How to Generate Groundbreaking Ideas
Keeping inspired and working towards that next great idea is something we all want to achieve. An interesting article I read recently from the Fast Company explores the research of Joel Chan and Christian Schunn and the science behind brainstorming, these are some top points from the article:
How Groundbreaking Ideas Are Generated
Ideas come from a chain of cognitive leaps
Research shows that rather than instantly appearing as if from out of nowhere, ideas are the result of massive cognitive leaps. The first idea will spark a new but closely related thought, which in turn will inspire a further idea, sparking a chain that can lead to a breakthrough.
Ideas as analogies to past solutions
Analogies are a really useful way to prompt this kind of thought process. They are a tool we use all the time without knowing it to make sense of the world around us.
As Schunn explains, “Your head is filled with solutions you’ve seen, and analogies are a way of looking through that past history of solutions to say, ‘Well, maybe one of those could work here.”
Generating Business Ideas With Your Team
Putting the above into practice:
1. Discuss successful solutions from the past
Don’t start a meeting with ‘today we are going to come up with brilliant ideas’, but instead discuss solutions that have worked from the past.
2. Create analogy frameworks
Use analogies to create a framework that helps join thoughts together and come up with new and more creative ideas.
3. Don’t define too many boundaries
Don’t start with examples or potential results as this will frame thoughts and hinder innovation.
4. Avoid falling back on incentives
Beware of incentives as when they are employed, we tend to generate very similar and less creative ideas.
If you or your team need a fresh approach to problem solving or have a tricky business problem they need to find a solution too, try out one day Creative Problem Solving workshop.
This course will help you manage and facilitate idea generation sessions and create exciting plans that inspire confidence and forward implementation.
Get in touch to find out more.
