Premise:
I have been reading and writing about ideas and how ideas spread and the role they play in innovation. However, there was a question that almost always bothered me – Why some ideas, despite being great ideas, never got the traction they deserved, both within an organisation and in the marketplace.
The answer to this question was provided by Nilofer Merchant in her TEDx talk that she shared on her blog. If this is a topic of interest for you, i would strongly recommend that you start following her blog and the work that she does.
Here is the TEDxTalk.
Some key takeaways for me from the talk:
- Ideas are like children. The more powerful or privileged the parents, the more privileged their ideas.
- Ideas are like seeds of possibilities. They need a fertile ground to spring and grow and someone to take care of them, in the interim.
- Every one of us has ideas – some good, some not so good and some brilliant, irrespective of what we look and where we come from.
In Conclusion:
So, if we want to build a culture (or fertile ground) that can foster creativity and innovation, we need to embrace the fact that ideas can come from anywhere and from anyone. We need to create an environment where ideas are nurtured based on their merits rather than who they come from. This is the job of the leader of the organisation – to create and nurture this culture.
