Where do you get your best ideas?
/You’re a leader filled with all kinds of ideas for the future. Maybe you can’t wait to try them all out. Maybe you’re selective and focus on your favourites. Or maybe you’re too busy or just cautious and can’t get out of the blocks.
Whatever the case, it’s worth stepping back for a spell to consider where your ideas come from—likely a combination of experience, influence and instinct. You saw someone else’s results and it just felt like it could work for you. More effective ways to connect with your audience, to deliver your stuff to them, to increase the mutual benefit.
Whether you’re leading a commercial endeavour, a social enterprise, or your local community, you can’t do it alone. We all need inspiration. And we can all seek out that inspiration more effectively. We can all cast a wider net, nurture a habit of seeking inspiration, and polishing our filtering skills. If you feel you don’t have the time, pick your sources, spend an extra hour a week, and commit to forming a new habit. You’ll be surprised at the results.
Seeing evidence of success is inspiring but it’s important to dig deeper to understand the why and the how. When businesses succeed with ideas, it’s not at the first attempt. Ignore the overnight successes—they’re grounded in luck, and that’s not something you can plan on repeating.
Remember most things have been tried before—but not in your precise context. We all learn from the successes and failures of others. The trick lies in filtering these ideas, understanding how to test them in our unique context, and building the technologies that make ideas fly.
Sourcing inspiration is a foundation of my book, Trusting Technology. Expanding your field of vision, habitually refining your opinion on the potential you can realize and setting your sights on the right goals—incremental or game changing.
In the next article in this series, we’ll look at Where Ideas Go. In the meantime, try this …
How wide do you cast your net for inspiration?
Spend 5 minutes on these questions to assess your vigilance for new ideas:
How diverse is your research? Do you look beyond your current field/ industry/ network?
How habitual is your research? List the sources that you consult and assess what you’ve gained from this habit. How could you gain more?
Who do you hang out with, chat informally with on a regular basis? What do they add? Do you reach out for solutions, or inspiration?
How do you close in on the why and the how—the fit for your plans?
Graham Binks is the author of Trusting Technology, a book about forming ideas, exploring opportunities with customers and colleagues, and building your future together. Graham speaks and writes regularly at www.grahambinks.com/blog.