Startups20 Jul 2007 10:17 pm
Dustin Staiger has a list of 10 signs that you’re shooting down good ideas in your organization. This reminds me of someone I worked with a while back. Here are my personal favorite signs from Dustin’s list of 10:
7. Listing the top 10 ideas from your department this year, half or more are your own.
5. All ideas must be proven.
4. You only want BIG ideas.
2. Your competition is your main source of ideas.
1. No matter how much you’ve talked about ideas, collected them, praised them, in the end you don’t use them. (Like a maimed duck, you let them wander off and die.)
July 22nd, 2007 at 11:53 pm
In The Ten Faces of Innovation (a book gifted to me by JG), one quote really stuck out at me:
“And then in one disastrous moment, your hopes are dashed when someone weighs in with those fateful words: “Let me just play devil’s advocate for a minute. . . .”"
It goes on to say that the devil’s advocate can be pretty disastrous for fragile new ideas.
So I’d add that to the list:
11. You play devil’s advocate in brainstorming meetings.
July 27th, 2007 at 7:14 am
Mark, glad you liked the list. I think we’ve all worked with someone like that along the way.
Tony, great addition to the list. I completely agree. Interestingly, I’m currently re-reading 10 Faces right now. Funny how the blogosphere makes the world bigger and smaller at the same time.