How do we come up with great ideas while remaining focused on numbers?

Dear Aunty B,

We had been growing well through the GFC and then fell in a hole last December. It took us by surprise and only now are we really facing the fact that unless we quickly change direction we are trouble.

How do I get my staff focused on new ideas without distracting them from the day-to-day focus that they need to maintain to get the numbers over the line?

Shovelling like crazy,
SA

Dear Shovelling like crazy,

Like most bosses, you underestimate your staff – well most of them – because they are far more talented than you. You heard me. Because once you truly understand this it gives you something that I call “innovation fuel”. What the hell am I talking about?

Well, it is a rare sunny day in Melbourne and I just drank a deliciously chilled Pinot in a cafe on Southbank and life doesn’t get much better, so I will share with you a great lesson: how to innovate while delivering those all important numbers.

Here what I do. I come up with an idea. New advertising product, exciting publication, riveting story idea… Whatever grabs my feeble brain for that second. Where did the idea come from? Who knows? I read, I talk, I walk in the sunshine, I am working at my desk, I am jogging along the beach, I drink Pinot… Bang! An idea hits me.

Then I have the second brain wave. I need an expert opinion! Who in the world are greater experts than my great staff? So in a frenzy of excitement I barge up to one of my staff, sitting at their desks, focused on their numbers and in great excitement, regardless of what they are doing, demand a few seconds of their time, put the idea to them and insist on their perspective. Now. My staff are all experts in their specific areas. They are also extremely well trained. Numbers are everything. And they are also disarmingly honest which sometimes (between you and I) verges on rudeness. Often the only answer I get is this: what hell would we do that for?

Then they go back to making those numbers. And that is the point. If your staff have numbers that they have to meet, projects they have to deliver, staff they have to train, goals they are inching towards, then they will pay scant attention to your wacky ideas. But that is okay. You keep circling. You keep asking. You put the pieces together as you build your plan. You ask again from a different angle, you meet with other outside experts, you come back to them again… And suddenly… There it is. A plan!

And your staff are still focused on their numbers, but can see their thumbprints all over the blueprint… And that is innovation.

Be smart,

Your Aunty B

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