Ideas are free and sometimes frivolous. We can brainstorm anything we like and we will come up with a bunch of ideas. Often that is where things grind to a shuddering halt. I have been in those rooms, where we covered all the walls with ideas great and mighty. What happened thereafter? Nothing.
In Australia, in the 1990s, the government tightened up their regulations on company expenditures and particularly looked more carefully at “off-site” session expenditures. In many cases, these were boozy get away weekends for the Directors and they could put the tab on the government’s bill by claiming it as a tax expense. One year, the Directors decided to have an actual offsite with intention.
They gathered a group of people christened “game changers” and called in a consulting company to run the weekend. It was a phenomenal experience. We came back from that off-site ready to conquer the world. Some seriously good and extremely practical ideas emerged. They were all duly put into a canvas bag by the Directors and taken down to the river, and with rocks attached, plunged into the dark depths, never to be seen again.
I still don’t know why they never used our ideas, but the feeling of deflation and subsequent decline in motivation on the part of we supposed “game changers” was pronounced.
Here is what should have happened with our genius ideas.
1. The outcomes should have been more clearly defined and tied into the strategic plan for the company.
2. The current situation analysis needed more effort to better highlight the gap between where we were and where we wanted to be.
3. Concrete goals needed to be set based on the ideas generated.
4. Next steps needed to be carefully articulated. These must be defined in clear terms and should have been very specific.
5. Time frames must be attached to the goals, because goals without a time limit are just a dream. There will be various goals and these will include both short-term and long-term outcomes. There needs to be a roadmap created in order to realise them.
6. Ideas always attract money. Maybe this is why our ideas got killed off. The Directors all shared in the proceeds of the business, so perhaps they preferred to allocate the dough amongst themselves, rather than invest it in our thoughts and suggestions.
Money isn’t the only resource required. There is time and staffing required to back up the application of the ideas and if they are in short supply, nothing goes forward.
7. Obstacle anticipation often gets neglected in idea generation, because we are at the front end. When we get to the execution stage, though, this is when the problems emerge. Rather than just dealing with these as they arise, it is good practice to try to scope them out at the start. There will always be some means for overcoming problems. We can find ways to compensate for time, money and staff issues if they are insufficient to sustain the task execution.
8. Measuring results is boring. It is much more fun to brainstorm and then rush around like bees in a bottle executing. Was it all worth it? The only way to know that is to have milestones and measurables against which we can track the amount of progress we have made or not made.
Getting the ideas into reality is never easy, because so many actors have to get involved and it requires substantial cross-platform cooperation. The NIHS or “Not Invented Here Syndrome” is a pain. Our colleagues, who were not selected to be “game changers” or to get involved in the execution piece, are uninterested observers. They have to work on our idea, but they resist being dragged into the work and are happier to lambast what is going on from the cheap seats.
Idea generation and idea application must come as a set. It is better not to start at all, if the ideas cannot be applied. From my experience, I know how devastating it is to waste your valuable time and effort to see your hard earned ideas squandered and slaughtered.
