Page 47 - Free the Idea Monkey

This team approach
works for three reasons: it
is small, it is focused and
it is empowered. The lead-
ership of the company has
created clear objectives like:

• You will bring us (three)
ideas that we can launch
in 12 months.

• These ideas can be a product, service or business model as
long as they deliver the incremental dollars.

• These ideas will live under brand X.
• Each idea will deliver X million in incremental dollars.
The team is powerful: it has a budget, complete authority to
make the project happen and unlimited access to any part of the
organization — including the executive leadership team. (Note that
while this type of parenting team may resemble internal teams that
have lived in your organization in the past, those teams most likely
were not given the direction and lacked the authority of the ones
outlined above. Most importantly, they probably were disbanded
long before the idea hit the market.)

While turning an idea over to a stepparent
gets less dangerous the closer you get to launch,
having the original parents in place all the way

to market ensures that the insight lives in the
idea as well as the business, marketing and
sales strategy.

As parents, we imagine our children some-
day walking down the aisle. We will have
been there for them every step of the way.
We will have done everything that we could
to encourage, protect and challenge them to be the best they could
be. And when they are successful, we’ll know that we’ve had more
than a little to do with it.
Ideas are just like our kids. They deserve good parenting.

32 M E E T T H E I D E A M O N K E Y