Page 132 - DNBI_A01.QXD

1094 : STEP TWO – GENERATING NEW IDEAS

The structured techniques which follow represent your personal
workout routines which will allow you to perform the type of creative
gymnastics which you probably thought you could never do yourself.
How do these structured creativity techniques work and what are the
principles which underpin them?

why bother with idea-generating techniques? It is very

easy to become stuck in given ways of thinking and acting. This is as
true for everyday life as it is for business. Faced with cooking for a
dinner party, most hosts will opt for tried-and-tested favourite dishes
which they know will work rather than experiment with exotic dishes
which may go badly wrong. It is often the same in business, where
individuals and companies develop a successful way of doing things, a
‘winning formula’ which works and which they will often then apply
routinely in different situations.

That is not to say that the application of a winning formula to a similar
but different opportunity cannot be highly effective, especially if the
similarity between the opportunities is not immediately apparent. The
case study on Howard Head demonstrated his brilliance in perceiving
similarities both between aircraft manufacturing and the production of
wooden skis, and between the skiing and tennis markets.

unquestioning repetition Problems can occur when the

supposedly winning formula is applied unchanged or unchallenged
to a market opportunity which perhaps does not represent a
satisfactory analogy. Having successfully applied the winning
formula of the original Californian Disneyland to Florida and Tokyo,
for example, Walt Disney attempted to replicate an unchanged
formula outside Paris. Cultural differences, including an
unwillingness to queue and a propensity to visit for the day rather
than stay for the predicted three days in the huge hotel complex,
together with the cold and damp Parisian weather, made the project
more cultural Chernobyl than Magic Kingdom. Only when the
formula was adapted to acknowledge specific European needs and
tastes was Eurodisney able to survive.

It is all too tempting to rerun the same formula and to replicate ‘me-too’
products or services. It increases the mileage to be obtained from an
initial creative idea. It avoids having to rethink a new strategy. It can
represent the type of safe choice typified by the 1980s’ adage that