Here are 3 ways to Think Big
I just read an ad about a new innovation position with a big company.
In the ad which was filled with lots of awesome words, was a description of the person they were looking for:
We need someone who can think big …
This started me thinking.
How do you think big?
Is it something you are born with or can you acquire this magical quality?
How would you know if you were a big thinker anyway?
What’s wrong with thinking small?
In fact, can you think big and small depending on the situation?
Well this post is about trying to answer the first question.
How do you think big?
Here are 3 suggestions:
1. Ask for a 10X solution.
This is a wonderfully simple way of thinking.
Invented by Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson, the 10X approach asks you to come up with an idea that is ten times better than the existing one.
So rather than a aim for a 10% improvement aim to generate some ideas or solutions that are 10X’s better.
This new lens encourages you to escape the current set of ideas and create bigger ones.
2. Make your Mindset Box explicit.
This is a tool I developed as a result of leaders asking me to help them create an out of the box idea.
The starting point with this tool is to make the box explicit then try and break free of it.
This tool is fully explained in the video here.
3. Take an existing idea and Blitz it!
In my role as a facilitator one of my most effective actions is to push a group or team to go to the next level.
The aim is to transform an initial good idea into a great one.
I do this by having the group focus in on a single idea and Blitz it.
This is the process of Speed Thinking which means trying to generate ideas quickly without filtering your responses.
In this case, how can we make this idea 9 times better in the next 2 minutes!
Invariably the team members push one another to try and build on each others ideas to generate a huge idea!
Sometimes what stops us from creating a big idea are the standards of the group.
An ok idea or solution is might do the trick but by investing a few extra minutes you can often create a bigger idea.
I would rather push the group to see how far an idea can be developed.
It might just become a big idea!