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Duck Tales

March/April 2006

Beyond Quality

A manager at IBM makes a prediction. In five or 10 years, “you can expect to see a very large number of manufacturers capable of doing world-class manufacturing and marketing.” That means, he says, these manufacturers have “conquered the quality issues, they’ve conquered the manufacturing issues, and they’re capable of marketing anywhere in the world.”

Instead of being one of a select few of worldclass manufacturers, IBM will be one of many. Excellence is no longer enough. Companiesneed to go a step beyond excellence if they want to achieve true success. Today companies need to have a great imagination, seeing beyond the usual. What they need more than ever is creativity.

“A company is only as good as its last good idea,” says Marsh Fisher, cofounder of Century 21 Real Estate. Without an infl ux of great ideas, without creative thinking throughout the organization, companies don’t stand a chance. So where will all the good ideas come from? And how can companies encourage creativity? Read on!

Debunking the Myths

Before you can think more creatively, you’ve got to banish old ways of thinking about creativity. So let’s do that by debunking a few myths:

Creativity is rare. While creative expression may be rare, the capacity to be creative is universal. Most of us have far more creative potential than we realize.

Creativity is mysterious. In fact, researchers now understand some important aspects of the creative process. The process of being creative may feel mysterious because of the feelings of frustration and confusion thatsometimes accompany creativity, but it needn’t be that way.

Only high IQs are creative. Of all the studies done on creativity, none has ever shown that high intelligence is necessary for creativity. There are plenty of successful artists, inventors, novelists, and musicians with average smarts.

Creativity can’t be learned. The truth is, nearly everyone can learn to be more creative. The key is to learn some simple skills, which can be mastered by doing certain exercises, as discussed below.

See Differently

Much of what’s changing simply can’t be seen from where you’re sitting,” writes Gary Hamel, author of Leading the Revolution. “You have an obstructed view.” Hamel urges leaders to “search for new experiences, go to new places, learn new things, reach out to new people” in order to see things differently and unleash creativity.

Here are some ways to do that:

Keep asking why. The most important questions to fostering creativity are “why” and “what if.” These questions are at the heart of innovation.

Be prepared to look stupid! If you’re going to ask “why” and “what if,” you have to accept the fact that you may appear foolish from time to time. But never mind—there’s nothing more endearing than a leader who can laugh at his or her own foibles.

Go to extremes. Choose a performance parameter—time, cost, quality, speed, or efficiency—and push it to the extreme, asking “why not.” When someone says you can have only A or B, search for novel solutions to disprove them.

Talk about new possibilities. Hold openended conversations that end with a hypotheses to be tested. “Profound insights come out of a cocktail of unexpected problems, novel experiences, random conversations, and newly discovered facts,” writes Hamel. The goal is to immerse yourself in this “cocktail” in order to produce bursts of creative insight.

Games People Play

Next time you’re fi shing for some fresh ideas, why not try some creativity games? The Big Book of Creativity Games, by Robert Epstein, offers dozens of games to stimulate right-brain thinking. Here are just two:
(1) The Magazine Game. Divide a group into two teams: the Rocking Readers and the Super Subscribers. Give the Rocking Readers three trade journals; give the Super Subscribers three popular magazines. Tell the teams to use the magazines to develop as many new products and services as they can in 15 minutes. The Super Subscribers should outperform the other group. Afterwards, lead a discussion, asking questions such as: Which team had more ideas? Why? What effect did the magazines have in creating new ideas? How could the results of this game be applied to the workplace?

(2) The Memory Game. In this game, people can work in teams or individually. Everyone will have 10 minutes to name a new chewing gum. But half the group will be allowed to write down their ideas; the other half must try to remember theirs. When the time is up, have people write their ideas on the blackboard. Typically, the people who were allowed to record their ideas will have many more. Lead a brief discussion about the importance of preserving ideas as they occur. Ask such questions as: Who presented more ideas? Why is it important to have the right materials when generating new ideas? Do you have the resources that allow you to preserve new ideas as they occur to you? How can practices be improved to encourage employees to capture new ideas?

Recognize Creativity

At least poets, artists, and musicians get public acknowledgement for their achievements and hard work. They get to sign their work, they may receive media coverage, and they typically enjoy praise at book signings and openings. The creative people in most organizations—engineers, production workers, programmers, scientists, lawyers, managers, and marketing people—generally don’t get such recognition. But these “idea people” crave and deserve as much recognition as the next guy. Delivering a handwritten letter and praising them in public are great ideas. But here are some more ways to offer praise:

Provide visibility. Allow creative achievers to present their proposal or report to upper management. If possible, enter their products or designs in contests. These actions convey your pride in their accomplishments.
Ask them to teach. Give high achievers the chance to teach their peers. Teaching is an ego-gratifying task and allows the achiever to be in the heady position of expert.
Keep it coming. If you feel uncomfortable continually rewarding the same people in public, go for a less visible approach. Celebrate their birthdays or their company anniversaries with personal notes, thank-you baskets delivered to their home, or even an unexpected bottle of bubbly. Whatever you do, keep offering words of praise and thanks and don’t take them for granted!
Create a special project. Reward creative performers with a great assignment. Create a special project that they will love or encourage them to pursue one of their own ideas. Let them spread their wings!

Better Brainstorming

What makes a good brainstorm session? Most of us know the basics, such as trying to solve only one problem at a time and building on others’ ideas. But here are a few other tips that can energize your brainstorming meetings:

Ask the right question. Good sessions start with a clear problem statement, but one that is not too narrow. “Devising a spill-proof coffee cup for cyclists,” for example, is not a good statement; it presumes the answer. A better statement would be “helping bike commuters drink coffee without spilling it.”

Don’t critique ideas. Once you begin debating ideas, people begin censoring themselves. Encourage wild ideas. Go for quantity, not quality. Quality will come late Cover the walls with paper. The facilitator should write down all the ideas so everyone in the group can see them. No erasing allowed. Be sure to use sketching, diagrams, stick figures, and maps—not just lists.

Number your ideas. This may be obvious but it’s important for two reasons. First, it’s a good motivator. “Let’s generate 100 ideas during this session,” the facilitator might say. Second, the group will be able to jump between ideas without losing track of where it is.

Get physical. Bring competitive products, solutions from other fields, and promising technologies to the meeting. Don’t forget materials to build crude models: blocks, foam, tubing, anything that might be useful. Oh—and don’t forget the duct tape!

Ideas That Fly

How does your company convert business ideas into business realities? The method it uses may make all the difference in whether the final outcomes work. Compare your organization’s idea-gathering capability to a cone, suggests one consultant. The wide end extends out into the future and is open to limitless ideas. As the cone narrows, some ideas are cast off, and others are refined. At the narrowest end, ideas become reality. Consider these stages of idea-gathering:

(1) Intuition. When a new idea comes to mind, people usually have an initial, intuitive response. The importance of intuition should not be downplayed. It’s a valuable tool that often predicts whether an idea will fly.

(2) Strategic exploration. If an idea makes it past the intuition stage, it is then subjected to a series of questions. Does the idea contribute to the corporate goal? Does it match with where we want to be in five years? What are the implications of implementing this idea? How would we carry it to completion?

(3) Implementation. The primary concern here is how to get an idea off the ground and into concrete form. The entire length of the cone has many doors where ideas can be discarded. After you move into implementation and tactics, rejecting an idea becomes much more difficult. Managers familiar with these steps are better equipped to catch misguided ideas before they make it to this phase.