to be aware of the product in the first three months. I suggested to the launch team that this was a solid but incremental goal. Why not make this product the most successful product launch of any new product for the entire year? All of a sudden they realised that their ideas could and had to be more exciting and engaging to really cut through.

I completed a similar BHAG exercise with each of the brand managers of a well known soup company. The marketing director was convinced that they could achieve more than their current rate of three to four per cent annual growth. By pushing each of the brand managers to develop their own brand BHAG, as a group, they could decide which brand had the greatest potential for growth and invest accordingly. Thinking of soup as a complete, all year round meal (one of the BHAGs) also had implications for new product development. For example, did soup have to be liquid? Could it come in a sandwich form? Could you have soup on the go? Could you develop a breakfast proposition?

The starting point for escaping the incremental cycle is to create a big and beautiful, but meaningful, challenge. Simply creating this challenge will stimulate creativity.

Idea toolsThe third stage of the front-end system is to learn, use and experience a new set of idea tools. For most people, brainstorming is the only idea tool they are familiar with. Brainstorming is a perfectly valid process for generating ideas, but it has limitations: it requires a group; it is a safe technique that doesn’t take participants out of their comfort zone; and it often creates a large number of ideas with little ownership. To create more dynamic ideas it is better to have an idea tool-kit that you can use in a number of situations, in a group or by yourself. The following are the six tools that I find to be the most effective, but you may wish to add your own.

1. Make your assumptions explicitOne of the most powerful ways of escaping the current set of ideas is to make your assumptions and beliefs explicit. We are often trapped by these assumptions without realising it.

Exercise

Select an everyday product (for example, butter). 1.

Think of six assumptions or conventions about the product or the 2. way it is marketed.

Select one of these at random and create ideas that stretch or 3. break free of this assumption or convention (see Table 3.3 for an example).

2. Competitive insight I believe that traditional competitor analysis has become too rigid and static. The competitive insight tool encourages you to see the world from your competitor’s point of view. By doing so you can sometimes anticipate their next move and create new opportunities.

Exercise

Organise participants into small teams of three or four people.1.

List your competitors and randomly allocate one to each team.2.

Imagine you are your competitor’s marketing director and imagine 3. the next five actions that you are planning.

What new product will they launch? •

What will their advertising message be? •

Ask yourself what is the one action that you would hate your key 4. competitor to do? (This is a very effective way of highlighting your vulnerable areas.)

Product Assumptions Break-free ideas

Butter It is usually packaged in a box Spray-on butter

It is a mass-marketed product Calcium-enriched butter for • pregnant women

Cartoon character butter for • kids (for example, Barney Butter)

Table 3 Breaking free from assumptions

It is important in this exercise for participants to consider the possible actions of all your competitors (that is, direct, indirect, current and future competitors).

3. Brand imagination Often managers look only at what is happening in their category or industry. This can blind you to new opportunities to learn from other leading brands. This tool enables you to break free of a follow-the-leader mentality.

Exercise

Select a successful brand at random (for example, Virgin, Amazon, 1. McDonalds, Microsoft, Volvo, Sony, Billabong, Apple, L’Oreal).

Imagine that for the past five years you have been the marketing 2. director of that brand.

Imagine your past experiences, mindset and program successes.3.

Apply these insights to your own organisation. 4.

Example: In one of my workshops, a group was trying to design a new range of shoes. They were assigned Microsoft as their brand. As a result of the above exercise, they created many original ideas that combined technology with footwear. One idea for a range of shoes for teenagers was to include with the packaging a CD of a computer game in which the hero wears the particular brand of shoes. Another idea was to implant a microchip in the shoes to track how old the shoes were and to build a profile of the user.

4. Random emotionOur creativity is always more powerful when we engage our emotions. Head, heart and imagination are a powerful force. Simply using a key emotion at random can often unlock new opportunities.

This tool involves allocating an emotion to each participant or small team. The important step is for participants to really embrace the emotions they are allocated in order to see the situation from a new perspective.

Exercise

Think of a range of different emotions—for example, hate, jealousy, 1. passion, envy, curiosity, joy, empathy, anger, revenge and love.

Randomly allocate one emotion to each group. 2.

Consider the problem at hand, and use the emotion to explore 3. solutions.

Example: Imagine you are trying to develop new products or services for a financial institution been allocated the emotion ‘joy’. This is an emotion not necessarily associated with a bank. Think of some of the most joyful moments in your life—the birth of your children, entering university, buying your first car, owning your house. Now try to develop some new products or services.

5. Use all your sensesWe are dominated by our sense of sight. As a result most of the information received by us is visual. To use the full creative potential of the other senses we need to escape from this dependence on the visual.

