Despite all you read, innovation is really quite simple. It consists of five key steps:
 
1. Create a range of workable concepts (i.e create, enhance and evaluate your raw ideas).
 
2. Test these as quickly and as cheaply as you can.
 
3. Measure what happens.
 
4. Learn from how consumers or users react to your new product, service, solution or concept and
 
5. Share this learning around the organisation, so that you don’t keep repeating your mistakes and others may learn from your work.
 
And most importantly, action these five steps (or cycle) faster than your competitors, faster than you have ever done it before and faster than customers expect it.
 
As I said, it is simple really.
 
Yet when leaders ask me how to enhance their innovation efforts I direct them to this cycle and ask them how are they at each of these five steps (and the connections between these). Over many years of asking this question, do you know the one area they say they are very good at?
 
Measurement. That’s right. Management today is all about measuring things. To be sure, this is important but what about the other four steps?
 
Most leaders admit that their team or business is not good at creating new ideas (perhaps not allowed to or encouraged to?), nor can they test these concepts quickly. Nor it seems, are they adept at learning from their actions and certainly don’t share this learning across the different functions or teams across the organisation.
 
It is no wonder that most organisations struggle with innovation. You need all five steps completed at lightning pace to thrive today.
 
Ask yourself, what steps in the innovation cycle are your brand or business good at?
 
If you have answered this question honestly then you are half-way towards improving your innovation results.
 
Let me know your answers.

Yours in ideas,
 
Dr Ken Hudson

What does it mean to be an original thinker and why is it important?

I believe these are wonderful questions. I have tried most of my adult life to be original for better or for worse. It has made me sometimes stand out, to be able to think of different and sometimes valuable new ideas and solutions and follow my own path.

It has also meant that I have become bored far too easily, it has made me unpopular at times and i have lacked a single-minded focus with my business (something i am trying to remedy with my Speed Thinking concept).

But to be an original thinker is still something to be cherished i believe. We all need people in our lives that help us see something in a different light or can open us to a new possibility. Original Thinkers are people with courage and imagination that do not want to follow the crowd nor accept the prevailing wisdom. Sometimes original thinkers are way ahead of everyone else and shine a light that others may follow and occasionally there are people that are original but are just plain wrong or mad or both.

But every now and then wouldn’t it be good to be more original at work (and your personal life).–to be the first person to think of a breakthrough solution and to jump ahead of the competition. To help others break out of the ‘me-too’ cycle?

How do you become an original thinker?

Here are some suggestions:

- Deliberately adopt an unpopular point of view and see the world fro this perspective e.g. is a good for the world that America is so powerful?

- Open your mind to new stimulus e.g. I read psychology and science magazines even though i am neither a psychologist nor scientist.

- Think of the ‘rules of the game’ that everyone seems to follow e.g. why are mobile phones getting smaller and smaller when the population is becoming older?

- Value your own experiences. We have been brought up to believe that our own experiences are somehow not valid they are too subjective. My bet is that if you are frustrated with a product or service for example then others feel the same way.

- Be fast. Don’t hesitate or second guess yourself. The lesson from Speed Thinking is that it is a process that enables your authentic and original self to emerge.

- Have courage. Be brave and follow your own thoughts. Be sure that if you voice a point of view others will follow.

These suggestions can help you become more original. Being able to think for yourself is a priceless ability and asset–in a washed out, neutral, grey world, a splash of colour can really stand out.

Ken Hudson

It is about this time when year 12 students (in Australia) receive their final year school results. It can be a mixture of joy or disappointment. But often there is a feeling of, ‘if only I had studied harder or longer I might have gained a few extra marks.’

There is also a feeling (from talking to students) of ‘if only i had scored a few extra marks in ……….exam’. They would often say  something like ‘I know that i could have finished that last essay but i ran out of time or if only i would have started the essays without searching for the perfect opening paragraph.’

The first of these laments are to do with content issues. Any school or university student simply has to be across the course (I taught at a university, part-time for ten years–you can tell straight away if the student know their stuff). This is where becoming better at subject revision and doing past papers can help.

But what about improving your performance in exams? Content is not the issue here but trying to get this content out, easily and simply.

This situation begs the question–does our education system and our teachers have the right skills and tools to help students to think quicker and better in a time-pressure situation like an exam. The answer I believe is no. This is where Speed Thinking can help.

I recently ran a pilot program with a private school in Sydney with their final year students and the teachers. It was a voluntary program and approx. 40% of the students (as well as over 30 teachers) attended and were exposed to a single 40 minute Speed Thinking session this was to coincide with a school period). The sample size is small as is the numbers but the results are highly suggestive that a more formal, developed Speed Thinking program could help any student to improve their essay results in an exam, feel more confident and energized in what is a stress-full year.

Based on a survey of this survey, students they could immediately see the benefits of Speed Thinking and could apply it straight-away. Teachers also found this new approach fast, innovative and helpful. They found it easy to learn and communicate and this new skill can complement and enhance their existing tool-kit.

As one year 12 student commented, ‘you’ve only got one chance at the HSC so why not give it everything you’ve got?’

For a full copy of the Speed Thinking pilot results program send me an email: info [at] thespeedthinkingzone [dot] com

I am looking for any student, teacher or principal that would like to introduce Speed Thinking to their school.  Speed Thinking was developed by me with and for business people but I believe this application is far more important.

Dr Ken Hudson

 

Many people believe that there are two types of decision-making. The first is the classic approach which is calls for a precise defining of the decision, developing a number of options and then carefully considering each approach and then deciding on the right decision. This approach has many apparent benefits–it is rational, people believe it is objective, unemotional and there is a formal process. The facts will decide which way to go. Detractors of this approach might point to the fact that it is timely and assumes that you know the outcome of every possibility.

 The other approach is to use your intuition to make decisions. Using this style a person can make decisions based on their experience and judgment. It is usually quick, decisive and can be creative. Some people might argue that it can be wrong, it is difficult to teach and it is an internal process that is hard to substantiate.

But can you have both? Can you have quickness with structure? Can you have rigor as well as relying on unconscious processes? It is my experience that you can have the best of both worlds. My creation of Speed Thinking enables people to create ideas, solutions or decision options at lightning speed (i.e. nine in two minutes) but because of its four stage process (i.e. start, evaluate, build and action) the better ideas can rise to the top through an iterative process. What’s more it can be learned and taught to others.

In a time-poor, fast-moving world, individuals and leaders have to make timely decisions. The adage, time is money is a perfect description of this new world. But it requires a new way of thinking, deciding and acting–one that can synergistically combine two previously opposing ways of thinking. Speed Thinking is one such way.