The Sumurai Bowl

An old zen story has lots to say about creativity.

Once a master and his pupil were standing before the ocean. The master was holding a bowl filled with holes and asked the pupil to fill it with water from the ocean, but he was not allowed to cover the holes with his hands. The boy thought and thought, and tried a few things, but was unable to keep the water in the bowl.

Finally, he said, ‘This is impossible. It can’t be done!’

The master then threw the bowl into the ocean. After watching it sink to the bottom he said, ‘It is done despite what you thought.’

The story makes a number of points:

· Don’t make assumptions. Test your thinking and consider if you are constraining yourself unnecessarily.

· There is always an answer, but you may need to look at things differently.

· The answer may seem easy after the fact, but it is the leap you take to get you there that is the difficult part.

Can you think of any more? Think about it and please let me know.

Innovation and a Lack of Focus

At a recent business event, the guest speaker was Peter Jones, one of the dragons on Dragons Den and multi-millionaire telecoms guru. He was asked why there aren’t more entrepreneurs in the UK. His answer was, ‘lack of a clear focus’ on what people wanted. He said many people have great business ideas, but they don’t take them forward to completion.

I think the same can be said about innovation in general. If you don’t know where your company is going and what your customers need, you will find it hard to execute ideas. The funny thing is you may think you are very innovative because you’re generating lots of ideas. But without the focus on the ideas which will take you forward, you are really just making busy work.

Do you have a focus for your innovation? Have you clearly decided where you want to proceed, and what new products will get you there?

A Car Ride Into the Next Century

Imagine you’re in your car when suddenly you’re transported 50 years into the future. All you’ve got is your car and the map in the glove box. How easily would you be able to get somewhere you know? How about a hundred years from now?

When you first have an experience, your brain processes the information and tries to link it to previous experiences. It looks for a box then tries to put what happened in there. Sometimes the box needs changing, but more often the memory gets warped and changed to fit the box.

Sometimes this is good, as previous experience can help make sense of what is happening currently. In terms of being creative, it is often the case the map you were using is holding you back. New ideas need new thinking.

In the thought experiment above, the further out you get the less useful the map will be. Using creativity techniques you can anticipate the map changes and make the most of what you have.

The Dragon and the Princess

Once upon a time there was a dragon with a mane of thick golden hair. He was fierce and liked to eat people. The local villagers were terrorised by him until he agreed to leave them alone on the condition that every year a princess was brought to his cave. No one ever found out what happened to the princesses, but no villager ever saw them again.

One year, a very brave and very intelligent princess was chosen. She agreed she would try to defeat the dragon. She was given daggers and swords hidden in her clothes to kill the dragon when she entered the cave.

The day came and she entered. The dragon roared out of a dark area of the cave, just as she drew her sword. It instantly turned to dust.

"Your weapons are no use against my magical powers", he said.

Instead of cowering in fear, the princess ran and jumped on his head. He was caught totally unaware and before he could shake her off she had nestled inside his golden mane. She would not move no matter what the dragon did.

She began to talk to the dragon. At first she whispered in his ear, "you want to let her go." And slowly she added other words, and became louder until finally she said "she is free!" By now the dragon was convinced that she was his inner voice and, doing as he was told, he flung open the door to the cave.

Just before she left, she said, "and the villagers are your friends and you want to let them be." Nobody ever saw the dragon again.

How Do You Create an Innovation Culture?

I've been pondering this question for some time. It really can only be answered in the context of the overriding question, "How do you change any culture." There is no real set answer, as it often depends on the particular place and conventions applying to where you are.

In a company it can be even more difficult because there is self interest to consider, as well as the culture at large. One way to start creating a culture of innovation is, therefore, to award those who have new ideas and make it difficult for those who defend the status quo. Unfortunately, by the nature of what a corporation is, often the rewards flow the other way around.

Normally, when there is an issue in this area, it is for a few reasons:

• Employees don't understand the value of innovation. Or, if they do, it is understood in the context of the company as a whole rather than for them as an individual. Why should they take on the risk when they could lose their jobs? Let someone else be creative.
• Leadership does not exist on the issue, or is inconsistent in its message. Are new ideas really cherished and nurtured? Is time given for creating ideas, or does the CEO talk about innovation and then drive you to make sales calls all day?

There are no easy answers. Most people don't understand innovation, so put their heads in the sand. But I think with the Internet beginning to break down normal means of communication and where China and India are creating a massive work force of talented and creative people, change is going to happen quickly and before anyone is ready for it.

The E-Myth and Innovation

Are you working on your business or in it? That's the main question raised by the book The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. His main point is that many people who go into business do so because they think they can do it better than their boss. Unfortunately, the skills an employee needs are not the same as those an Entrepreneur needs, so often the business gets into trouble.

But what also struck me was the power of looking beyond the day to day workings and using your business as a way to deliver your product to your customers and clients. Your product shouldn't be the only thing you produce to client specifications. Your business model should also be geared to your client as well, and put together to provide these results without fault.

Imagine the ways you could innovate exceptional service into how you greet people, deal with their orders, deliver products and services to them and how you approach the market. These are all areas ripe for innovation that other companies, especially big ones, struggle to deal with.

So look beyond your day to day rush to 'get things done' and consider how your business could deliver predictable, exciting service to your clients even before they know (or care) what the product is.

Forget Innovation, It's Something Else

Why all the resistance to innovation? I kept asking myself this as I was preparing to stand up in front of a few dozen people trying to excite them about creating new ideas and developing new markets. You'd have thought this would be something people desperately wanted considering the current market conditions. So why is it all so hard sometimes?

I think the reason is something which underlies innovation - resistance to change. Innovation is all about new ideas and changing what has gone before. For many people this is uncomfortable, and in fact is part of how we think. Normally, our propensity to find a system that works and stick with it is good for us. We don't want to have to try every way of travelling to work every day, or the numerous ways in which you could make coffee. We find the best way for us and stick with it.

But this resistance to change deeply restricts innovation. The solution is to use another part of our brain that is equally adept in its own area. We love to make connections and find new routes to information. In fact, this is the basis of most of our comedy with the punch line providing the unexpected connection.

Change acceptance (and the innovation that comes from it) can all be done in a targeted and focused way using innovation techniques, but it needs two things:

1. The willingness to recognise we get comfortable with our normal ways of thinking and need to step back, pause, and try something new.

2. The ability to engage a different part of our brain in a structured way at set times to make sure we make it part of our routine. Strangely, once we do this and it really becomes the norm it will difficult to do something else (for all the reasons above).

So it is all a matter of understanding how your mind works and using those aspects that work best at the best times, and planning it all to become part of the process.