Generating Ideas: Everything Is A Starting Point
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A great way to open your mind up to new possibilities while being a great "team player" is to treat everything as just a starting point. This applies to the improv comedy stage as well as to the business world.
Most people get caught up in ‘end-of-the-line thinking.' That is, when an idea is presented to them, they start to go through all the reasons why the idea won't work. They may do this because they are negative, or they may just take the idea to the end of the line and realize that it won't work. This is not a bad approach in and of itself. Thinking an idea all the way through is not bad; in fact, it is a pretty smart thing to do before committing time and resources to a project.
The problem is that some people apply this type of thinking all the time. End-of-the-line thinking is great once an idea has been developed and fleshed out. In the early stages, however, end-of-the-line thinking can kill great ideas before they get started. When an idea is first introduced, there may be hundreds of details that have not been figured out. At this stage though, the idea needs to be encouraged and explored and developed. Think of it as a starting point, and see where it might lead. Don't worry about the end of the line just yet.
Great ideas have come out of this type of thinking. Einstein's Theory of Relativity would have been dead in the water if he immediately tried to answer every question there was about it when he was first developing it. The Wright brothers would have caved in under the pressure of all the reasons man could not fly if they focused on the challenges to early. Everything everyone knew about the world pointed to it being flat, but Copernicus did not let that stop him exploring the idea of a round world.
Here are three simple ways to open your mind to thinking this way:
- Focus on the benefits of a new idea. Instead of focusing on why something won't work, focus first on what benefits you will get from the idea. This will serve three important purposes: 1) It will motivate you to figure out how to make it work. 2) It will positively open your mind up to discovering new creative solutions. 3) By focusing on the benefits, you prepare the mind to look for great alternatives. That is, when you focus on the benefits, even if the current idea doesn't work, your mind will be primed to come up with new ways of achieving those same benefits.
- When presented with a new idea, whether from someone else or yourself, don't ask, "why won't this work?" but rather ask, "how can we make this work?" By changing one simple question, you completely change the direction of your mind.
- When you truly discover that an idea won't work, explore the positives in the idea. Just because an idea won't work in total doesn't mean that some of the elements within that idea aren't of benefit. This is one of the reasons why it's important to not cut off thinking too soon. Without exploration, you will never get these side-benefit ideas.
Remember these techniques (as well as the powerful examples above) the next time somebody suggests something to you and you start to take it to the end of the line. Also, remember these examples when someone applies end-of-the-line thinking to one of your ideas.
Avish Parashar is a dynamic professional speaker who shows organizations and individuals how to get what they want using the Art and Science of improv comedy. He weaves together humorous stories, witty observations, and interactive exercises from improvisational comedy to get people laughing, learning, and motivated! Avish is most commonly called upon to deliver programs on Motivation, Sales, and Communication
For more free articles, downloads, and resources, visit http://www.AvishParashar.com
To learn how to apply the powerful principles of improv comedy to your own business or life visit http://www.ImprovforEveryone.com
