You Mean You Want Me To Think? Entrepreneurial Thinking in a Cubical World

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Apr. 2003

You Mean You Want Me To Think? Entrepreneurial Thinking in a Cubical World

OK, you’re saying, “If this article tells me to think outside the box, I’m going to take the box and use it to ship the author to another planet.” Keep your box or your cube. Better yet, reshape, stretch and redefine what a box or a cube is.

There is precious little time for thinking in today’s world. When you arrive each day at work, you hit the ground running, put out fires, and are consumed in so many meetings that your time to do any productive work is limited. So you tell me, ‘I don’t have time to think.’ To that I say, ‘make time.’

In previous HealthLeaders articles, I wrote about the role marketers can play in addressing the future trends predicted for healthcare. Now I am suggesting that you think about setting the trends.

Where Is Your Electric Flowerpot?

In 1895, a young teenager named Joshua Cowan invented the electric flowerpot. He took a slender metal tube with a battery inside and a bulb at the end and putting it into a flowerpot he used it to illuminate the floral beauty previously lost to the night. Stay with me. He made many of these flash sticks and was waiting for the world to beat a path to his door. A sympathetic uncle, Conrad Hubert, supported him and purchased the rights to the invention. He realized the market was thin for this product so he wracked his brain looking for alternatives. What else could it illuminate? It was a light you could flash anywhere, ready for use when you needed it. Instead of being a flash stick for an electric flowerpot, it became the flashlight, an Eveready flashlight.

So why can’t you think of things like that? Perhaps you could if you look at the world through fresher, wider eyes. That second effort by Hubert unleashed unparalleled success. And it also shed light (pardon the pun) on how to think like an entrepreneur.

For “U”

Entrepreneurs look at situations and see whether or not they can find:

The unexpected, that is, new uses for a product or service.
The unleashed, that is, new directions for a product or service.
The uncharted, that is, new areas for a product or service.

It Would Be Interesting If...

Edward de Bono is a leading expert in the area of thinking. In his book de Bono’s Thinking Course, he offers some exercises to stimulate thinking. One is called PMI. It stands for Pluses, Minuses, Interesting. He throws out an idea and then you analyze it as follows.

Idea: All cars should be painted yellow.

What are the pluses?

It would be easier to see the cars at night.
You would have no problem deciding your car color.
A car would tend to become more of a “transport” item than a “macho” status symbol.

What would be the minuses?

Well, for one, it would be boring.
It would be hard to recognize your car.
Car chases by police would be difficult.

Now you look at that yellow car and ask, “It would be interesting to see”:

if different shades of yellow arose.
if attitudes towards cars change.
if this could be enforced.

Let’s Try One in Healthcare

Here’s a seemingly off-the-wall idea: My senior affinity program should be combined with my children’s affinity program.

Pluses:

Programming and services would bring these two groups together.
Children would learn more about what it is like to grow old, learn respect and help form a culture that nurtures and respects the older adult.
Seniors would be surrounded by youth, excitement and activity that would contribute to a better quality of life.
Marketing expenditures would be reduced.
The program would garner publicity.
You could learn new ways to market to both groups, applying what you do now for one group to the other.
New products might result.

Minuses

Your marketing focus would be lost.
Parents might object to their children being with strangers and choose to go elsewhere.
The program would garner bad or ridiculing publicity.
It would clinically mix apples and oranges, contributing to neither.

It Would Be Interesting To See

If mentoring relationships developed between the young and old.
What commonalities these groups share that could be capitalized upon.
If families “adopted” one another resulting in new friendships and long-lasting relationships.
If affinity to the hospital increased beyond the sum of the parts combined.

De Bono offers other formulas for jump-starting your thinking. For example, try to get movement from a new idea. What if cups were made of ice? What new theories of drinking and containers would develop? In healthcare: What if advertising were banned in healthcare? Oh no, what would you do? Think about it. Look at those future healthcare trends and think of other examples.

Challenge what you take for granted. What if steering wheels on cars did not move? A healthcare example: What if patients never went where their doctor told them?

Start with some seemingly bizarre scenarios, expand and explore them, then contract them and make some conclusions.

Back To Reality

Before you shout “give me something I can concretely use right now today,” step back and examine your own environment to see if true creative thinking is being nurtured and taking place in the organization. I would challenge you to start an internal “Think Tank” to continually challenge your organization, deliberately step away from the day-to-day and discover the possibilities of what you can uncover – not to mention the fun you will have – in doing it.

Anthony Cirillo, CHE, ABC, is president of Fast Forward Strategic Planning and Marketing Consulting in Huntersville, N.C. He is a board member of the Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development and may be reached at Anthony@4wardfast.com.