Brainstorming is about collecting ideas, not building ideas into something bigger. To be innovative, you need to act, author Jeffrey Baumgartner tells the Times of Malta.

Many businesses operate with the assumption that ideas and innovations are interchangeable. What is, for you, the basic difference between the two?

I define innovation as the implementation of creative ideas to generate value, usually through increase in income, reduced operational costs or a combination of the two. But it can also be in other forms, such as adding value to the community, reducing carbon footprint or the like.

Hence, an idea is basically the seed of innovation. It’s nice in its own right, but if you want a plant, you need to make an effort: plant it, ensure it gets sunlight, water it, nurture it and even then, it might not survive.

Unfortunately, in my experience a lot of companies do indeed equate ideas with innovation. Worse, they measure innovation by the number of ideas they collect in their brainstorming sessions, idea management software and other innovation activities. But having a thousand ideas tucked away in databases and on post-it notes is not added value. It is added administrative work.

To be innovative, companies need to identify promising ideas and implement them.

What are the main elements that help a business translate a good idea into innovation?

The main element is the willingness to implement ideas. More specifically, senior managers need to be willing to take risks and try out ideas that may or may not succeed. And they need to be in a work environment where it is accepted to try out an idea, admit that it is not working and move on to other, more promising ideas.

As a rule of thumb, the more creative – and, hence, potentially innovative – an idea is, the riskier it is to implement. It is new, it is untested, it is a big change. If it succeeds, it could be hugely successful. If it fails, it could be massively expensive. Imagine if the iPhone had failed? It would have been a financial disaster for Apple and their company would probably be in a very different place today. Fortunately for Apple and its shareholders, Steve Jobs took that risk and many others. It is now one of the most valuable companies in the world.

This is a big reason why so many companies collect ideas rather than implement them. Collecting ideas is safe and feels like innovation. Acting on ideas can be dangerous.

You developed your Anti-Conventional Thinking approach as a reaction to brainstorming. Where does your method succeed and where does brainstorming fail?

Anticonventional Thinking (or ACT) differs from brainstorming in three distinct ways. Firstly, before you start thinking about ideas, you look at the situation for which you want ideas. You play with it and ask questions, including emotional ones like “How do you feel about this situation?”, “How do you want to feel about it?” “What kind of relationship do customers have with this product?”; and anticonventional questions, such as “How does this situation feel about you?”, “What would your grandmother suggest?”, and “How is this situation like a pizza?”

Secondly, criticism of ideas is encouraged in ACT, but forbidden in the idea generation part of brainstorming. Lastly, ACT aims to build one big, bold creative idea rather than a long list of ideas like you get out of a brainstorm.

To understand why ACT is more creative, imagine five kids and a huge pile of Lego building bricks. They want to build a spaceship. If they follow the brainstorm approach, they would sit down at a conference table and shout ideas. All ideas would be welcome and the facilitator would write the ideas on a whiteboard. They would not be allowed to criticise ideas. Eventually, they might have 100 ideas, which they combine into similar concepts. Then they would choose an idea to work with.

If they follow the ACT approach, they discuss the spaceship for a while and then start building a spaceship together. Sometimes they cooperate, sometimes individuals build their own thing which is attached to the spaceship. Sometimes they argue about details, but they eventually agree. Sometimes they try something that does not work. So they dismantle it and try something different.

In the end, which spaceship is likely to be more creative? Which group is likely to have a more elaborate spaceship? Which group is more efficient? Which group is more fun?

A lot of companies measure innovation by the number of ideas they collect in their brainstorming sessions

A brainstorm results in a lot of ideas, most of which are mediocre. Even the best ideas are small, because brainstorming is about collecting ideas, not building ideas into something bigger.

An ACT session, on the other hand, finishes with a big concept that incorporates a lot of ideas. So it is easier to go forward with an ACT concept, than it is with a collection of brainstormed ideas.

Can there be situations where brainstorming can succeed in inspiring a company to innovate?

I’ve been told that a lot of managers use brainstorms to validate their ideas. So, in that sense, I guess they can be useful. They are also good for smaller, incremental innovations, where a lot of simple, low risk ideas that come out of the brainstorm can be implemented.

Does every innovation burst in a breakthrough or can innovation be simmered and developed over time?

Innovation spans a spectrum, from incremental to breakthrough. Incremental innovations, such as minor product improvements and efficiency improvements are easier, less risky and more common. Breakthrough innovations, on other hand, are much less frequent, but make a bigger impact. Most companies are good with innovation on the incremental side of the spectrum, while few are good at breakthrough innovation. But those that are – companies such as Apple, Amazon and Tesla – are perceived as innovators.

Does every company actually need to innovate in order to achieve and maintain growth and profitability?

Every company probably needs to do incremental innovation. Companies need to make improvements to products, services and operations in order to remain competitive. However, most companies survive just fine with this level of innovation.

The only danger is when there is a technological disruption that affects their industry. The film industry is a good example. Companies like Kodak, Fuji and Agfa were doing fine for decades with incremental innovation. Then digital photography began to catch on. It damaged every company in the film business and destroyed one-time icons such as Kodak.

So incremental innovation is fine and dandy but be aware of technologies that could make your technology obsolete.

Is every innovation profitable?

No. I would argue that every business innovation needs to generate value – and usually that is in terms of profit. But innovation can also generate value in other ways, such as reducing a company’s carbon footprint or engaging with the local community or helping non-profit organisations.

You will be speaking at the Malta Innovation Summit. What will you be focusing on?

I will talk about the dark side of creativity, how innovation leaders need to be aware of it and how they can exploit it. I believe it will be a surprising and entertaining talk.

Jeffrey Baumgartner is an author and cartooning innovationist. He is the author of the innovation books The Way of the Innovation Master and Anticonventional Thinking – the Creative Alternative to Brainstorming as well as the science fiction-humour novel The Insane Journey and the literary hack The Adventures of Felicity Holmes. He also writes Report 103, the web’s longest running blog on innovation (since 2004).

He will be speaking at the Malta Innovation Summit.

www.maltainnovationsummit.com

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.