What are you doing differently this year? Maybe this is the year you want to be more innovative. But you’re not quite sure how to do it or where you should begin. An associate shared a way to ease into innovation with me a couple of weeks ago and I thought it was very interesting.
The suggestion was to pick an area of business or a process or whatever you want to innovate. Then bring a small number of people together, say 4-6. These individuals do not have to be familiar with what you want to innovate. Then you walk them through what you decided to focus on at a high level. This should be done at a level that provides everyone an understanding of what you’re currently creating, the purpose of that business area or process and a high level description of what you’re currently doing. Everyone then throws out words which are written on the board. There are no right or wrong words. Everything should be written down.
The idea behind this is that we tend to think about something using the same words we always use. This exercise will bring out some new words with which to begin creating a new idea or a new way of doing what you’re currently doing.
Remember innovation does not happen in a vacuum, it takes space, time and planning. Most of all it takes work. Hard work! It’s fun work, but it’s work that has to be done, or you’ll keep doing what you’ve always done the way you’ve always done it.