Exercise

Assign one sense (touch, smell, etc.) to each person (or group). 1.

Think of ways your assigned sense could apply to your task. 2.

Have everyone present their ideas and then vote for the top five 3. best ideas. Then vote on the ideas that are the most original or surprising. (I have found that these ideas are often the most innovative.)

The important point with this tool is to try to develop a range of new and different customer experiences. Consider how you can make your customer experience more pleasurable and memorable by enhancing each of the senses at every stage.

Example: Say your task is to design a new confectionery product for kids, and you are assigned the sense of touch. Close your eyes and imagine the texture of the product. Is it sticky? Smooth or bumpy? Could it have the holes or breaks? What would be the advantages or disadvantages of different textures?

Example: Consider any stage of your current customer experience, whether it is the point of sale, when customers are being served or even when they ring up. Now close you eyes and imagine you are the customer. What do you feel, smell, hear and taste? Now compare it to the sights, sounds and smells of darkest Africa or a tropical island. What would your customers find more stimulating and emotionally engaging?

6. Drawing an idealWhen faced with a novel or difficult situation it is sometimes necessary to escape from our rational, logical and language-based thinking systems. One way to achieve this is to paint or draw an ideal. The advantage of this approach is that it taps into our emotive and imaginative minds. It is a tool that anyone can use at any time. Another advantage is that you will find yourself working back from what is possible rather than from what exists at the moment.

This tool is a very powerful one for individuals or groups trying to make an imaginative leap or break free of the current situation. It invariably establishes a pronounced contrast between the current and future or ideal situation.

Exercise

Imagine that you are designing a new product.1.

Draw two pictures. The first one should describe the current 2. product, service or customer experience. The second should depict an ideal or future product, service or customer experience. (Remember it is not a drawing competition. You can draw a symbol, logo or a range of stick figures, it is up to you. This tool is very effective for stimulating your imagination and emotions. Why? Because sometimes words cannot convey exactly what we mean or the emotion underlying an attitude.)

Compare and contrast the two drawings with those produced by 3. other group members. Encourage participants to describe their drawings and experiences. Seek agreement from the group about the best representation of the current and ideal situation.

Underneath the drawing of the ideal situation, write down three 4. specific steps you can take today to make this ideal a reality.

Example: I used this tool with one of my postgraduate classes to 5. discuss their business school experiences. The market research had come back that most students were satisfied, yet I was not so sure. One of the drawings that powerfully captured how students felt was of a person looking out from behind iron bars. The drawing that best captured the ideal situation was of a bird that was free. In the conversation that followed, it was apparent that many students felt locked in or trapped by their postgraduate experience. Through this process we developed a range of specific action steps to ensure that my subject captured the essence of the second drawing (the ideal experience) not the first.

Idea practicesThe fourth and last stage of the front-end idea system is to try to embed your new idea mindset, concepts and tools into your everyday working life. I call these idea practices and I have described six of them below. The aim when using them is to try and make the process of creating ideas as natural as breathing.

1. Think business as usual, different or radical

This is one of the most powerful idea practices that I use, and I use it constantly. I ask myself which options are business as usual (BAU), different or radical.

A BAU idea is consistent with what has been done in the past (for • example, adding a new flavour to an existing range).

A different idea is similar to BAU but departs from it in some • demonstrable way (for example, a new line extension).

A radical idea is a step-jump change from what has gone before (for • example, a new distribution channel).

By using this framework, you will cover a broader and more creative range of options. Another advantage of this framework is that it gives participants permission to be more innovative. Often it will unlock uncomfortable but highly original ideas.

This framework also is a wonderful way of presenting new ideas to a client, particularly if you describe the process to them in advance. I have found that many clients are then willing to entertain the different and radical approaches.

2. Idea break

Creating ideas is a skill that has to be practised. You need to make it part of your everyday working life. Instead of a coffee break, have an idea break.

Exercise

Set aside ten minutes to think about a new challenge or problem. 1.

Use one of the idea tools mentioned in this chapter (or invent your 2. own) and develop a range of new ideas.

The next day, discuss these ideas with a friend or work colleague. 3. What did they like? As a result of their feedback, how could you improve on your original ideas?

By having an idea break every day you will quickly improve and become more productive and confident in your creative thinking skills. Another advantage is that you will feel more refreshed and energised.

3. Idea safari

Ideas don’t always just come to you. Sometimes you have to go and find them. But they are tricky animals as they often disguise themselves and hide in the most unexpected places. That is why I use the analogy of an idea safari to convey to people that they need to proactively hunt for ideas. For example:

Visit your favourite restaurant. What new customer service ideas • can you pick up?

