"An idea every minute and every idea a great idea!" Although
this sentiment may not be articulated, many businesses hold to it.
CEOs and executive managers understand that today's rapidly-changing
global marketplace puts pressure on businesses to become increasingly
innovative in order to compete. New products and new ideas are constantly
needed to gain that competitive edge.
Organizations need ideas. But who produces those really great ones?
Dean Keith Simonton investigated over 2,000 scientists and discovered
that the most respected scientists were more productive than those
scientists who did not have as high reputations (is that any surprise
to any of us?). However, the most respected scientists, while having
more good ideas and successful projects, also had more POOR ideas
and failures. Michael Michalko, an expert on genius and creativity,
refers to this in his book, Cracking Creativity, "Geniuses produce.
Period." They produce - both good and bad.
An example of an idea generator is Thomas Edison. He was an incredible
genius - but he also had a remarkable number of inventive failures.
Another person with a lot of successes is William Shakespeare. But
while many of his plays and sonnets are masterpieces, many others
are studied in school and university as examples of what not to do.
Unfortunately, this message implies that each idea has to be a winner,
that each idea has to be fully formed and complete. We all KILL great
ideas before they are formed by sending out the message that we are
happy only when presented with finished, successful products. We don't
mean to but we all, at one time or another, unconsciously send out
the message, "If you don't produce, you're fired (or stupid,
or inadequate, or uncreative, or a poor performer)!" And that
suppresses and ultimately kills creativity as surely as if we had
bound the eyes, mouth and hands of every creative person in our workforce.
In order to encourage creativity, we need to systematically create
workplaces that make it safe for individuals to come up with "dumb"
or "crazy" ideas. And we need to help other individuals
build on those crazy ideas. Organizations need to generate a plethora
of ideas, then select those that seem most promising, and go forward
with them. But they also need to revisit those ideas that were rejected
in the past in order to see if new insight is sparked by a forgotten
idea. After all, sometimes those rejected ideas are the ones that
are most successful - when they are picked up by the competition.
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