BE CREATIVE - CONNECT DIFFERENT DOTS

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How can you Think Differently! to be a better strategist, innovator or problem-solver?

Mentor-Coach Conversation: if creativity and innovation are critical to growth and development, why isn’t it given more focus? Is it the lack of a compelling business case or is it that technology makes too many ideas obsolete too quickly? Is it cheaper to be a close follower or is there a reluctance to change? Are there too many constraints to provide the people, time, tools and funding? Does short-termism fail to reward viable longer term choices? What about risk, trade-offs and return? Is there a lack of optimism and willingness to tackle what is needed for the long term?

Steve Jobs stated that ‘creativity is simply linking things’.

My extension of what Jobs said is that in order to keep 'connecting the dots' you need a breadth of dots (experiences or information).

Think Differently! to be more effective as a strategist, innovator or problem-solver

Here are 15 ways to find those links, connections and different ‘dots’.

1. Forge a strong synergy of customer and culture

Every company regardless of size, purpose or industry faces the same question: ‘what is the best way to deliver products and services to our customers?’ The challenge is to understand what customers need, find a way to fill that need efficiently at the right price; or what frustrates them and find ways to ease the way.

Successful companies not only generate new ideas, they identify the most promising and act on these quickly and effectively. Focus on what your customers actually value. Examine where your products and services fit in the total chain of buyers’ solutions. Look for new sources of extending that value. What would happen if you eliminated features, created features, reduced some or raised others? Will a prototype or ‘learning by doing’ help the customer explore and voice exactly what works and what does not?

If it is the customer who determines ‘what’ you do, then it is the company’s culture that shapes the ‘how’ including the acceptance of change and difference, levels of trust and collaboration, respect for the customer and the open flow of information across the company. Have an empty chair at the table for each meeting to help think about the customer.

2. Examine the marketplace from different angles

Organisational creativity is about being proactive, about anticipating change in an ever changing world, about developing ideas and solutions ahead of the competition. In fact, down markets offer a great opportunity to fill gaps and take the lead.

Keep a watch on the periphery of the industry, for this is where the newest ideas may emerge.

Monitor competitors, but don’t use them to limit the parameters of your thinking. Examine non-traditional competitors. Look at the ‘best of the best’ across different and related industries to learn how they do what they do. Great firms doing interesting things may give you ideas that will impact on your business or give you a concept that you can adapt or combine with your existing knowledge. Assess geographic concentrations of interconnected companies, services or resources to determine if a pattern or trend is developing.

Can you identify any blindspots?

3. Don’t just think outside the box, re-design it

Creativity is the spark that can propel one organisation, board or individual ahead of the rest, design new business models and find new sources of revenue – it is fundamental to competitive distinctiveness.

Do you want to explore (transform, invent, disrupt) or exploit (sustain, extract efficiencies)?

You can plan, but events will occur that you cannot predict. You need to give yourself the capacity to respond. Strategy is more and more a series of options or choices along a continuum. It is determining responses, which position you to act – when you choose, when the opportunity presents or the future becomes clearer. Working creatively can be about a strategy, a product, technology or a process.

Companies that have changed the way we live, work and play have also captured a critical lead within their industries. Think Pfizer, Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Tesla or check out Australian Financial Review Boss, Most Innovative Companies by sector.

Look at trigger events or ‘what if’ type actions or other critical scenarios before they happen. Examine different strategic postures; that is, if you had to defend your current franchise or capture new business, would this highlight opportunities or issues?

Brokering or recombining old ideas in new ways is as valuable as exploiting what currently exists in ways that competitors have not yet seen. Are there unutilised or untapped resources? Work with external partners – such as suppliers, customers, universities and service providers – in the effort to move creative ideas forward. (Read: All Ideas Are Second-Hand: Mark Twain’s Magnificent Letter to Helen Keller About the Myth of Originality in The Marginalian)

4. Work back from the future

Have one eye fixed on the horizon and the other on the current position.

Problems often appear in predictable patterns and have common causes. What is missing is the disciplined imagination about the future. In one sense, the future has already happened. All we have to do is look for it.

When you know or can control the way ahead, you can be proactive and better prepared. Processes that develop and exploit high-performance teams plus encourage no-fault brainstorming, outside-in thinking and participative decision making can create new levels of action, excitement and engagement.

By adopting a state of watchfulness an organisation can be in a better position to pick up unplanned and unexpected change or ‘strategic inflection points’ when the fundamentals by which a company operates change suddenly and without warning. But how can you distinguish the signals from the noise? Engage in continuous debate, examine the information, question and brainstorm.

5. Sow and incubate plenty of seeds

Within the right creativity management system, you will have a pipeline. Think big, but implement in little pieces. Use small pilot projects to build support for ideas. Try to anchor the idea in as many places inside the company and with as many customers that are important to the company as possible.