Visit a bookstore and watch how some people just love to peruse • and read new titles. How could you tap into this behaviour to increase customer involvement in your product or service?

Search for ideas in the most unexpected of places.

4. Test, test and test some more

Another concrete way of creating new ideas is to develop a test mentality. This means trying to test at least five new ideas, methods or things at any one time. You could be testing a new product, a new distribution channel, a new way to collect information from customers or a new process to handle customer queries.

In some ways it doesn’t matter what you are testing (within reason) because just having this mindset means that you become more willing to take calculated risks and resist the feeling of standing still.

Remember, however, that the secret of testing is to find ways to test a new idea that are quick, easy and inexpensive.

5. Follow your passion

This is perhaps the most important idea practice you can follow. What is your passion? If you know, then seek out opportunities to follow it. You will be more creative if you have a personal interest in a topic. Find those areas in your organisation (and life) that have meaning for you and go for it! You will be amazed at the creative and emotional energy you possess.

If you cannot find a challenge that excites you at your current organisation, talk to your managers. If they do not respond, then find an organisation that will engage both your head and heart (though this is easier said than done, I admit).

I have conducted numerous idea sessions where all participants have evaluated and ranked the ideas into an initial hot list. I then ask participants which ideas from the hot list they feel passionate about. Typically there is an embarrassing silence. People soon get the message that ideas without energy remain latent opportunities. In short, passion provides the fuel for ideas to take off.

6. Trust your intuition

Intuition is a precious gift that allows you to transcend your rational mind. If you want to create great ideas you have to pay more attention to your intuitive ability (however, this is not to say that you should ignore analysis or be lazy in your thinking). My experience is that intuition informs most, if not all, of our decisions, yet it is rarely spoken of by managers.5

For new ideas to emerge, intuition and imagination need to be as valued as critical thinking. They need to be viewed as the main source of your future competitive advantage.

A practical way to harness your intuition is to allocate ‘intuition time’ in meetings before the group makes any final decisions. The meeting leader should ask the group: ‘What is your gut feel about this action or decision?’ Because your intuition often acts ahead of your rational mind, this practice is a good way to expose any last minute misgivings so the group can openly discuss and address them.

ConclusionLet me restate my proposition. I believe that ideas drive innovation, which drives business growth. Most leaders accept the importance of innovation to their organisation’s long-term sustainability yet they struggle with it. My experience is that leaders are most challenged by the front-end, concept development stage of the innovation process.

Australian managers are well prepared and trained to deliver a plan, but implementation, planning and execution are not the most important part of the innovation process. Every business school teaches planning competencies, but what managers are not taught is how to create business and brand building ideas. This shortcoming is what this chapter has addressed.

The other major theme of this chapter is that creating new ideas and being innovative has to become a core competency of every organisation.

It cannot be delegated or outsourced. Nor can it be given occasional attention. To make a difference, every leader has to embrace innovation as a key leadership skill.

The creation of new ideas must be embedded into the very fabric of ‘how things get done round here.’ For example, the company 3M requires that 40 per cent of its sales come from products less than three years old. When I interviewed a senior 3M manager, he commented that his unit had made its sales and profit targets but not its innovation goal, so he would have to accept a lower bonus. And, he said, ‘That is how it should be’.

The front-end idea system is a framework that can be embedded into any organisation. By building an idea mindset, having a shared understanding of different idea concepts, learning a range of idea tools and trying to practice your idea skills every day, you will soon be at the forefront of the new ideas era.

Every organisation can improve their innovation performance. What it requires is as much effort, energy and resources applied to the fuzzy, uncertain front-end as is currently given to the back-end. An incremental idea, however beautifully executed, will still remain an incremental addition, which is easily copied and provides little real choice for the consumer.

Building a front-end ideas system will reap dividends almost immediately in greater consumer satisfaction, employee retention and growth of market-share.

Tips to help you create big ideasDraw a triangle 1. If you are stuck, draw a triangle to remind you to think of a third possibility.

Develop three responses for every new situation 2. For every new situation, ask your team to develop a business as usual, different and radical response. This will encourage left field, big ideas.

Have an idea break every day 3. Like a coffee break, take an idea break every day and use your creative thinking abilities. Go with a partner, have fun and really focus on a specific problem for a short intensive period. You will create some wonderful new ideas and come back refreshed.

Trust your own intuition 4. Flag to people that you are using your intuition by saying ‘my gut feel is that . . .’ Encourage others to do likewise. At the end of each meeting have a two-minute ‘gut-feel’ session. Ask every member what their intuition is telling them. If the group intuition is nervous then perhaps a decision should be revisited.

