Maybe we should all put a few 10 year olds on staff?Pictured at left is Ian Culhane, age 10. Ian used 6,000 pieces from his K’NEX building collection to build a roller coaster in the shape of a dragon.
He just thought it up and made it. He won $10,000 and a family trip to New York for his design. Ian did not gather a team of experts to come up with his design.
How did he do it? Boy genius? Ian obviously has some valuable traits such as the ability to take the picture from his mind and make it concrete. He also must have incredible patience.
Ian has something else going for him. He “works” in an environment that allows him to live his passion. And certainly he is given the tools and space to work out his creative ideas. At age 10 he doesn’t have have income to buy all those parts and he certainly isn’t renting office space to test his ideas. Those things are provided.
Your business has a few “Ians”. Do you give them the tools and space to work through ideas to benefit your business? Do you grant time to produce new thoughts?
Here’s my proposition. If you can find some space and outfit it with a few materials appropriate to your business you may discover an Ian or two. Can you imagine the benefit to your company if an employee developed one new product or service each year? Picture the benefit of having just one big business improvement invented by one your own “Ians”.
Naw. You’re probably too busy for stuff like that. And all your people are too busy for stuff like that.
Never mind.
Chris Reich, Author of TeachU’s Business Talk Blog