Executive Coaching Secrets to Generate New Ideas - Creating an Innovation Idea Factory

Are you working in an organization which values innovation by leaders at all levels? Are the leaders in your organization focused on purposeful work?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself in the present moment is “Am I diligent, persistent, and committed to achieving extraordinary results?” You need to have faith in your own inventiveness and encourage the new ideas of others at work to successfully achieve remarkable results.

Are you open to creative thinking or typically critical of new ideas? How effective are you at encouraging the exploration of new ideas? Are you energized by creating a climate of innovation at work fueled by meaning, purpose, and a creative spirit?

Creating an Idea Factory: Lessons from Edison

Perhaps the greatest creation of Thomas Edison may have been his invention factory. His Menlo Park, New Jersey, laboratory was the world’s first R&D facility. He built it for the “rapid and cheap development of an invention” and delivered on his promise of “a minor invention every ten days and a big thing every six months or so.” In six years of operation, it generated more than 400 patents.

Rather than focusing on one invention, one field of expertise, or one market, Edison created a setting that enabled his inventors to move easily in and out of separate pools of knowledge, to keep learning new ideas and to use old ideas in novel situations.

They used old ideas and materials in new ways. The phonograph blended elements from past work on telegraphs, telephones, and electric motors.

In 1820, H.C. Oersted, a Dane, discovered that a wire carrying an electric current was surrounded by a magnetic field. In 1825, W. Strugeon, an Englishman, wound a live wire around an iron bar and created an electromagnet. In 1859, H. van Helmholtz, a German, discovered he could make piano strings vibrate by singing to them. Later L. Scott, a Frenchman, attached a thin stick to a membrane; when he spoke to the membrane, the other end of the stick would trace a record of his voice sounds on a piece of smoked glass. Then, in 1874, a Scotsman from Canada, working in Cambridge MA, put these elements into one instrument. The instrument was the telephone and the man was Alexander Graham Bell. The only thing Bell contributed was a fresh synthesis; there was no new discovery.

In innovation there is talent, there is ingenuity, and there is knowledge. But in the end, innovation requires hard, focused and purposeful work. If diligence, persistence and commitment are lacking, then no amount of talent, ingenuity or knowledge will produce results.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a more innovative and creative leader. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence and creativity, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.