Article contributed by Karen S. Sieczka
Want to encourage your staff to think outside the box? Provide the tools they need to get creative.
An Idea Library is a place where you and your staff can go to look for the seeds of a new idea. Much like a regular library, your idea library houses books, journals, and magazines, and offers comfy seating and a place for quiet reflection. What’s different ? It is on-site and available for use any time writer’s block strikes, a project gets stuck in development, or new concepts just don’t seem to be coming.
It’s easy to get started. Carve out a space where there are few distractions. Add some comfortable seating and a table. Keep some games, colored pencils, and lots of paper available here as well. Now start to scour book stores or your own local library for interesting magazines. Here’s the key: don’t look for anything related to your current industry. You want to stimulate new thinking with books, magazines, catalogs, and periodicals unrelated to your organization’s primary industry. Go for something totally different. This is where is new ideas come from.
Look for opposites of what you do and add those items. If you’re in sales, go toward fashion. If you’re scientific, have materials from the day care industry. Bring in annual reports from non-competitors. What are they doing? How can you apply their expertise to what you do?
Borders Bookstores used a display technique garnered from the retail clothing business to quell lagging book sales. It changed its book displays with covers facing out rather than the traditional spine out approach.
Often great ideas come from adapting ideas from another industry or product line and applying it to your organization. We tend to read the same things and do the same things as our competition so we need to find a way to open the creative floodgates. Want new and unusual ideas? Look to other industries for ideas.
Ask: how can we apply what other industries are doing to what we are doing?
About the Author
Karen S. Sieczka is a training consultant and founder of Growing Great Ideas.com. Her latest training program is Growing Great Ideas: Unleashing Creativity at Work. The program generates ideas, enthusiasm, and teamwork and can be customized to address particular organizational issues or challenges. This article was excerpted from the book, Growing Great Ideas: Unleashing Creativity at Work now available at LULU.com in download or print version.
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