I am an Idea Factory! The leader’s guide to bridging the gap between new ideas and results

I am an Idea Factory!

The leader’s guide to bridging the gap between new ideas and results

By Ed Bernacki,

Innovationalist

The Idea Factory

This book is based on two observations:

1. Many good ideas already exist in organizations: they are in the minds of staff, suppliers and customers.

2. Few organizations have dedicated processes or systems to regularly harness and use those ideas.

It was written with the belief that any organization could become more innovative by using one simple tactic – a regular ideas meeting to solve problems or create new initiatives. This ideas meeting takes can become an idea factory with practice once teams of people gain some confidence in the process. If idea factory meeting are based on trust and a sense of discovery, great ideas are possible. I first saw the benefit of such meetings in my first job. Before long, it became normal to come up with new ideas to improve our services and to launch new initiatives. I strongly belief that this is the best single tactic you can use to become an idea factory. This book will give you enough background and practical recommendations to get started.

After many years of working in this field, I have concluded that there is only one truth about innovation: Talking about innovation and expecting this makes you innovative is about as effective as talking about physical fitness and expecting this makes you fit.

This is particularly crucial for our service sectors. There is far too much talk about innovation today. You will find that this book focuses on ideas and the process of an idea factory. I rarely mention innovation and creativity. These terms have become almost meaningless in today’s business culture. The solution is simple; stop using those terms and find better words (and words that people on your teams will truly understand).

Professional Marketing magazine in the UK concluded its review of this book with this insight perspective:

"It’s hardly a serious review of the significant research or academic information about developing creativity and innovation; for those already versed in the topic, the book may appear superficial and repetitive. But for those encountering it for the first time and looking for pragmatic guidance, it will prove a relatively quick, painless and profitable read … I couldn’t help thinking that it would be better for our senior executives to read it—as it sells the need for creativity management and provides a way to allocate time and space to allow ordinary employees to drive the process.

This is a jargon-free book that talks of ideas, not paradigm-shifting strategic initiatives and other management clichés that add little insight and understanding. This book is for you if …

1. You want your teams to improve the way they solve problems and deal with change.

2. You want a strategy to help your staff develop new skills for more innovative thinking.

3. You want a practical way to focus on important challenges that need to be addressed.

4. You are prepared to dedicate time and resources to help grow your capacity to innovate.

I am an Idea Factory! (Trade Mark)

The leader’s guide to bridging the gap between new ideas and results

Published by Ed Bernacki of the Idea Factory. Smashwords Edition Copyright 2012 Ed Bernacki ISBN 978-0-9738954-9-0

This book is one of a series written by Ed Bernacki. For more information see http://www.EdBernacki.com or http://www.InnovativeConferences.com

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

You should also download a highly designed version of the tool section related to part two of this s book from Http://www.EdBernacki.com – link to I am an Idea Factory!

How to Get the Most Value From Your Next Conference – for those who attend conferences.

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/254192

Seven Rules for Designing More Innovative Conferences – for those who want to get more value from the investment in hosting a conference.

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/253128

Leadership of people - Leadership of ideas

Our management culture focuses on managing people. How people manage people to get results is very important. Equally important is how we manage our ideas to get results. True leaders develop an expertise for managing people and for managing ideas. The best organizations harness the experience and expertise of people to create value. To do this takes an equal expertise to focus on the ideas that lead to solutions to customer challenges, new products and services, and new ways of working together effectively.

Some say this is creativity. Some say this is innovation. I prefer to avoid debates on terminology and focus on the products of creativity: the ideas that people create to solve problems.

Some people will have a greater aptitude for managing people and some will have a greater aptitude for managing ideas. We should recognize the expertise for conceiving ideas and for developing them into a full concept. Recognize and nurture both skills in people. Managing ideas is as important as managing people for the success of any organization. Practice the art of leading people. Practice the art of leading ideas.

About Ed Bernacki

Ed Bernacki started the Idea Factory concept in 1996 to create a greater sense of urgency for businesses to be more innovative. He recognized that too many companies talked about being innovative but did nothing to make it happen. All organisations need an Idea Factory to produce new ideas and new thinking, much like traditional R&D departments did in manufacturing companies. If not, where should new thinking happen in our many service organisations? Ed Bernacki is a speaker, writer and adviser on the use of innovation and creativity in business. He is also a professional brainstormer who helps companies solve difficult challenges. He leads a company that works with businesses and not-for-profits to identify new opportunities using the tools and ideas in this book. He has published many articles on creativity and innovation in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

After reading this book, if you do not believe the Idea Factory concepts are useful, email him at [email protected] and tell him why to get a refund! For more articles and information on creativity and innovation see http://www.EdBernacki.com

Table Of Contents

How to read this book

It’s a fact: 90 per cent of buyers of business books do not get past the first chapter. If you are only going to read one chapter, start with Chapter 9. It provides the nuts and bolts of putting together a strategy for making a business more innovative.

Part one: Creating business growth through ideas and innovation

Many ideas already exist in our organisations but few of our organisations have the systems or processes to find them, develop them and act on them. Part One provides key insights for shaping a more innovative service-focused business; one that continually solves problems and creates opportunities by finding new ideas when and where they are needed.

1. New ideas from innovative thinking

Innovative organisations continually outperform their competitors. Creating more innovative organisations starts by re-evaluating how we make decisions in organisations. People inside our organisations make decisions every day that impact the future. The latest research of the factors that make innovative organisations innovative reveals one key secret—if ideas are important, people need to know how to manage them.

2. How to find your ideas!

Key to finding new ideas is the desire to do so. Many staff attitude surveys find that a common staff complaint is, Our bosses do not listen to us. The result is that they turn off and stop contributing. Start to actively listen to these ideas and discover the wealth that already exists.

