How to Nurture Crazy Ideas
After the accelerating pace of change of the last couple years, most associations are asking not only how they can keep up with the change, but how they can stay ahead of the disruption curve to serve their members and meet their missions.
Truly innovative associations are looking at how they can be initiators of disruption – not victims of it, said Safi Bahcall, physicist, biotech entrepreneur, former CEO and opening keynote for the 2022 ASAE Annual Meeting, September 20-23 in Nashville, Tennessee.
Too often, when an innovative idea arises, the response is: “That will never work.” But how do you know? That’s when your association needs to experiment. Experiments allow associations to gather real feedback and data on the effectiveness of an idea, but they also allow you to test new ideas at a faster pace and scale without disrupting your core services.
Safi, whose book Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas that Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries combines physics, business, and history to highlight new way of thinking about innovation, shared five rules for elevating ideas in your association.
- Celebrate good fails– Encourage your people to come up with a hypothesis, test it and learn from it.
- Be a gardener, not a Moses– Reduce the tension your teams feel when balancing idea generation and day-to-day operations that keep the business going.
- Love your artists and soldiers equally– Most associations aren’t short on supply when it comes to new ideas, but the dynamic between your teams who create and operate need to be handled with care.
- Measure your speedboats and helicopters– Budget and then measure the time, resources and investment you make in your core business vs. low- and high-risk innovations.
- Get quickly to boats in the water– Know who your allies and blockers are on your board; identify which stakeholders will support innovation and which will hold you back.
Innovation fails in most organizations because of three reasons: fear, friction and framework (or lack thereof). Avoid these pitfalls that can breed a culture of “safe bets” and crush new ideas under rules.
That way, instead of saying “That will never work” to new ideas based on gut instincts or potentially incorrect beliefs, your association will instead ask, “What experiment can we run?” to get us the answers and evidence we need.
