How to Nurture Ideas
The lifeblood of innovation is fresh perception and new ideas. How do we nurture new ideas into potential solutions?
As Brian Libby's article explains, you need money, time, process, people and perseverance. I would like to add one more quality to the list --- attitude.
Having an attitude of being open to new ideas and encouraging staff to keep looking for areas of opportunity is vital. Keeping your mind open to suggestions and having a process for them to be aired will encourage new thinking in your team.
When running applied creativity and innovation workshops one comment we often hear from participants is "It's great learning how to generate ideas but they will be quashed as soon as we take it to the boss?" What is your attitude to new ideas?
An idea is almost never a solution. It is just an idea --- so we need to support and nurture them and the people who create them.