Inside the Box
Sometimes, you have to find a way put your (best) ideas back Inside the Box.
The phrase “Outside the Box” dates back to the mid 1970’s, and originally referred to the solution to a puzzle that required moving ones pen beyond the boundaries of a box. Over the past 30+ years, it has become a phrase used to separate the creative from the non-creative, innovative thinkers from those who are stuck in the same old ruts, hip businesses from the tragically stale.
However, Jim Collins finds in his latest book, How the Mighty Fall, that failing companies in his study, in the early stages of their death plunge, were actually more innovative and launched more products and new business lines than those comparison companies that didn’t proceed through stages on the road to death. “Hubris Born of Success”, “The Undisciplined Pursuit of More” and “Denial of Risk and Peril” are his titles for these phenomena. I highly recommend the book.
Should businesses, therefore, spurn innovation and fire anyone suspected of creativity? Or is there another way? I believe the answer lies in using disciplined thinking to balance fertile idea generation. The key to staying ahead in our hyper-changeable world is not to bury your corporate head in the sand, but to work the entire creative process.
Working Paper: Models for the Creative Process by Paul E. Plsek, 1996, lays out various ways of viewing the stages involved in this process, but one that has stood the test of time is Graham Wallas’ (1926), as paraphrased by Plsek:
- Preparation (definition of issue, observation, and study)
- Incubation (laying the issue aside for a time)
- Illumination (the moment when a new idea finally emerges) •
- Verification (checking it out)
Verification is an iterative process that can be thought of as a series of filtering, building, more filtering and building again. Successful innovation requires retaining confidence in finding a solution to your business challenge, while at the same not being wed to any one solution, product or idea. It also requires reality checks, and who better to give them to us than the people we are hoping will buy or be affected by the results of our ideas.
Marketing research is sometimes thought of as a buzz-kill, anathema to the creative process, even a way to kill the soul of innovative people within an organization. Yet, when done with sensitivity, iteratively, and in cooperation with the “Incubation and Illumination” stages, it can be an engine of creative discipline and help to yield exciting new edges to the box that will ultimately become a new product, service, brand strategy, package or website.
Qualitative marketing research can help to turn a myriad of potentially great ideas into a polished, customer-appealing, revenue-driving engine of business success.
- What are some of the keys to refining the best ideas without killing them?
- Bring the creative people into the process.
- Treat creative ideas sensitively and with respect.
- Use the voice of the customer not only to evaluate ideas, but also to build on these ideas.
- Use learnings to drive organizational learning, to educate everyone’s gut, so that future ideas are built on this new understanding.
- Use research at various points in the process, from an upfront needs assessment that drives innovation, to intermediate concept testing, to final product/message/ad/package/website testing.
Jenni Cooper is the president of Periquin Strategy Inc., a brand strategy and qualitative marketing research consulting firm. She can be reached at jenni@periquin.com.
