ideas, questions and bathrooms
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“Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it is the only one you have.”
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Émile Auguste Chartier <Alain>
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Well.
I love this quote.
One idea is really <really> dangerous ground to stand on <part 1>. Dangerous in that it may be the most solid ground you have ever stood upon … and yet … you may leave it seeking another idea, and place, to go.
One idea is really <really> dangerous ground to stand on <part 2>. Dangerous in that it may be the most unstable ground you have ever stood on … shit … it may simply be a lily pad in the middle of a volcano … and yet … it’s ‘moment of stability’ seduces you to hold on to the idea like it is a gift from God.
Ideas, in general, are dangerous creatures. But ‘one idea’ is particularly dangerous.
Suffice it to say if you aren’t in the <multiple> ideas business as a company you are simply in the ‘doing most effectively’ <which is actually “we all do well so please pick me by my price”> business.
Ideas are the lifeblood of any business.
And ideas … at least good ones … are one of the most elusive objectives anyone can think of. You can set up the best of the best methodologies, you can train, you can encourage, you can give everyone funky crayons <and remind everyone that because we all grew up with crayons anyone can be creative – which is a slightly absurd encouragement in its own right> … but suffice it to say … a good idea just happens <and you hope like hell they happen when you actually need them>.
I believe most creative idea generator people are highly attuned to the where and the how they come up with ideas <therefore ‘forced idea thinking environments’ are not effective>.
I also believe that that entire ‘how to’ knowledge is mostly nontransferable to others.
That said.
There is an interesting guy named Chic Thompson who, while I think he says some mumbo jumbo type stuff with regard to ideas and coming up with them, has suggested two things that I believe are good for people to take note of when discussing the whole ‘coming up with an idea’ discussion:
– How you mentally approach ideas.
He says things like … rather than ask your students “what did you do at school today?” you should instead ask something like “what questions did you ask today?”
He also argues that changing the way we approach questions, problems, and solutions can reshape the outcomes <this sounds basic yet ‘idea creating methodology seems to fly in the face of this thought>.
In addition … I believe beyond rethinking the ‘how to’ generate ideas we also have to learn the mental assessment of risk and response. By that I mean I think ideas should typically be slotted so that mentally not only do we ask the right questions while thinking about an idea … we also ask the right questions in discussing an idea.
Someone came up with this chart <which I have recreated from some notes I made years ago>:
Factor: Time
Depth
Solution
Risk
Reward
|
Level One: Fast
Known
Expected <comfortable>
None
A little |
Level Two: Takes awhile
Unknown
Unexpected <uncomfortable>
A little
A little |
Level Three: Needs to germinate
Surprise
Challenges organization <seems impossible>
A lot
A lot
|
<sorry for the crappy chart but I suck at creating these things>
I buy this. People who come up with ideas are typically quite comfortable letting things germinate and have them bubble up. On the other hand … non good idea thinkers like a ‘point & shoot’ process … and even more importantly … like the comfortable ‘know we/I can do’ type idea.
Idea generation can often feel slightly chaotic … and … well … it is. However … within that chaos a good idea generator tends to be able to reach in and pull something good out of all the swirling shit.
Uhm.
A lot of people don’t like that a process that looks like that.
Next thought from that Chuck guy.
– Ideas take time and a sense of relentlessness
I like to call it restlessness intertwined with a willingness and resilience to bear a shitload of failures <bad ideas> to find the solutions <good ideas>.
Apparently it took Chuck roughly 40 years to see an invention come full circle to its original solution in the right environment. Which led him to note … “when something goes wrong, something goes right … you learn from trial and error.”
40 years?!? <insert a ‘yikes’ here>.
Sorry folks … but an unspoken truth in the idea business is that 90% of great ideas are lost simply because when arrived at … it just wasn’t ‘their time’ … and when it DID become their time … they were in some landfill because they had landed in some trash can months, if not years. ago.
I say that <getting back to the one idea thought> because not only do we often suck at agreeing on the ‘one idea to focus on’ in the moment … we also tend to throw away a shit load of great ideas simply because it is not their time.
<note: in business … if you pull out an idea that was thought up months ago … or years ago … it cannot be used because it is … well … an old idea … or ‘it cannot be relevant because that was then and this is now’ – note: both those comments are dangerous because they are rooted in logic but absurd in practicality>.
