Cultivating New Ideas

by Kathy Kegley, Ph.D.

Do you rely on serendipity for your next great idea?

Great ideas drive innovation and can be the most valuable resource a company leaves untapped. Relying on serendipity alone to produce new ideas is much like hoping a tomato plant mysteriously appears in a lawn and somehow manages to yield fruit. Brainstorming sessions facilitated by organizational leaders can rapidly degrade into the safety of routine, pattern thinking or group think (i.e., agreeing with everyone else for the sake of moving on and being seen as a team player).

What can be done to maximize your idea generation and development potential?

Developing new ideas and moving them through the idea pipeline takes time, work, resources and an understanding of creative thinking. Leaders must set the stage for idea generation and help develop a culture of openness. Team players must be aware of their own personal style of idea generation as well as respect those of others. All involved must be able to shift between creative thinking mode and critical thinking mode as the situation demands. Beyond these basic prerequisites, there must be a solid understanding of how ideas are generated, clustered, evaluated and implemented so that an idea incubator may be designed unique to the needs of each organization.

If you want to improve your organization's competitiveness through better ideas, Synchlora LLC can help. We offer services related to all phases of idea generation including leadership development, idea incubator design and the development of personal creativity. With certified practitioners in both HBDI and MBTI, we can leverage any existing assessment results you may already have or assist you with obtaining them as needed. We also bring the valuable experience of first-hand research about the effectiveness of techniques for idea generation. Contact us for a needs analysis and we will begin developing a customized program to improve your competitive edge.