The Innovation Diaries

Most objections against innovative ways to unearth exciting possibilities and opportunities are not actually a “No” at all.

When you ask people if they want to do something (for example “Let’s go and live with our customers for a week to discover how they actually use our products”), their consciousness will quickly rebound with what most people simply think constitutes as a “No”. In reality however, what appears is often just something that they are verbalizing that has to be dealt with to get to a “Yes”.

So how do we get people on board in doing things that are out of the realm of the ordinary and that can lead us to refreshing insights & opportunities? You ask them questions. More precisely, ask them questions that can lead them to possible solutions. In the end, we are all far more susceptible to questions than statements as answers make things real, particularly if we discover the answers ourselves. (Fortunately, the mind is brutally selective and forgetful: the basking glory of having stumbled across the answer will block out any hint that it was shepherded along the way). And when you can muscle your way past the obvious embarrassment of saying the answers out loud to yourself, you can trick your noble mind into making the answer not just real but also right. And like it or loath it, once your mind has decided that something is “right” (for example that moving in with your customer to experience first hand what they do with your product is obviously the right thing to do), it will enlist all of your faculties to prove it is.

And if that approach fails? Well, then you can always revert back to inspiring the masses to congregate in a Flash Mob and aim to have your critics swept away by them; instructables.com does a wonderful How-to-Start-a-Flash-Mob guide …