Leadership

How To Build Bernd Schmitt's Trojan Horse

By Michael Fitzgerald

Updated on: March 31, 2008 / 11:24 AM EDT / MoneyWatch

Despite my misgivings about the examples he chose to introduce the concept of Big Think ideas, Bernd Schmitt does in fact seem to have created useful templates for organizations to come up with ideas that could be big.

He details five tools for creating big ideas:

combining the (seemingly) incompatible (breakfast cereal and spirituality â€" and he shows the emergence of a Fortune 500 business from this)
outside-industry benchmarking (look at companies that have nothing to do with yours for comparison)
killing sacred cows (how to stop assumptions from killing good ideas)
stepping out of your time frame (put the present strategy in context with the past and the future)
strategy stripping (pump up your current strategy to its most extreme and then scale it back a little)

Most of his examples come from real-world engagements he has had with clients who allowed him to talk about these in the book, or from his observations of obviously relevant examples from the world of business. Those that aren't tend to be from the world of classical music, although we do hear repeatedly about the author's steak fetish. The Meistersinger, a classic opera by Wagner, is used as an example of how corporations miss good ideas because they don't fit a prescribed formula. 'What Would Mahler Do?' is a clever chapter subtitle that plays off Mahler's refusal to stay within conventional forms for symphonies.

MBAs in particular will find his approach comfortable, because he uses things like 'the Big Think Strategy Quadrant' and 'the four types of Big Think Strategy.' He also includes what are in effect a series of mini-case studies from various industries, all of which are designed to guide companies through the process of birthing big ideas.

There's even the introduction of a potential new job title: "Big Thinky Heads." Yes, it's cutesy and slightly condescending (his 7-year-old ginned it up). But it kind of gets the message across that big thinkers aren't necessarily going to play well with others â€" examples of Big Thinky Heads are Einstein, Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs, all people that were or are capable of completely undermining an organization that isn't prepared for them.

Schmitt even has his own Big Think story â€" he decides to build his own Trojan Horse. Personally, I think his result exemplified his repeated warning that small think is a constant threat to Big Think. After all, his Trojan Horse is too small for him to fit inside. But you can decide for yourself. See Bernd Schmitt's Trojan Horse.
Regardless, it doesn't detract from his book's argument. Will Big Think Strategy solve the Innovator's Dilemma? I don't think you can make that guarantee. But it clearly offers a useful approach to sparking new ideas.

See part one of this review, Bernd Schmitt: How to Make All Your Thoughts Big