Visual cue: Dolphin
Innovation Behavior #7: Freshness
Exposing yourself to fresh perspectives, thinking, and experiences stimulates your mind… and that’s what you need when you’re developing new ideas.
As humans, we tend to be creatures of habit, taking the same way to work, watching the same TV shows, and listening to the same music… it’s comfortable and easy! However, seeing and doing the same things repeatedly creates deep experience and knowledge that can cause barriers to cultivating new ideas.
Trying new things gives us a fresh stimulus to help us think outside the box and allows us to make connections between previously unconnected concepts. Ultimately, this helps spark new thoughts and directions.
Put Freshness into Practice
Think about the core issue for a challenge you’re facing at work – is it about loyalty to your product? Engaging new customers?
Now think about how other industries have addressed that problem. By breaking outside of your industry, you will discover how other companies have solved, or are experts in, a similar challenge. Looking outside your industry gives you a fresh look at your challenge and can help spark new ideas for solutions.
- Eat lunch with people from other parts of your company and brainstorm with people in different lines of business to expose yourself to different perspectives.
- Get out and have new experiences:
- Read a book in a subject you haven’t explored before.
- Experience new art or culture.
- Take a different route to work.
- Listen to a new podcast.
Freshness is used with the following tools: