A survey of 500 middle managers from large
multinationals, and 500 inventors (people who have patented at least at
least one idea and get a significant proportion of their income from
their own inventions) showed inventors were significantly more likely to
exhibit the following behaviors than their managerial counterparts:
- Protect young ideas (however unreasonable or
whacky or unlikely to work) when they are at their most vulnerable and
nurture them into healthy growth. It is an interactive behavior
that enables people to get the most out of their initial brainstorming
by supporting each other's ideas. Creativity needs a different
environment from that driven by normal business behavior which is
critical and judgmental. Young ideas will wither and die if treated like
this - and people won't bother to provide any more new ideas if they are
all going to be shot down without any nurturing actions.
- Creating prototypes, even if they look like young
children have made them. This behavior says that, no matter how
partially formed your idea is, you are always striving to reproduce
whatever you offer in the way in which your customer really experiences
it. It doesn't matter whether you are working on a product or service or
if your market is a few people or a million. Experimenting will always
give you new ideas and make ideas better. It's fun and fast - and brings
ideas to life in a wonderful way.
- Courage. There's a lot of material on risk
avoidance, risk analysis and risk management. But there's little or
nothing on the positive topic of courage - or bravery. Yet creativity
and courage have long been soul mates. It requires courage to stand up
and dare to be different. Galvanizing a team to change priorities and
generate new momentum is always harder than "business as usual". Tuning
in and signalling how you want new ideas dealt with will feel plain
weird to begin with. So, having the guts to get on and make a difference
means you'll find yourself going against the flow of what has gone
before. That's when you know you can really make a difference. That's
bravery in the business environment.
Creativity
requires spending time "doing nothing" - workaholism guarantees its
death
_______________________________________________________________________________
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