Innovating Everywhere by David Goldsmith

Author:David Goldsmith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BenBella Books

Allow Time for Ideas to Germinate

Have you ever thought about when you get your best ideas? I’m betting they usually come to you when you’re enjoying down time, like while you’re cooking, biking, listening to music, taking a shower, or away on vacation, and are less likely to surface while you’re at your desk, in meetings, or managing others. The typical timing of idea generation highlights two points.

One, although working longer days can help you increase output, it can hinder your performance as a leader, because it robs you of ample time to think.

Two, when the focus turns to innovation, oftentimes the most progress is made not during meetings where attendees are asked to be innovative, but after work, when Cyclonic Thinking allows ideas to germinate. Google and 3M’s140 leadership understand this concept, which is why they encourage their employees to spend roughly 15% to 20% of their work time engaged in self-directed solutions to work on projects not associated with the core business. W.L. Gore, which specializes in manufacturing fluoropolymer-based products, is another company that urges its employees to set aside time to work on new ideas. Gore engineer David Myers, whose primary job was developing plastic heart implants, used this time to find a way for smoother gear shifting on his bike. This led to the development of Gore’s Ride-On line of plastic-coated bicycle gear cables, which in turn led to Myers creating improvements on cables used to operate large animated puppets like those at Disney World, and on guitar strings.141 Innovative thinking time enables Myers and employees at organizations like his around the world to solve complex challenges, come up with new products to offer, and to solve customers’ experiences. The famous story of the Post-it Note’s development came from a researcher who accidentally discovered the technology while working on a self-directed project.

Fostering innovation doesn’t happen in a single meeting or even in a month; it’s something that evolves over time when you purposefully include it as part of everything you do. From planning to hiring to ideating and collaborating, you can introduce opportunities to innovate to your people on a regular basis and let their ideas germinate over time.

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