ExecuNet: More Ideas Aren’t The Key To Innovation

The key to creativity is solving the right problem.

As a leader, it’s important to challenge your first impression of what you think is the problem. Don’t generate ideas first. Instead, wait until you have clearly identified the best problem to solve. And the best way to arrive at those solutions is by asking creative questions, which I wrote about in a post for ExecuNet.

When attempting to generate creative questions, use these four guiding principles:

1. Defer judgment
2. Strive for quantity
3. Seek wild and unusual questions
4. Combine and build on other questions