3. Where to look for million-dollar ideas!

There are three approaches that successful businesses use to find new ideas for opportunities for growth. These drive their everyday thinking to replace mediocrity with innovative services, products and processes.

4. Putting the Idea Factory to work

People must be actively involved with the search for new ideas. Here is the approach to use to maximise the success of the efforts to be more innovative. Consider the Idea Factory to be the equivalent of an R&D department for service organisations.

Part two: The innovative thinkers’ tool kit to achieve results

Here is a series of tools and challenges that can focus the initiative of people to achieve specific results. This Idea Factory Tool Kit has been proven through workshop experience to create solutions to problems or to identify new opportunities. Some help to find ideas, some help to enhance existing ideas and others help you to act on these ideas.

5. The Idea Factory tool kit

Part three: Earning the title of being an idea factory

The pathway to earning the title of being an innovative business is to provide the tools, resources and the right environment that tells everyone, We are open to new ideas and new thinking. You cannot buy this success. You must create it.

6. Getting to a result

You must get results to add to the bottom line. Hard results lead to profits. Soft results build teamwork, leadership and your ability to innovate. They are equally important.

7. It’s not working very well: troubleshooting the Idea Factory

Troubleshooting the innovation process is crucial. The quality of ideas may be poor or the quantity of ideas may be minimal. Here are top tips to get you through the difficult periods.

8. Building your Idea Factory: a place for innovative thinking

The Idea Factory may be virtual (a meeting room you use for the day) or a full-time facility dedicated to find new ideas. Many companies now have a full time creativity and innovation centre much like a company gymnasium. Here’s how to set up an innovation lab.

9. Creating your strategy for innovation

If innovation is so important, why do so few companies set goals to make innovation happen? Add a section to your yearly business plan to include the problems you need to solve, the opportunities you need to create and the process to do both efficiently and effectively.

10. Give credit to the source of your growth: people

Innovative organisations recognise that their strength is the people inside the business. They combine the best efforts of individuals with the collective resources of the organisations to achieve results. Create a business that is open to new ideas, one in which people can actually contribute to the success of the company.

Appendix 1: Innovation strategy framework

In the future, all strategic plans will include a section for innovation to focus on new ideas to stamp out mediocrity and shape new opportunities. Here is a framework for an idea-management driven innovation strategy to make your organisation more innovative.

Appendix 2: Idea factory skills tool kit

Lots of people talk about training people to be more innovative in their thinking. Yet what exactly does this mean? Here is a skills based approach to focus on the core skills for solving problems and shaping new initiatives.

How to Get the Most Value from Your Next Conference?

Ed Bernacki new book – how to be an ‘idea factory’ at the next conference you attend.

Why the focus on being innovative?

Inside every company you will find a place where creative thinking happens or once happened. People who started the business knew the value of a good idea. Ideas represented the potential to earn the next dollar. They knew that they had to act quickly to take advantage of opportunities. Often they made decisions without the full facts. They harnessed their experience and expertise to make a decision to act.

The main idea in this book is that the only long-term strategy for business growth is the need to apply innovative thinking to solve problems and create new opportunities.

To ensure that we focus on both objectives, the Idea Factory creates a framework for a company innovation strategy. This is not a technology strategy. It is a strategy with a dual focus of tackling the problems within a business that waste resources and shaping opportunities that create new resources. There are only three steps to shape an innovative business:

1. Learn to manage ideas well inside the business.

2. Create an environment that is open to new ideas and thinking.

3. Provide the leadership and direction to focus this innovation potential on what counts most to the success of the business.

The secret of innovation

With a working innovation strategy in place you create a tremendous company asset. Rosa Beth Moss Kanter, the former editor of the Harvard Business Review said, The secret of innovation is that it gives you a temporary monopoly. It means that you can charge more for it. The monopoly you create is your ability to continually find the big ideas that count. When you do so, you create an advantage that is unique to your company. That’s a pretty good reason to be more innovative. In the future, every company will add an innovation strategy to their business plans just as they do for marketing, operations and HR. After all, if we claim that innovation is truly important, why do we not plan for it?

How to get the most from this book

As people who work with ideas, we must develop new skills to find insights and ideas from conferences, workshops, books and magazines. Here are some ideas for getting more useful ideas from this book.

Pick any chapter to start. Read a section and interpret how it could apply to you or your business, and make a decision to act. As you move through the book, summarise your insights at the end of each chapter, using these icons to help you manage your ideas: You can summarize your insights and ideas on a computer or a note pad or idea journal. The technology is irrelevant. Use the tools that best work for you. As you read each chapter, summarize your thoughts in these areas:

Insights – capture what makes you say, ‘that’s interesting!’ Insights are not fully formed ideas, just observations of ideas that interest you.

Ideas – capture any great ideas that just make sense right away.

Questions —Notice what intrigues you but requires more information. What questions come to mind? A question such as, How can my team use this approach? will be a series of ideas once you take time to reflect on it. Good questions are very important.

Quotes —Note any statements that you want to repeat at a meeting. You can use a line from the book to start a conversation with someone.

Actions—What surprises you as a good idea that deserves immediate action? There is power and conviction in moving quickly on a great idea.

Remember that innovation only happens when we act on our ideas!

Part One: Creating business growth through ideas and innovation

1. New ideas from innovative thinking

You know a great idea when you see one. Your customers know a great idea when they see one. Your staff know a great idea when they see one. Exactly what is a great idea? How do you find a great idea? How can you tell the difference between a good idea and a great idea?

To describe a great idea is somewhat like talking about quality or love—you know when you feel it or see it but how do you measure it or define it? Rather than trying to be too specific, consider this definition. A good idea is simply one of the