Innovation

“If your job can be routinized and made portable it can be outsourced”. Robert B Tucker “Innovation is Everybody’s Business”

Let’s face it, if you are in manufacturing and your product can be made in China cheaper, you are not needed. In fact, China has set the bar so low on prices that people have different expectations of what they should pay for products. This makes it very difficult for American Craftsmen to make products and price them so people think they are good values. We can’t even make surf boards anymore.

In the loss of manufacturing to the U.S. and the globalization of ideas and services through the Internet, everyone is on a more level playing field. The same ideas and processes become available to everyone at the same prices.

Therefore, finding new ways to utilize the worlds resources for higher productivity becomes a competition of ideas. We have entered the Era of Innovation. It would make sense that if individuals want to play a more important role in this paradigm, they should learn how to contribute.

Business has invested in tools of Collective Intelligence to mine the ideas of its people. It would therefore follow that there might be rewards and at least job security for those that can excel at the game. But collaboration is not only a game of creativity, it is a game of learning to play well with others.

In another section we will discuss Emotional Intelligence but here we will talk about how individuals can increase their ability to contribute ideas.

Innovators are great noticers and listeners.  They notice what other people say they wish was available or what is wrong with a product or service. Fred Smith, founder of Fed Ex worked at an aviation company and noticed people were chartering planes to get packages to destinations over night.

Most people don’t pay attention when someone else says “There has to be a better way”. How often do you hear or think that while on the phone or standing in a line? How often do you hear these conversations or think them while working? Sometimes the origination of innovations can be that simple.

Innovative thinking should be a habit. How about when something annoys you? Do you see that as a nuisance or an opportunity? One person in customer service asked complaining customers what they felt should be done so that the offending company service never happened again. She turned in their suggestions and won the “Most Innovative Person” of the year award. It was that simple.

Have you ever noticed someone repeatedly doing something that doesn’t work and yet continuing to do it? How often do we come up with new solutions ourselves to save time and money? You might ask the question often “If I could do one thing to make this better, easier, or less expensive, what would it be?”

Henry Ford said “Thinking is the hardest activity there is and that’s why so few people do it.”

Assuming all problems get solved, what will be the first thing someone does to solve the problem you see?

If you look at any business, you can ask yourself the questions,

• “Why is this business successful or not?”

• “What are they trying to accomplish?”

• “What do their competitors do better?”

• “If I could make changes, what would the first one be?

Learning to be innovative is a learned process. It is challenging existing assumptions, it is asking “what if” questions”, it is asking how something could be more enjoyable, more useful, more productive.

Edward de Bono is given the most credit for the term “Lateral Thinking”. It is a science of challenging the existing and coming up with alternatives. The essence of his process is not to be judgmental about any solution that pops into your head. In group brain storming he suggests “defer judgment” on all ideas so as not to discourage crazy or imaginative thinking.

An impractical idea may lead someone else to think of a practical one. What is the importance of that? In “Group Genius” Keith Sawyer says that most great innovations in the past 50 years have come from group collaboration, not individuals.

This is why we must learn to be creative and work well in groups. A book I have read called “More Lightening Less Thunder” by Bob Eckert tries to educate us on Emotional Intelligence or how to lead groups as a participant to become effective. His point is that most people are not constructive in group situations until a right of passage has been completed and the group gels as a unit..

So lets explore the creation of ideas.

What is Lateral Thinking? read more

What is Whole Brain Thinking? read more

What is Emotional Intelligence? read more