Follow your passion 5. What do you really feel passionate about? Chances are that if you feel passionate about something, you will enjoy it and be quite good at it. If you feel passionate about a topic or project at work, volunteer for it. You will naturally be more creative and work will be more enjoyable.

Think like a competitor 6. Imagine yourself as your competitor—ask yourself what new initiatives will be launched in the next 12 months? It is amazing how insightful you can be by adopting an outside-in approach rather than the more traditional inside-out approach.

Use more emotional language 7. Reframe your biggest challenges in more imaginative and emotional language for example, ‘How can we create advertising that is talked about at dinner parties?’ If you stay with rational, business-type language you are more likely to get rational responses.

Be uncomfortable 8. Be more open to uncomfortable, challenging ideas.

Lead by example 9. If you are a leader, the quickest way to kill creativity is by your own actions. If you call for new ideas and then reject them without appropriate feedback, you will not receive many more ideas. Talk about the importance of ideas and innovation at every opportunity.

Test and retest 10. Find quicker, easier and cheaper ways to test a new process or product. Continue to test relentlessly.

For Further ExplorationTM Amabile, ‘How to kill creativity’, Harvard Business Review, September–October 1998, pp.76–87.

An easy-to-read article that discusses how creativity can flourish or be squashed in any organisation.

W Bennis and PW Biederman, Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration, Addison-Wesley, Massachusetts, 1997.

A must-read if you are interested in enhancing the creative performance of your team.

M Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity, Harper Collins, New York, 1996.

A well written book about the author’s concept of ‘flow’.

E de Bono, Serious Creativity, Harper Collins, London, 1992.

I believe this is de Bono’s best book on his lateral thinking theory, tools and techniques.

D Goleman, Working with Emotional Intelligence, Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 1998.

A practical guide to using the theory of emotional intelligence. Creativity works best when the heart is engaged.

G Hamel, Leading the Revolution, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, 2000.

A challenging and provocative book on the need for disruptive rather than incremental innovation.

K Hudson, Designing a Continuously Creative, University of Western Sydney, 2001, www.monash.edu.au/casestudies/css/582_co.htm

This is my PhD thesis. It includes in-depth discussions with 80 of Australia’s leaders about the essence of organisational creativity.

ReferencesThe concept of a ‘BHAG’ was first developed by JC Collins & JI Porras in Built to Last, Random House, Sydney, 1994.This Random Emotion Tool is an adaptation of the Random Word Tool—see E de Bono, Serious Creativity, Harper Collins, London, 1992, pp. 182–3.The concept of creating a tension between the current and the ideal was developed by R Fritz, Creating, Butterworth–Heinemann, Oxford, 1991.A similar classification can be found in E McFadzean, ‘The creativity continuum: towards a classification of creative problem solving techniques’, Creativity and Innovation Management, Vol. 7, No. 3, September 1998, pp. 131–9.The importance of our emotions is well covered in D Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why it Can Matter More Than IQ, Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 1996.

About the AuthorKen Hudson, BBus (UTS), MBA (UNE), PhD (UWS)

Dr Ken Hudson has over 16 years senior management experience in marketing, advertising, direct marketing and management consulting, including a position as the marketing director of American Express.

His interest in the role of ideas and innovation in the corporate cycle emerged from conversations with senior managers about their self-confessed lack of expertise in creating, evaluating and implementing new products and services.

This led Ken to form High Performance Thinking, a business consulting, coaching and training company that specialises in unlocking the growth potential of people, brands and businesses.

Ken is a lively, engaging presenter, trainer, coach and facilitator. He is a part-time lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney, where he teaches Marketing creativity, a postgraduate subject that he designed.

Ken has written many articles on improving the performance of brands, businesses, teams and individuals by developing different and more powerful mindsets. He has been interviewed by the Australian Financial Review and The Boss Magazine, and is currently writing a book on creativity, entitled Mind Breaks.

© Management Press 2009

www.aim.com.au

Published by Management Press

Australian Institute of Management (Group) Limited

369 Boundary Street, Spring Hill Queensland Australia 4000

First published 2001 by McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Australian Copyright Act

1968 (for example, a fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism

or review), no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval

system, communicated or transmitted in any form or by any means without

prior written permission. All enquiries should be made to the publisher at the

above address.

Disclaimer

The material in this publication is of the nature of general comment only. And

neither purports nor intends to be advice. Readers should not act on the basis of

any matter in this publication without considering (and if appropriate, taking)

professional advice with due regard to their own particular circumstances. The

author and publisher expressly disclaim any liability to any person, whether a

purchaser of this publication or not, in respect of anything and of the consequences

of anything done or omitted to be done by any such person in reliance, whether

whole or partial upon the whole or any part of the contents of this publication.