Creativity and Innovation: Executing Ideas

Last newsletter, I shared some ideas on how to “Subtly Sell” your Value Proposition to peers or investors and received a question on how do we assure successful execution of ideas in our organisations.

My top of the mind ideas are;

Have the ideation team be and stay as part of the execution team. They already have an intellectual stake and an emotional attachment to their innovation plans and strategies. The stake and the attachment will keep their passions fuelled and will also engage and influence others in the team, and in the supporting teams. Should there be any kinks that pop during the process of execution their participation will help them draw upon other ideas that had been brought up during the ideation stage. The kinks can be patched up with unused ideas from the ideation period.

Throw in a small number of outsiders, non-team members who will keep challenging or stumbling through the process of execution and building. These members can become the untrained, uninitiated feedback providers. They can bring in the same critical or amazed views and opinions that usually come from the real market, the real customer. This will keep the main team on their toes and even during the process of execution new ideas can still be incorporated in the progress of the process or the product.

Lastly, we should be ready to write-off the investment of time, money and man-hours that we put into these new plans. Driving change and innovation is a venture and must have a large amount of risk-taking ability and attitude built into the new ideas and action. There are no guarantees in life and in business.

Click here for the previous article.

Creativity and Innovation: Selling Your Value Proposition

Ideation in industries is challenging but the bigger challenge is converting ideas into actions, executing those ideas and also convincing peers and investors to buy into your ideas. Our ideas remain worth a sneeze if they can't be converted into value propositions and tangible, measurable products, processes or projects.

Yesterday, at a workshop I was asked..."How'd you get peers and investors to buy in?"

Here are three, really, quick tips.

Step 1:
Sneak the idea, subtly, into their mind-environment like fragrance, like mist, like a dainty little butterfly. CEOs, CIOs, Investors, like all of us, probably a bit more, are busy and pre-occupied. Sneaking in an idea into their environment makes them feel they thought about it, they came up with it, thus, they will want to own and invest into it.

Do this through a press leak, a tweet, a hand-written note. Or, speak to your companion, in an elevator, in hushed tones within their earshot. Essentially, let the idea seep into their system without having to work through natural human resistances.

Step 2:
Assuming this gets you into their boardroom for a "little" chat about a new idea, go prepared to go for the jugular and make major impact.

Carry, a less than 3 minute presentation/chat/proposal which...
Describes the proposition in crystal clear terms. Edit it a thousand times for impact and clarity.

Keeps your proposition irrefutable and backed up by proof or testimonials from valid or respectable sources.
Has an underlying agenda and a visible agenda that is ethical and delivers a greater good...in alignment with corporate vision and values.

Step 3:
Offer to participate and drive the execution of the idea and stay with it till its launch and, inevitable, success. Rarely do people want to buy into and invest in an idea until it seems to them that the person proposing is committed to it and will stand behind its execution.

Think of innovation as new action and a put in conscious effort to sell and execute your ideas.

HeART SmART™ Creativity & Innovation
Raju Mandhyan