Seven Strategies for Success in Innovation

The UK press this week has been full of calls for greater innovation in companies and organisations following a speech by the Prime Minister on Monday.

But it's a lot easier to say " let's innovate" than it is to do. So I thought I'd give you a few ideas on how you can innovate successfully in your team, company or organisation. A few simple changes in attitude or behaviour can have a huge impact in terms of how ideas are generated - and innovations delivered.

So here they are - my seven strategies for success in innovation:

Recognise that everything is up for innovation. It’s not just about introducing big ideas, or new products and services. Look at how you work, the meetings you attend, and the way you engage with customers or clients. If it ain’t broke? Break it and put it together better.

Ask for help. Talk to your people on the frontline what causes the greatest problems, or the most complaints. Ask recent recruits what they’d change. Most people say that “good ideas can come from anywhere and anyone”. But very few organisations really accept that. Talk to your customers (What do we do badly? What do we do well that you’d like more of? What don’t we do that would help you solve a problem?)

Systemise it. Spend some time every week just dedicated to thinking about new ideas. Spend an hour couple of weeks with your team over coffee and cake just talking about new ideas.

Go look at other organisations. What do they do? What don’t they do well that you could do better?

Be prepared to fail. In fact, prepare to fail. If you’re not failing every now and again, you’re not trying anything new. Be comfortable with failure, and learn to fail quicker.

Get comfortable with creative thinking. Use the Headsurfing™ techniques (on our website, address below) to change the way you think.

Keep developing your people. Nothing succeeds in creativity and innovation like an enquiring mind.


If applying these strategies leads to huge success for you and your organisation, let me know. I won't demand a cut of savings or profits, but I would like you to send me a note!

FBI and CIA learn to "think outside the box".

There's a brilliant story in the International press this morning.

In New York, FBI and CIA agents have apparently been sent on a course at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to study classic paintings, with the aim of "refreshing their sense of enquiry".

What a fantastic idea.

By taking notes as they view the masterpieces, the hope is that they will improve the things they notice about a crime scene, and also their ability to describe it.

I fully expect a flood of complaints along the "total waste of money - just get them back on the streets" lines.

But I love it. By teaching them to look more closely at art, I can see the benefits in real life. In art, first impressions are often false, and there's usually more to the painting than initially meets the eye.

I'm no crime-fighting expert, but I suspect the same might also be the case in crime scenes.

And I think the course will go even further. By visiting places we don't often go (whether that be a gallery, a zoo, a new shop or even the pages of a new newspaper) we stimulate our brains in new ways. We give the brain new content with which to link. New experiences. New connections.

New ability to think differently. To think creatively.

Budget cuts and how to survive them

It's been a week of conflict and argument, most of it about the economy.

The UK Government Spending Review was released, there are blockades and riots in France over changes to pensions, and the papers are full of (sometimes) well argued opinions about which sector of society will be most badly hit by the budget cuts.

But in the midst of debate, work still has to go on. Companies still have to deliver, organisations still have to perform. We still have problems to solve, and we still have opportunities to grasp.

Anyway, the teams, companies and organisations I've worked with over the last few years didn't seem to me to be drowning in floods of excess money. Maybe yours was, but I doubt it.

So how do we to survive the budget cuts? Reframe the lack of money as something to get creative about.

In any case, money doesn't solve problems. Ideas solve problems.

If the problem is important, it needs to be solved. If the idea is good enough, it has to be done. If the opportunity is great enough, the money isn't a cost - it's an investment.

When times are tough, and budgets are cut, try to look at the lack of money as just another problem to be solved by thinking creatively.

No money? Find someone who has money - or something else you can use to solve the problem. Who could we partner with? Who could sponsor this? Who else has this problem that might share the cost of solving it?

Think of new ways to fund things. New ways of paying the bill. New ways of doing business.

Let's get creative!

Presentation Tip - You must end on time

There’s a Bob Monkhouse line popular with after-dinner speakers that your duty is to “Stand up. Speak up. And shut up”.

It makes a valid point. One of the first things an audience wants from you as a speaker or presenter is for you to stop talking.

Especially if the conference, event or pitch is over-running, they want you to finish on time. If you can cut your presentation down to the time remaining until the close, they’ll love you for it.

You may wish to aim for this and then ask if they’d like more, but leave it up to the audience.

Don’t simply think “I was given an hour, so I’m going to take an hour”. Audiences don’t like you taking them over time, whether they are leaving to go home, desperate for the loo or (heaven forbid) you stand between them and a free bar.

I failed on this point recently. I was given a very prestigious keynote spot for an audience of professional speakers. It was a big moment for me – I was closing the conference, and had just been made a Fellow of the organisation.

I had a great time. Such a great time I forgot it’s about them, not me. I over-ran, and some marked me down for that. Rightly so.

It doesn’t matter how much fun you’re having, or how much fun you think they’re having. Finish on time. And let them come up to you afterwards and say “I could have happily listened to you for much longer”.

