Doing design thinking is a cure for such small mindedness—and is the real, lasting benefit of this humanizing work. This post dives into this theory.

Many companies practice some form of brainstorming or ideation. While it can be freeing to withhold restraints such as costs, technical matters, and enter into the unchartered frontiers of What If, a lack of focus and too few creative restraints make it a fun, but fruitless experience.

The creative process of birthing breakthrough innovations can provide a substantial top-line boon but it too often suffers a fatal flaw felt in failed product launch after failed product launch.

Many CEOs say that they have more growth ideas than they know what to do with. It seems like there is a universal love affair with generating ideas but less enthusiasm when it comes to figuring out which ideas are the most commercially viable and how to actually implement.

Innovation is such a heady, ill-defined concept. Innovation is one of those words – like strategy or creativity – that means either nothing or something different to anyone who hears it. But when handled correctly, genuine innovations are the lifeblood of any company’s continued health and success.

Innovation is a saturated field, but one with a hole in it. Many companies can generate thousands of potentially valuable ideas, but have no acceptable cultural method for placing a value on them.

The two, too common scenarios noted above are not innovation. Real innovation is not a product line extension or an additional feature. Spare us. The world is already surfeited with such nonsense.

The highest and best value of business is to find new opportunities and plug into emerging trends, rather than make deeper sense of what already exists. These envisioning roles and departments should be renamed the Foresight department rather than Insight.

Did you wake up this morning to realize that the world has changed and your business has not changed with it? Many companies of all sizes are dying a slow death in a saturated market with outdated business models. They fail to get out ahead of what’s next.

Collaboration, whether with songwriters or musicians, galvanized a single idea, turning into a massive alchemical expression with more creative power than an individual has to offer.