Every great business was once an idea in someone’s mind.
And it’s this continual stream of ideas that keeps a business vibrant and gives it a sustainable competitive advantage.
Too often though you’ll hear people say, “I don’t know what else we could do to improve this business” or “We’ve tried lots of things and found that what we do now is the only way for this business to operate properly.”
Creativity, on the other hand, requires us to step outside our current paradigm and to apply a lateral approach to the thinking process.
What about you? What off-the-wall ideas have you had, that turned out great?
Edward De Bono, a world authority on creative thinking, points out the ‘danger of logic’ being that it allows us to justify our current ideas and thereby prevents us from implementing new ones.
Creativity, on the other hand, requires us to step outside our current paradigm and to apply a lateral approach to the thinking process.
The question that everyone running a business needs to ask themselves is “How open am I to considering ways to improve what my business does?’. And related to that, What do I do to proactively encourage people within my organisation to challenge the status quo and continually seek to improve processes?
Ideas do not need to be huge to have a big impact. In fact, more often it’s the little things that make a difference. And that’s why experimentation and innovation are so critical to high performance.
Creating an environment in which team members’ ideas are encouraged and listened to is not a chant for unconditional empowerment. At the end of the day, critical decisions must be made by the CEO or by people who have been delegated to make the call.
Mastering the fine line between control and empowerment is probably the most difficult aspect of leadership and management. Remember that clearly defined processes, responses and systems for approving and implementing ideas reduce the risk of anarchy and alleviate tensions.