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.