Time for a Rethink?
“Necessity is the mother of invention”, as the proverb goes and it is certainly true that the events of the last 12 months have led to many things happening which we would never have thought were possible.
One of the most striking has been the development of the Covid vaccine in under a year. Prior to this, the previous record was the mumps vaccine, which took four years, although others have taken decades. It’s amazing what global information sharing and a willingness to invest has achieved.
Many businesses have also had to adapt - in some cases changing products or working practices almost overnight.
One of my clients, who designs and builds high quality furniture for technical environments such as air traffic control centres, rapidly started producing transparent screens for retail customer service environments. Quite a shift from working on projects worth many ‘000s of pounds, to chatting to the manager of a fish and chips shop in Scarborough about a £150 screen!
Whilst some changes have been out of ‘necessity’, other possibilities have appeared as an opportunity.
Whether it has come from spotting a new way of doing something or maybe a conscious decision to go in a new direction, the last year has been one of unprecedented change. Whilst some things will go back to the way they were before, there will be many areas which won’t.
Whether we like it or not, the world has shifted sharply and this is a perfect time to rethink what you do and how you do it. To understand what aspects of your business you may want to ‘put back’ to the way they were before, and what you might like to change.
As you would expect me to say, putting a bit of structure around your thinking can really help! My preferred method is to take an ‘outside in’ approach:
The first aspect I would consider would be the bigger shifts and trends in the world around us and what the implications are for your industry. There are articles published every year on the latest global trends which might just spark your thinking.
Secondly - what developments might you see in your industry? New ways of doing things, use of technology, different business models or even employment models.
You might then consider the relationships and partnerships you have with other companies. Are there opportunities to do things differently, approach the world in a new way?
And finally, look at what you have internally. What tools and equipment do you have? Are there processes and ways of working, special skills, capabilities or knowledge that sit inside your business? What other ways could you use them?
It’s a creative thinking exercise and any aspect might trigger an idea.
The trick is to stay in the ‘what could be’ space for as long as possible. Our brains have an annoying habit of immediately evaluating every idea and jumping to ‘how could we do that’ (often focussing on the reasons why not!) - the ultimate killer of creativity. Even the craziest idea might have a nugget of gold in there somewhere, or trigger another idea which turns out to be your best one yet.
It’s as much an energetic process as a logical one. Notice what aspects of the conversation are fun and give you energy. What possibilities are you drawn to or excited about? Chat to other people who support and energise you and use that to drive your inspiration.
Trust and follow your intuition.
It can’t be forced but if you’re in the right space mentally and feel like a fresh look at things, it’s worth playing around with. Who knows - what comes out of it might be just the thing you most need, at just the time you need it.
“The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas, as in escaping from old ones.”
