Why Innovation Should Be More like Easter Eggs

By Susan Robertson

Every year, Amy B., a buyer for a large retail chain store, hosts an Easter egg decorating teambuilding party, where she and a bunch of her suppliers spend an entire afternoon coloring and bedazzling boiled eggs. None of the attendees bring kids; they do this for the sheer pleasure of out-of-the office bonding, creating interesting and attractive objects. The group is always amazed at the creativity of the resulting eggs. And in case you’re wondering, no, none of them are artists.

So why, as adults, don’t people exercise their inner child-like creativity more often? And what is it about the Easter egg party that allows them to so freely generate and express such range and diversity of ideas? There are several factors, all of which also apply to innovation.

1. Each egg represents a very low commitment. The cost is low for both time and materials. There’s no risk to attendees to try any idea they think of, so they try many. If one doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter—it’s just one egg. 

Similarly, in your own innovation work, you need to consider and try out many ideas to ensure that only the best ones move forward. As innovation projects proceed through a company, they cost money, time, and labor at each successive phase. Developing Learn Fast, Learn Cheap methodologies allows you to try out lots of ideas early on, while it’s still cheap

2. They leverage individual creativity and use the power of the group as well. Someone will think of an idea to try and then toss it out to the group. Then everyone contributes ideas for how best to accomplish it. No one ever says, “Yes, but that won’t work.” Everyone just thinks of ways to help make it better. The resulting final solutions are nearly always significantly better than what the person would have tried originally. 

In many companies, the “Yes, but…” phenomenon is all too common, and can be very damaging to creativity and innovation. Most ideas aren’t perfect when they’re first conceived, but teams act like they should be. They point out all the problems in an emerging idea before they ever attempt to find out if there are any positive attributes. For innovation and creative problem solving to thrive, it’s critical to create an environment that nurtures ideas rather than stifles them. In doing so, you get the best ideas from the entire team

3. They are willing to start over when something clearly isn’t working. One participant brought eggs that were not naturally white; instead, they were brown. It wasn’t clear that dyeing them would work very well, if at all. And, in fact, the first few attempts didn’t work. So, she scraped off all the color on her unsuccessful eggs several times. But when she chose red, yellow, and orange colors and left them in the dye bath long enough, she got some of the most uniquely rich and vividly colored eggs anyone had ever seen. 

Unfortunately, in large organizations, too many innovation projects that fail to hit the mark proceed too far. It’s important to recognize when an idea isn’t working and be willing to start again when you need to.
 

4. Reframing the goal results in more divergent ideas.  The woman with the brown eggs also tried other methods of decorating the eggs other than coloring them with dye. Once she reframed the situation from coloring eggs to decorating eggs, everyone else also began creating the most innovative and unusual eggs. 

Reframing the problem is a critical step in effective problem-solving and innovation. The way a problem is stated affects the potential solutions you will think of. When addressing any obstacle, it’s a good idea to question the way the challenge or problem is worded, to see if you can reframe it to get to different and better solutions. 

The next time you find yourself with a challenge to meet, keep these tips in mind to help you think more creatively and come up with more innovative solutions. 

• Learn fast, learn cheap. Test many possible ideas.
• Leverage individual and group creativity. Use the “Yes, and” mindset instead of the “Yes, but” approach.
• Be willing to start over when the idea isn’t working.
• Reframe the opportunity to expand your thinking.

About the Author:

Susan Robertson empowers individuals, teams, and organizations to more nimbly adapt to change, by transforming thinking from “Why We Can’t” to “How Might We?” She is a creative thinking expert with over 20 years of experience speaking and coaching in Fortune 500 companies. As an instructor on applied creativity at Harvard, Susan brings a scientific foundation to enhancing human creativity. To learn more, please visit: SusanRobertsonSpeaker.com.