Does the idea suit the context? Is the timing right? Sometimes you come across a perfectly good idea but there’s no situation at the moment that lends itself to realisation. So incubate the idea until the right opportunity comes along. The distinction between a dreamer and a visionary may just be a matter of time – a matter of the right temporal dimension within the realm of possibility.

It often starts with curiosity. Throughout history the ability to imagine new worlds, shift perspectives or to look at things differently has defined some of our greatest breakthroughs. Think of the myriad of inventions and inventors. These are people who have persevered with an idea until it became a reality.

6. Broaden sources of information

It is information-rich, ambiguous environments that are often the source of surprising new insights. Ideas spring from information that comes from open, fluid and collegial relationships, from ongoing circles of exchange where information is not just accumulated, but is willingly shared.

People tend to be more creative and innovative when they are new to an industry, and less innovative when they have tenure or familiarity. Be curious. Great questions make for better solutions and good conversation. Staying open to possibilities, intellectual curiosity and a ‘coach-not-tell’ style are key aspects of leading at the next level. (Read Lead Through Questions)

Read widely – and not only in subjects directly related to your profession, but those outside of your discipline. (Read Oliver Sacks on the Three Essential Elements of Creativity in The Marginalian) Expand cross-industry contacts and networks to which you can talk fairly regularly and have a good exchange of ideas. (Read Executives and Directors As Connectors)

7. Set up parallel structures

Collaborative groups have a collective identity and an acoustic quality that makes the participants more aware of their thinking, conversations and interconnections plus the potential to develop improved actions. When they have a high tolerance for ambiguity or unusual connections, people more easily try new things and come up with new solutions, even if they are not perfect at first.

Critical for any team is design, loose-tight management and group size. First, create an environment that is safe enough to promote experimentation and give a voice to silent questions, but intense enough to create change. Next, use a real-life business challenge that is relevant and important so that the need to succeed is high and competing commitments unfrozen. Third, get to the real business issue and expectation of the task so that people can talk honestly around the facts and listen deeply. Finally, facilitate the team in such a way so all positions are equal, micromanagement is avoided and that solutions can emerge from any source. 

Training to a multi-function and multi-level group on how to deliver results within a creative process can enhance respectful teamwork. New skills in holding meaningful conversations, reframing assumptions and suspending opinions help the flow of new possibilities. 

These new actors come to understand that the creative effort is also a social process that requires give and take to develop conscious interdependence. They build commitment by creating a shared sense of belonging, purpose and urgency. It gives a viable alternative by which to channel an idea through the pipeline.

8. Planned spontaneity and playfulness

It is a paradox that most useful ideas originate from a structured process rather than random inspiration. A well-defined and articulated creativity and innovation management system, including the right scorecard measures, is essential. So is flexibility and improvisation.

Think of the definitive Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue album. Each of the famed jazz musicians improvises from a base of an established melody or set of chords to then explore (search, vary, expand) or exploit (refine, repeat, hone). They also respond to each other in a way that, as pianist Bill Evans observed, requires “the very human, even social need for sympathy from all members to bend for the common result.”

If you watched the Peter Jackson ‘Get Back’ documentary, you will have noticed these same processes. The Beatles in the studio points to the elements of creative work: inspiration, adaptiveness, a driving goal, comfort with ambiguity, collegiate support, individuality then collectivity, slightly self-conscious, iteration, derivative, willing to ask for guidance, dedicated effort and persistence until it is perfected. Just look at how the song Get Back is composed - legendary. (Curious? Read The Beatles and the art of teamwork in The Economist and A close read of The Beatles in “Get Back” in The New Yorker.)

9. Think, doubt and then think again

Embrace doubt. As we know, false negatives and false positives exist. Conventional thinking reflects rationality. It gives exclusive attention to here, now and us – but overlooks there, the future and them. Think like a new entrant to the market and follow a different strategic logic to examine ways to create value as if you were starting anew.

Einstein believed that the mere formulation of the problem was more essential than its solution. Make sure you understand what is the real cause of the situation – or aim at least to develop several definitions of it from a variety of realities.

Like a scientist, break down the stages that form the whole or the problems into their most manageable parts. Analyse any bottlenecks or roadblocks for divergent pathways or possibilities. (Read Where is your problem solving focus?)

Try to reframe and interchange mindsets – ‘why yes’ for ‘why not’, problems as opportunities, reactions as actions, risk averse as risk taking, loss for gain, short term for long term, tactics for strategic posture, quantum for incremental, trial for implementation. By thinking about a situation from the opposite response, new perspectives emerge.

