Ideas Factory: How to Generate and Present New Ideas at Work?

You are being exploited.

You are being exploited cognitively. Every day. Your brains are the resource your employers, colleagues, and customers want to make use of. And they do – they rely on your brainpower in the different ways they do business.

That's reality. We are brainpower for business. We are paid to offer whatever gray matter we have. There is no other way – at least as long as you want to do the jobs you do rather than switch to something more manual, physical.

The demand to think every day brings a challenging dilemma: what to think about? Seriously, I'm sure this is a major challenge. Why? Because there are better and worse ways of using our brains at work.

In the training, I have tried to show you that thinking about optimization, improvement, innovation, and change can be productive and rewarding at the same time because it connects your own understanding of what could and should be done with the most basic needs of the company you work for – that is, the need for a better bottom line.

1. What is an idea?

Some thoughts are easy to formulate and discuss. Some are more difficult. Some are almost indescribable. We don't want to push those that seem slightly too difficult to talk about. Not because we chicken out, but because these ideas might perhaps need more time to mature.

Curating and promoting a ready idea is way easier than developing something that is not yet there. Take your time, then, and push your idea into production when you feel it's ready to be developed.

How to know if something's ready? Check if you can get short answers to the following questions:

• What does this idea consist in?
• What problem does it solve?
• What benefit does it bring – and to whom?
• Why should you do it now?
• Why should YOU do it – rather than somebody else?
• Do you want to spend (dozens of) hours developing this idea, talking to people about it, and then taking care of implementation? Yes or no?

2. How to present an idea?

At work, you are hardly ever alone. There are people you affect and are affected by. For your ideas to work well, you need support.

Let's be frank: you will need help.

Think of who they are and what they need now. The first thing is always the same: they need to be taken care of. And that means we need to help them understand and enjoy what you want to propose.

HELP THEM FOCUS

• speak to them at an appropriate time,
• give them time to focus before you get to the main point,
• say the same thing twice (or three times, with different words),
• don't overload them with things to do.

MAKE IT RELEVANT

Ideas are best assimilated when they are relevant to those we present them to. Think of how excited you would be with a fervently delivered detailed proposal for a revolutionary change in Romanian mining industry. Not even remotely, huh?

The relevance of ideas is best tested in conversation or a hands-on presentation. It is conversation that sparks interest. It is hands-on presentation that spurs belief.

CONNECT PROBLEM TO SOLUTION

Problem Statement + Solution

First, try and connect the description of the problem your idea solves with a presentation of the solution itself. First problem, then solution.

PRESENT THE SOLUTION

1. Show benefits. They need to know what good the idea brings them.
2. Tell a story if you can that will present the problem in context.
3. Show WHAT will happen, WHO will do it, and WHEN.
4. Prepare materials to follow up with.

3. How to do it together?

I believe that some of the best things in our lives are experienced in the company of others. Analogically, best ideas – even if they are born in the minds of individuals – are best explored in teams, or in communities.

In other words: brains need company. Ideas need confrontation and following.

What kind of support do you need? Usually 6 things:

1. You want them to know and understand the idea.
2. You want them to share comments.
3. You want them to get you their blessing.
4. You want them to want to learn more as the project develops.
5. You want them to get engaged at some point.
6. You want them to get you feedback on implementation.

Okay, and then what?

Then the long life of your idea begins. How long will it be? Will it be life worth living? Well, you'll see for yourselves. But if you have gone through this summary thinking of how to launch your project nicely, I'm sure you'll do well!

Let me know how things are going. And watch some "Friends".

Miłosz