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CREATIVITY Un-Ltd
DETLEF REIS
What do your organisation's committee meeting and the movies Psycho, Jaws and Silence of the Lambs have in common? The truth is quite a bit. They all are dominated by male lead actors. They all come in over length. They all have a scary plot. And last but not least, there is a lot of killing going on. Killing of people in the movies; killing of ideas - and sometimes their creators in a non-literal sense - in the meetings.
"If you want to kill any idea, get a committee working on it," noted the famous US inventor Charles F. Kettering. If he is right - and I believe he is - it is not surprising that most organisations lack ideas.
Now the problem is that idea killing is as widespread as it is dangerous for producing breakthrough innovation. The problem is that the best ideas are often controversial, as stated by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw: "All great truths begin as blasphemies." History is full of examples of dignitaries with infamous misjudgments of ideas and related missed opportunities.
In 1895, the eminent Lord Kelvin, president of the Royal Society of the UK, brushed off reports of unsuccessful human flying attempts: "Heavier than air flying machines are impossible." Eight years later, the Wright brothers proved him wrong.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented," commented Charles Duell, Commissioner at the US Patent Office, in 1899.
In 1903, an unnamed bank president advised Horace Rockham (Henry Ford's lawyer) not to invest in Ford Motor Company with this justification: "The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty - a fad."
In 1927, Harry Warner, one of the founders of the Warner Brothers film studio, rejected the idea of adding sound to their movies by responding: "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" The rest is cinematic history.
In 1943, IBM chairman Thomas Watson commented: "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." No wonder that a few decades later, IBM missed out on the emergence of the first personal computers. And so did Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), whose founder and chairman Ken Olsen similarly noted in 1977: "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." At around the same time, Bill Gates and Paul Allen, co-founders of Microsoft, stated their vision of "A PC in every home and on every desk."
In 1962, Decca Recording Co.'s executive Dick Rowe declined to sign a pop group with the words: "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." The Beatles were signed-on by EMI instead, and in April 1963 topped the UK Hit Single charts for the first time.
"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C', the idea must be feasible," assessed a management professor from Yale University on the master thesis of student Fred Smith. Smith argued for the business viability of a reliable overnight delivery service - and went on to found FedEx.
Mark Twain rightfully observed that "A man with a new idea is a crank until he succeeds." What can you do avoid the dangerous idea killer trap in your meetings? Follow a systematic process that separates ideation from evaluation. Then during the idea generation phase, follow Alex Osborn's all important first ground rule of brainstorming: Defer judgment (until you move to the evaluation phase) - no killing of ideas as long as you ideate.
At the beginning of the ideation, make sure that no one is permitted to instantly kill an idea, that no one is allowed to use the usual suspects of idea killer statements. So no more "It won't work." No more "Nobody will buy it." No more "We tried it before, it does not work." No more "Don't be a dreamer." No more "People will laugh about us." No more "That's against the guidelines." No more "Don't rock the boat" and "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." No more "No comment." No more "That's really stupid." No more sentences with but, as in "Sounds interesting, but" or "Good idea, but it's impractical." And no more "It's not been done before" because that's exactly what breakthrough ideas are all about: coming up with something that has not been thought or done before.
Instead, encourage people to come up with ideas some may think wild and crazy by using empowering statements. Here are some examples of idea friendly statements: "Wow, that's really crazy, I like it!" "Yes, that's one possibility." "There is potential in this idea." "You are a genius!" "Nice, that's a workable solution. Now let's go for even something weirder." "Fascinating angle!" "Intriguing, and still a bit unclear. Let's stick with it and see what happens." "I can see the potential. Let's see if we can build on it further." Can you feel the boost of a group's energy levels if you shift your language from "idea killer" to "idea friend" mode?
Finally, one word of relief for all notorious critics: You will have a chance to judge the ideas later on once you have moved into the evaluation stage. Here it is your job to be judgmental and constructively critical - but not before. Always remember the words of John Elliot Jr: "Big Ideas are so hard to recognise, so fragile, so easy to kill. Don't forget that, all of you who don't have them."
Dr Detlef Reis is a university lecturer for Business Creativity and Innovation Leadership at the College of Management, Mahidol University. He is also the Founding Director of Thinkergy Limited (http://www.Thinkergy.com), the Idea Company in Asia. He can be reached at dr.d@Thinkergy.com
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