Remember the old saying?
Two heads are better than one
Well, recently, I watched an animated summary of Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson (see video below), which gave new meaning to this saying if we think about how we innovate and create new ideas to build our relations with our customers or derive better, faster, cheaper ways of doing our business. In the video Steven talks about a number of things, including that good ideas:
- Often start off as small ‘hunches’ of how something can be better;
- Can take time to incubate; and
- Are often created through a collision between smaller ‘hunches’ so that they form something bigger than themselves.
Check out the video, it’s great and only 4mins long.
This made me think that, if this is true and I have no reason to disbelieve it, our ability to innovate and create good ideas is a function of:
- Bringing people together and helping nurture ‘hunches’ as Steven puts it.
- Everyone in an organization being potentially a source of ideas if you let them be.
This is very easy to say (or write) and much, much harder to do.
Building a business culture that collects, encourages and nurtures ‘hunches’ so that they are given the best chance of turning into great ideas takes time and commitment to group activities that involve all levels of your business, and I mean all levels…..right down to the delivery van driver or the office temp.
It is only going to take one or two breakthrough ideas and they will drive your business growth for the coming few months/years. So, it seems that your ability to create good ideas or rate of innovation is directly correlated to your culture and how you bring people together.
It’s not enough anymore to just have a suggestions box or an an ideas book.
What do you do to allow your, your team’s and your customers ‘hunches’ to collide?
Thanks to selva for the image.
