Taming a new idea


Innovation is about new ideas. Creative ideas may be new but they need to be tamed to work in the corporate world. Take a wild idea like zero cost. Start the process of taming it by enclosing it in a sanctuary where it cannot be attacked but only developed. Suspend judgment, postpone reaction and extend effort. Get your team to start thinking about impossible goals and making them possible bit by bit to the extent possible. Challenge them to turn every cost centre into a profit centre. Walmart turned inventory into a profit centre by getting its suppliers to deliver on the shop shelf 40 minutes before it was sold and paying them after 6weeks. With a single stroke, they could eliminate warehousing, logistics and even stacking on the shelf. Remember the laboratory of the mind can test a hundred alternative futures at very low cost.