If you own or run a business and want it to last a long time, you need to spend a lot of time coming up with new ideas. That's because, in a world where things change quickly and people expect things to get better and cheaper, innovation is the way to get ahead of your competitors.
Here are seven ways that new ideas can give your organisation new life.
- Make an environment that encourages new ideas.
Goran Ekvall of Sweden's Lund University has said that a climate for innovation needs three things. They are trust, energy, and a sense of humour. One of Ekvall's case studies was a Swedish newspaper where the team working on the women's section always did better than the other teams. What's up? Simply put, this group trusted each other, had a lot of energy, and liked the same kinds of jokes.
- Get creative while doing the dishes.
The Roffey Park Management Institute says that most people have flashes of inspiration when they are not at work and are not trying to solve their problems consciously. Some people get ideas when they are mowing the lawn, walking the dog, playing golf, or waiting at a train station. Isaac Newton got hit in the head with an apple while he was sitting in the garden. Archimedes found his answer in the bath. Some people get great ideas while doing the dishes, which is why Roffey Park calls these "washing-up creativity."
- Reach out to new people. One common way to come up with new ideas is to find new ways to link the features of your product or service. Akio Morita, the head of Sony, said that he came up with the Walkman because he wanted to listen to music while walking around the golf course between shots. His team just put together a tape recorder and a transistor radio, which don't seem to go together.
- Learn what people want. Need is a great way to get people to try new things. Paper to write on is a good example. Around 100 BC, the Chinese had already made paper out of rags, but there was no need for it, so nothing came of it. When it finally got to Europe in the Middle Ages, when writing was all the rage, there were no more rags or old fabric to use. That's when a French naturalist found out that wasps build their nests by chewing wood into a mush that dries in thin layers. Within 100 years, wood pulp was the only way paper was made.
- Test, Test, Test. Most inventors and businesses come up with new ideas by putting their products to the test. It may not be the fastest way to get where you want to go, but it is often the most sure way. Jonas Salk, for example, found the polio vaccine by testing and testing and finding out what didn't work over and over again. Thomas Edison, who came up with the filament light bulb, kept track of 1300 failed experiments. But he kept going even though, as he said, he knew 1300 reasons why it wouldn't work.
- Adopt and change.
One easy way to come up with new ideas is to watch how other people solve problems and then use those ideas in your own work. This is called "adapt and adopt." It's what Swatch did when they realised that the more reliable their watches were, the less often people needed to buy new ones. What did they do? Take a cue from the world of fashion and collections and make their watches into cool things to wear. Now, people buy Swatch watches not just to tell the time, but also because it's cool to do so.
- Learn from the world around you. If you want to come up with new ideas, you can't do better than nature. Nature gives us a never-ending supply of ideas that we can use in our own world. For example, think about Velcro. Georges de Mestral invented Velcro in 1950 after coming back from a hunting trip covered in tiny burrs that had stuck to his clothes with tiny hooks that overlapped each other. De Mestral saw right away that this was a great way to hold things together. Suddenly, someone came up with a whole new way to do things.
The world's history is the history of new ideas. Thomas Kuhn said that each time people accept a new idea, there is a "paradigm shift." Once a new idea is accepted, the world will never be the same again.
