Week 14: A Marketplace of Ideas
Traditional leadership:
Conventional leadership focused on finding only the “best“ idea.
A fresh approach:
To innovate in the new era, your focus needs to be on generating a marketplace of many ideas. For this to happen, groups must first generate lots of ideas and keep massaging them. As Thomas A. Edison reportedly said, “To have a great idea, have a lot of them.”
Bring it to life:
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- Create forums (physical and digital) for open, free-flowing exchange of ideas, not simply brainstorming.
- Encourage your teams to generate many good options (not just one) when solving problems.
- Challenge your employees to delay solutions or decisions until new/more ideas surface.
- Push teams to maximize full participation in idea generation including going outside one’s team as well as encouraging input from less vocal people.
- Promote a culture of psychological safety so every member of the community feels free and safe to offer ideas.
Next week: Diversity of Thought
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