Telephone Booth

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Telephone Booth

January 7, 2009. By Peter Lloyd

This is a creativity test. We're going back to the days when the phone booth was about the only alternative to the desk phone. You're the president of a company that makes phone booths.

Recently your closest competitor has begun to whittle away at your market share. Desperate, you ask all of your employees for ideas. Not just run-of-the-mill ideas, but innovative, creative ideas.

Your sales manager suggests air-conditioned phone booths.

Your treasurer says to add meters that tell a caller how much his long distance call is costing.

The janitor says, why not put note pads in your phone booths so folks won't write on the walls and windows.

Finally, your administrative assistant suggests you start making phone booths with wheels.

Quick! Which idea gives you the greatest, long-term potential for developing into a breakthrough invention?

The phone booth on wheels. Because it's the craziest. After all, what's the difference between a phone booth on wheels and a car with a cellular phone?

The first three ideas are just fine incremental ideas. They have a better chance of making money tomorrow. But if it's breakthroughs you're looking for, the kind of ideas that take the world by storm, look for crazy ideas and the cranks who come up with them.

In a word, attitude. If you want big ideas, you have to develop a big tolerance for the outrageous. You can start today by steering your people away from the ordinary.

They'll either drive you crazy or make you wild about the possibilities. It's all in the way you look at it.

Peter Lloyd is co-creator with Stephen Grossman of Animal Crackers, the breakthrough problem-solving tool designed to crack your toughest business problems.

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