Before & After : Creative thinking in business

My little brother Michael was born with a large hole in his head.

It was his mouth.

When brother Mike, 13 months my junior, was drawing at the kitchen table as a kid, you never had to guess what he was drawing. You could always hear what he was putting down to paper.

If Michael was drawing a farm, the rest of the family could tell from two rooms away. “Oink! Oink!” we’d all hear. Or, “Moooo!” Or, “Cluck, cluck, cluck.”

If we heard “Pow!!! Boom!!! Pow!!!” or “bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.” We knew Michael was drawing a war scene.

Then there were the times we’d hear “Oink, oink, POW!” Oh no, Michael’s blowing up pigs.

What was the lesson I got from this innocent (?) little exercise my little brother did daily with his crayons? You have to let it out. You can’t keep it inside you. When you’re creating, you have to risk looking or sounding a little foolish, and you have to let it out.

So often when leading brainstorming sessions or when conducting some in-room exercise at my training programs I can see it in people’s eyes that they’re holding back. I can see the excitement for having a wild idea battling with the self-consciousness of exposing one’s inner whims.

Every great thinker of every great idea has faced the moment when they had to make the decision to go public with their concept or not. (Or they didn’t think at all,..) We should all be grateful that so many people had the guts to let those wonderful ideas out. We can only imagine how many great ideas have been lost on the tip of someone’s mind, pen, paintbrush or keyboard.

Fortunately, I had my brother and his 80 decibel Crayolas® to help me get that important lesson early in life, that if you don’t let ideas out, no one will ever know what’s on your mind.

What do you do all day long?

You’re in meetings. You’re at the computer. You’re traveling. You’re in more meetings. You’re doing your job. You’re executing stuff.

Now, what exactly is it that you are executing?

Ideas.

We all do, do, do. But it starts with an idea.

We come up with ideas. We are handed other’s ideas. We sell ideas. We execute ideas. Too, often we clean up after ideas gone wrong.

How long does it take to come up with that idea? A nano second, right?

Then we put in the hours, weeks, often months, sometimes years executing that idea. It better be a good idea. Because that’s a lot of time, energy and money going into that idea. It better be a very good one. Heck, it better be great. (more…)

There was a time the Speedo logo that you see at the bottom of these swim trunks couldn’t fit on a “Speedo.” For decades a Speedo was the briefest of swim briefs. The very concept of Speedo stood for skimpy, tight, dare I say, “daring.” Its brand essence, its DNA could be rolled up in the palm of your hand.

Well, so much for slavishly adhering to strict DNA. Speedo has changed the fabric of its brand. Or is it that they’ve added to it significantly?

Militantly strict discipline around brand definition has long been one of the foundational principles of brand marketing.

At Speedo USA’s web site, of the 30 best sellers in swim wear only 1, count ‘em 1, item fits snugly to the classic definition of the swim brief that put this brand on the map. Only three products could be called “briefs.”

Today Speedo is the top selling swimsuit marketer in the world. Did they do it by standing still? By resting on their Olympic gold medal-winning laurels, as tight (so to speak) as they were? No, they did it by having the insight, wisdom and, yes, probably swimming pools full of courage to paddle away from what too many companies would call their undeniable essence, their untouchable DNA. (more…)