Einstein was once asked what the difference was between himself and another person. He suggested that when challenged to find a needle in a haystack … others would stop when they found one … he tears apart the haystack looking for any and all that could be there.
Thompson’s version of that is he always suggests “always look for a second answer” when you imagine solutions to problems in a unique way. He was <is> a big proponent of young people bringing unique and fresh perspectives to discover creative outcomes.
I buy this.
Great ideas are typically born from other ideas. The original idea may be good … but they tend to be soft around the edges … and they need to be sharpened. I know that while I often like my first idea I will tend to ‘steal’ additional aspects from lesser ideas to strengthen another idea. It helps to look for and see all ideas and answers <albeit … in today’s business world many people struggle to discern crappy ideas from good ideas which inevitably means a good idea generator likes to protect a good idea by not offering ‘options’>..
Look.
Discovering creative outcomes & ideas typically comes down to unique and fresh perspective.
This means looking at things differently <which typically doesn’t translate into ‘methodically’>.
There are a boatload of tricks on how to come up with ideas.
“Thinking in opposites” … uncovering what can be flipped to get the right solution.
“Start off with what’s positive and then go to the negative” … then focus on making the negative positive <or how it represents some opportunity>.
I would be delighted to tell everyone what to do here … but I will note … because I cannot. What makes me hesitate to endorse any ‘idea generation protocol’ and ‘what questions to ask to stimulate effective ideas’ is that most ideas are actually thought up <insert a huge DOH! Here> in the shower or on the toilet.
Yup.
There are a bunch of surveys <informal and formal> and in general they have the following list of ‘where do you come up with your ideas’ when asking known & proven idea generators:
- When showering or in bath
- Commuting to work
- Sitting on the toilet <note: this is good because it seems like per research we spend about 3 years of an average lifetime in the bathroom>
- While falling asleep or waking up
- During a boring meeting <note: this can also be an ideation or brainstorming meeting>
- Leisure reading
- Exercising
Most good ideas do NOT come from brainstorming meetings … or any meeting at all. And they rarely come at your desk.
Ideas tend to come from the stimulus of the setting <and what that setting does to your mind … relax & think at the same time>. Therefore … the corollary is … the loss of ideas comes from the stimulus of the setting.
By the way.
While there is absolutely a relationship between creative & ideas … not all creative people are good idea generators. That said. You increase the likelihood of good ideas if you encourage creativity.
And there is a reason I bring this up. While we give ‘everyone is creative’ a lot of lip service the reality is that we tend to squeeze the creativity out of people as time goes by.
Read this and be prepared to be depressed:
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George Ainsworth Land, author of Grow or Die, gave five-year-olds a creativity test used by NASA to select innovative engineers. Ninety-eight percent of the children scored in the “highly creative” range. When these same children were retested at ten years old, only 30 percent were still rated “highly creative.” By the age of fifteen, just 12 percent of them were ranked “highly creative.”
What about the average adult population? Only 2 percent of the adults who took the NASA tests were rated as “highly creative.” Therefore, our lifetime creativity, measured in terms of our ability to generate a number of new ideas, is at its highest point at five years old and lowest around forty-four years old. It seems that creativity is not just learned, but unlearned as we advance through life.
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Shit.
My main response to what we just read <after I pulled myself out of the depths of despair … because I am WAY past even the lowest ideation point> is that all our ‘planned ideation processes’ kill creativity … they don’t enhance creativity.
<I believe I just suggested killing an entire industry>
In our ‘outcome focused business world’ where ‘let’s use process so we can be as efficient as possible with regard to everything we do’ <ideas included> the process most efficiently kills creativity.
All that said.
I will end with 5 Ideas secrets <these are not mine … they are from some expert who I have forgotten … but I like these secrets>:
– Creative Secret #1: Ideas are the currency of your future
– Creative Secret #2: You come up with only 1% of your ideas while at your desk.
– Creative Secret #3: By age 44, your creativity score is at a lifetime low and doesn’t go back up until retirement.
– Creative Secret #4: The world isn’t going to slow down
– Creative Secret #5: Good ideas are scary.
Oh.
And the last secret?
Go to the bathroom as often as possible. It increases the odds you will have an idea.
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