Incidentally, if it’s a paid speech, check with the person paying your fee first. It may be that they’d rather move the end-time so that they get the full time for your fee!

Creative quotations - and a gag or two too

“Every collaboration helps you grow”.
Brian Eno

“The lion and the calf shall lie down together, but the calf won’t get much sleep”.
Woody Allen

“Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading is good for him”.
Maya Angelou

“Pizza Express sell garlic bread with tomato and cheese. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that pizza?”
Jimmy Carr

“You should have an idea of what you want to do, but only a vague idea”.
Pablo Picasso

“Don’t sweat the petty things, and don’t pet the sweaty things”.
George Carlin

Creativity tip: find time to mull

And by mull I mean ruminate, cogitate, switch off and think in a relaxed manner. Not the island off the west coast of Scotland.

At a speakers’ convention last week I took pages and pages of notes. Too many, really, for me to act on them all.

So I planned some time a few days later to read through the notes, to mull them over, and then to decide which were the most important to act upon.

I suspect things might be similar for you – too many things to do, too little time?

I know the last thing you want me to tell you is that you must take time to think. But honestly, it will pay off.

Grab your notebook, get away from your desk, switch off the phone, and take fifteen minutes or so to mull things over. Let your mind wander, and take note of the tasks, actions and ideas that float to the surface of your consciousness.

Those are the important ones.

There's nothing so great as bad poetry.

Today is National Poetry Day in the UK, a chance to celebrate, encourage and enjoy poetry and poets.

Schools pupils bring in favourite poems, and radio and TV programmes have invited poets (or inevitably, celebrities) to discuss and recite poetry. Many newspapers run features on the nation's favourite poems, and events are taking place across the country - including a walking tour of the poetry of the Old Town here in Edinburgh.

But as everyone else celebrates wonderful poetry and great poems, let us take a different course.

Let's celebrate, encourage and enjoy the bad poetry too.

You know who I mean: William Topaz McGonagall, Poet and Tragedian.

Born (and died) in Edinburgh, McGonagall is most associated with Dundee, a town which hardly deserves such a fate.

Revered as "The World's Worst Poet", this sorry title hardly does justice to his perfection in choosing the least appropriate poetic metaphor possible, his complete inability to scan, and his habit of finishing lines with rhymes that, well, just rhymed.

You may know of "The Tay Bridge Disaster":

"Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879
Which will be remember'd for a very long time."

And so on, for 59 gloriously awful, wonderfully excruciating, terrible lines. It's fantastic.

Or "An Autumn Reverie" with, towards the end, its curiously relevant little bit of politics, my name's Ben Elton, good night.

"Oh! Think of the struggles of the poor to make a living,
Because the rich unto them seldom are giving;
Whereas they are told he that giveth to the poor lendeth unto the Lord,
But alas! They rather incline their money to hoard."

You'll have worked out by now that he was a great fan of declamation and the exclamation mark.

When everyone else does one thing, let us do another. So in memory of the great William Topaz McGonagall, I suggest you host a McGonagall Supper, with readings and recitations. To be accurate, you should serve in reverse order, starting with coffee and ending with the starter.

I attend one with old University friends every year, but I'm sure McGonagall wouldn't approve; one of his life's driving forces was the cause of Temperance.

"Oh! thou demon Drink, thou fell destroyer;
Thou curse of society, and its greatest annoyer.
What hast thou done to society, let me think?
I answer thou hast caused the most of ills, thou demon Drink."

I'll drink to that.

Seth Godin doesn't want you to rehearse. Seth Godin is wrong.

I subscribe to Seth Godin's blog. I love Seth Godin's blog. I find it inspiring, entertaining, educational, and enjoyable.

But not always. That's good, because if we agreed with everything we read it would be an awfully boring world.

A couple of weeks ago Seth wrote that "Rehearsing is for cowards".

He quoted Jackson Browne, who I suspect when he said rehearsing is for cowards was being controversial, confrontational, or both. Browne has sold more than 17 million albums, headlined live shows across the world, and written some of the most powerful songs of the last forty years.

And you don't get that good without rehearsing.

The next time you have a presentation to make, or a conference speech, or you're part of a pitch team, please don't fall into the trap of thinking you can wing it. Plan it, prepare it, and rehearse it.

I'm lucky enough to see a lot of great speakers in my job - indeed, I'm just back from the annual convention of the Professional Speaking Association, where I got to watch some of the best speakers in the world perform. I even got to do a keynote myself.

If great speakers look natural, confident, spontaneous and off-the-cuff, that's because they have put the work in to do so. I had a laugh at the convention with the brilliant after-dinner and conference speaker Graham Davies about rehearsing ad-libs. I was only partly joking.

Professional speakers plan and plan and plan. And then they start rehearsing.

Don't think that being under-rehearsed looks 'edgy', spontaneous or relaxed. It looks unprofessional, unprepared, and for the audience, it simply feels awkward.