10. Re-examine bias and conviction

Question your assumptions and the influence of hidden bias – do these prevent or drive new opportunities? Keynes made the valid point that “the greatest difficulty in the world is not for people to accept new ideas, but to make them forget their old ideas”.

Conviction, adherence to certain pathways or being locked-in to prior work can close-off alternatives or develop blindspots. People can deny the importance of disconfirming information for three common reasons: it is being delivered by someone that they do not see as an equal in terms of success, therefore they tell themselves it doesn’t count; they assume that any information which is inconsistent with their self-view is inaccurate and the other person is off track or they agree with the information, but assume that what is being noted must not be important since they are successful.

Ask ‘how do we know?’ or ‘could we have missed something?’ or ‘in what ways could it be wrong?’ in order to re-assess the opportunity or project that is under the microscope.

11. Be alert to complacency or conflict

If the culture or mental age of the executive leadership is such that it either resists execution or overrides or is impatient, then cynicism sets in elsewhere in the organisation. The tone for sustainable change and fresh thinking resonates from the executive team. Leaders must help people genuinely commit their heads and hearts. People will take personal risks, challenge, articulate and defend what is important to the overall outcome if they feel there will be no recriminations or blame or sacred cows or turf boundaries.

The environment should be one in which everyone is able to challenge the current ways of working and prove, or disprove, different approaches. Dissent should be respectful. (Curious? Read Leadership and Legacy: RBG)

Don’t be afraid of conflict, provided it is task oriented and respectful. Watch for conflict that takes on a life of its own, with sides emerging, focus diverted, wrong fights battled and the pushing of competitive bias. In high-trust cultures, people may debate rigorously, but they commit to the best overall future and value their colleagues. (Curious? Read Conflict, Empathy and Opportunity)

12. Diversity of thinking, capabilities, style and experiences

Solid research is emerging about the link between diversity and creative thinking, supporting the view that a varied group of people will outperform in tasks of creative thinking. This means diversity of thinking, style and experiences. Think of the divergent thinking needed by the team of NASA scientists working with the unfamiliar to rescue Apollo XIII.

People are your ideas channel – they connect a company to its customers and the marketplace. So encourage collaboration and cross-functional teams. Good ideas can come from anywhere in an organisation, and turning them into results typically involves many people from different areas.

Acknowledge the fact that different people can excel at different phases of the creative process due to differeing strengths and capabilities - each should be valued and respected equally.

In periods of ‘renaissance’ and ‘enlightenment’ artistic and scientific thinking flourished with support of patrons and champions. Today, globalisation gives us a modern ‘trading port’ where knowledge and knowledge workers are highly mobile coming together to provide a strong impetus for novel perspectives and practices drawing on capabilities that travel well and intact across cultural boundaries.

13. Some ideas fail, so ensure safe spaces

The greater value could be in having the capabilities to figure things out when something goes wrong or when working with the unknown. Edison was once asked ‘how many ideas do you need before you find one that works?’ He replied, ‘all of them!’. Mistakes teach something new, provided you assess the decision-making process behind the failure. This leads to the next idea and then the next. It is not failure – it is feedback. 

A safe space is useful when mistakes happen. Success may not be the best teacher. ‘Per ardua ad astra’ – through difficulties to the stars. Think of setbacks as investments in the future. Clearly executives and board directors always need to manage risks – and they need to be right a lot more than they are wrong – but the most curious and questioning ones learn to trust the idea of ‘intelligent failure.’

14. Evaluate, but have a preference for action

Any scheme or idea without execution is merely a mirage. Once you find an idea that has potential, then begin the process of evaluation, design and most importantly, action. Evaluate both the outcome and the decision processes. Sense-making requires the resolve to solve problems.

“There is a fundamental conflict between two very different ways of thinking. It is the conflict between curiosity and the resolve and focus that is necessary to solve problems. Curiosity, while it fuels and motivates, despite being utterly fundamental to the generation of ideas, in isolation just culminates in lots of long lists, perhaps some ideas, but alone that’s sort of where it ends.” —Jony Ive (former Chief Design Officer, Apple)

Creativity must be ‘delivered’ and this means translating good ideas into results that improve business performance. There also needs to be a balance between operational efficiency and innovative thinking. This means supporting people with the funding, tools and freedom to pursue good ideas. (Read Vision To Action)

More benefit may be derived from focussing initiatives on specific critical business issues, where there is the motivation to dedicate the resources for successful execution and results.

15. Select executives that can connect different dots

Organised creativity means formal, end-to-end processes that encompass everything from ideas generation to evaluation and especially implementation. Look at your entrenched routines, boundaries and rewards to see if they truly encourage experimentation and new ideas. How easy is it to connect and experiment within teams and across the organisation? (Read Leader As Strategist)

The most strategic of executives can blend abilities of working creatively while navigating the implementation and communication implications of their concepts.

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