For years, we lugged our luggage through airports. Or hoisted them onto bulky carts. But someone had the crazy idea of adding two little wheels and a telescoping handle.
And now, roller luggage makes perfect sense.
It was not invented by American Tourister. Or Samsonite. But by an airline pilot who had a problem that he solved.
We often think that we need a creative mind to dream up new solutions to problems. We are all creative, but like Samsonite, we are so close to our business that it’s hard to think differently.
In Dan and Chip Heath’s book Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work, they introduce the concept of a decision playlist–which is an approach to help us get out of our own way to create ideas that might help us better compete. It forces us to be creative. Maybe even a little crazy. And it’s fun!
Playlists are simply questions that stimulate lots of ideas quickly. It makes you look outside of your world to innovate your business. Here are a few examples to get you started:
- How would [Amazon, Tesla, IBM, etc.] solve this problem or take advantage of this opportunity?
- If our customer wanted to do something that they cannot do today, what would they want?
- What would we do if we were a start-up?
- If we could reduced our time and resource investments in a(n) [product, customer segment, activity] in order to improve performance of our business model, what might we invest in?
Generate as many ideas as you can. And don’t judge them! Many transformational ideas die an early death in a conference room. Xerox first had the idea of a computer mouse but it was Apple who used it to transform computing.
Need help defining your strategy?
If your strategy is not a clear as you think it could be, I encourage you to take a look at our new suite of services. From half-day workshops to multi-month engagements, we have several ways to help you and your team quickly get clarity around how you can win.
~Tony