When do you make time to think?

Guest Author: Ed Bernacki

Thinking is crucial in business to solve problems, develop new strategies, deal with customers and manage staff issues. It fuels creativity. It improves decision making. It creates value. So when do you think?

A recent US study asked senior executives where they are most effective in personal thinking.

58% say at home,
50% say commuting to work,
45% say at the office and
38% say during brainstorming sessions.

Would the results differ for New Zealand executives? I doubt it. It’s staggering to consider that so many executives believe their businesses are unsuitable places for thinking. If this reflects your reality, consider how you can harness your thinking when you actually do it. You won’t be sitting in front of a computer. Therefore, what tool can capture your thinking to create value for your organization?

Forget the electronic toys and invest in a quality note book and turn it into your ‘idea journal’.

Use the first two or three pages to answer this question: where do I need innovative thinking? Write down a version of this question in big letters on the first page to prompt you to pick the problems in need of solutions, the products waited to be created, the staff issues needing to be resolved, and so on. Think of this as your contents pages. Number each challenge.

The second stage is to take each challenge and write it across the top of a new page. If you start with four challenges, then use four separate pages.

Whether you are sitting at home or driving, pick one of your challenges and think about it. Don’t be worried if the big idea does not come right away. Start by asking…
• Why does this problem exist?
• What assumptions have we made about this situation? Are they still valid?
• Have we tried to solve this in the past? Why did the solution fail?
• Do we need a better solution or a totally different solution?

The goal is to capture your observations, insights and conclusions. Sometimes nothing comes to mind. Don’t fret as it takes time to develop ideas. The key is keep advancing toward a solution.

This final aspect is the hardest. It takes discipline to invest small amounts of time each day. Our productive time is too valuable to waste. I look for opportunities to steal time for my ideas when I am forced to waste it. Waiting for a doctor’s appointment or at the airport are perfect opportunities to invest 10 minutes of thinking into your challenges. I confess that I have used my idea journal during dull meetings. I focus one eye on my challenge while keeping the other on the meeting. People may think I am making meeting notes when I am actually developing my ideas.

The research does raise some interesting questions: why do we manage our business without building in time to think? Perhaps you can think about when you drive home tonight.

About Ed Bernacki:

Ed Bernacki is based in Ottawa and started his concept of the Idea Factory in 1996.

The Idea Factory is a management philosophy that stresses the development of ideas and innovation as the key to business growth.
- A system that instils an equal sense of urgency to create revenue opportunities and to solve business problems.
- A tool kit to improve brainstorming by focusing on reaching a particular “result”.
Ed believes that most “good” business ideas already exist in the heads of staff, suppliers or customers. However, few businesses use a system to leverage the knowledge that exists or to enhance it further. As a result, many ideas remain buried and often stifled.

Website: www.wowgreatidea.com
Email: info@wowgreatidea.com