Get those ideas flowing!

More and more companies are finding that product life cycles are decreasing so it is critically important to have a flow of ideas that become the new generation of products for your organisation.
As a keynote business speaker more and more companies want you to inspire their audiences to unlock their innate creativity. As many studies have shown creativity is key in today’s world.
The lines of demarcation between the various sections in any organisation are becoming blurred. Forward-thinking companies have long recognised that every member of staff is actually a sales person. But what if every member of staff was also part of the Creative Team? How would your business change if every employee’s job description stipulated that they contribute one idea a month on how any aspect of their job could be improved?
To back up this initiative it would be imperative that a structure is in place to both harvest and develop the contributions. There is potential for a new role in an organisation - Ideas executive?
In late 2007, Phillips invited all 125,000 of its workers around the world to stop working and focus on thinking of ways to simplify the processes. The best ideas to come from this experiment would be implemented in all Phillips factories worldwide. This type of initiative would be a major internal Public Relations disaster if an implementation plan wasn’t in place.
Remember, even minor improvements over time can turn into a revolution, as asserted by Katsuaki Watanabe, Toyota President. ‘There is no genius in our company. We just do whatever we believe is right, trying every day to improve every little bit and piece, but when 70 years of very small improvements accumulate, they become a revolution.’
Having overtake
General Motors, Toyota is now the largest car manufacturer in the world.
Another interesting piece of research highlights the importance of not overlooking the ordinary and on focusing continually on the extraordinary in the context of innovation. Professor Amar Bhide of Columbia University found that only 12% of growth company founders attribute their success to an unusual or extraordinary idea while 88% reported that their success was due to “exceptional execution of an ordinary idea.”
Einstein once said that you cannot solve problems with the level of thinking that created them. He also said that the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result! And he also said that imagination is more important than knowledge!
So in my capacity as a Keynote Business speaker I advise individuals and organisations to change your thinking and move from the way ‘things have always been done’ and you’ll get a different outcome. It is important that individuals are allowed the freedom to act and think differently.