When you think of design thinking, you should think of critical thinking. The design thinking process requires you to slow down and be aware of your assumptions or orthodoxies and ensure you’re asking the right questions. Through this process, you can begin to shift your thinking and translate your ideas to true business opportunities.
Last month, we took a look behind the scenes at how bright ideas are developed. We uncovered success, transcendence, resistance, and emotional impacts to gain a better understanding of the benefits of looking deeper within ourselves and our bright ideas to effectively take actions towards our goals.
Four Tips For Transforming Ideas to Opportunities
Slow Down
Slow down before you speed up. Sometimes in business, it’s necessary to take a moment to recollect your ideas and thoughts before immediately taking action and immersing yourself in the problem. This life-saving tip may be the difference between success and failure for you and your organization.
Collaborate
Are you afraid of accepting a great idea because it didn’t come from you? If so, you’re not alone. Oftentimes people struggle with embracing and realizing ideas that are built through collaboration.
However, despite these sentiments, we must recognize that collaboration is a powerful tool. Great ideas often require more than just a single person to come to light. Leaders tend to invest in not just a single
Set Ground Rules
Make every meeting and opportunity worth everyone’s time. This means don’t set a meeting without establishing some clear ground rules and objectives. These rules will uncover how to properly handle any arguments or disagreements throughout the meeting. Rules can also help the team recover from unnecessary tangents, allowing everyone to respectively understand when they’re being interrupted and asked to stay on top.
Document Everything
When you’re stuck in the planning process, it’s vital that you document the many ideas and plans that are discussed amongst groups. These ideas are vital and may be pieced together to come up with the best solution.
Documenting key subjects also reduces controversial situations where one person’s word is against another. These documents become key in accountability and serve as a point of reference for future meetings.
Final Thoughts
Remember, coming up with a business idea is one thing. But at the end of the day, you need a talented team with the skills and experience required to bring a business to life. No matter how talented one member of the team is, collectively the team must work together and have all the skills required to maintain and manage a sustainable business.
All in all, when it comes to growing your business you must support collaboration and take strides to ensure collaboration is at the forefront of all business goals and decisions. “Collaboration is a lot about clear communication, consistency and high level of accountability”.
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