Get Better Ideas: A Decade of Lessons in Ideation

As someone who has spent over a decade designing workshops aimed at unleashing stronger, more disruptive ideas, I've come to realize that creativity is not just an abstract concept; it’s a vital tool that, when properly harnessed, can drive sustained growth and value for any organization.

Reflecting on my younger self, I remember thinking my creativity was merely:

1. A distraction (I did not just have one imaginary friend but an entire imaginary collective, each with their own backstories and personalities)

2. Just an ‘overactive imagination’ (Who’s scoring imaginations anyway?)

3. Quite commonplace

Fast forward to my first high-pressure, deadline-driven job; I learned that creativity thrives under constraints and when channeled, generates ideas that drive demand, influence consumer behavior, and solve real business problems.

Over the past ~12 years I have been refining my understanding of how to effectively apply creativity and have distilled it into a few lessons I'd like to offer up.

Lesson 1: Think Like a Fisherman.

You’ve heard the classic the proverb: Give someone a fish, feed them for a day. Teach someone to fish, feed them for a lifetime.

Here’s my twist:

Train someone to think like a fisherman, they’ll never go hungry.

Fishing spots dry up. Tactics get outdated. Tools evolve. When the lake’s empty or the playbook is obsolete, a fisherman mindset adapts. In fact, they might’ve already anticipated where the fish were going next.

The first lesson to Get Better Ideas is: cultivate mindsets, not just skillsets. 

Thinking like a fisherman is all about training the mindset vs the skill of fishing itself.

In most ideation workshops we spent enormous amounts of time preparing the data and information: We provide the Objective, the Consumer Insights, the Activities, the Agenda.  In other words, we provide a robust plan on What to Think About.

And while these are great inputs, something critical is missing.

What’s missing is the difference between a transformative session and one that falls flat: preparing your attendees on How to Think. 

I don’t mean to give your attendees false directives on how to feel (ie ‘Be Positive!’  ‘Have a Can-Do Attitude!’).  I mean, what types of thoughts should they be prepared to have? Consider these guiding questions:  

• What type of thinker should I emulate? A theorist? A teacher? An inventor?

• What thoughts should I challenge? (“That’ll never work.” “We can’t afford that.”)

• What does a strong idea actually look like or sound like? (valuable, rare, inimitable…)

• What lens should I be using? (Social? Environmental? Economic?)

In other words, preparing the right ideation-mindset.

Two pivotal experiences in my life solidified the importance of mindset training:

1. Competitive Debate: At one point in my life I was a global public speaking & debate champion. In our training we focused less on what to say and much more on how to think; how to dissect and formulate an argument. We were taught the 3 classic appeals of persuasion: Ethos, Pathos and Logos (credibility, emotion, and logic). This was a mindset formula that we applied to every debate no matter the topic - and it won more debates than any single talking point, statistic, or insight.  

We learned to how to think like a hunter, vs how to hunt.

2. Meditation.  In high school, a forward-thinking teacher encouraged us to meditate for five minutes before every lesson. She described meditation as ‘thinking about your thoughts’. In other words, focusing on your mindset. This daily practice of self-reflection allowed me to more easily identify and adjust mental patterns—an essential skill when it comes to fostering disruptive thinking. Often, you need to push past your own mental barriers to explore new ideas.

The Road Ahead

When mindset training is given equal weight to data and skill development, the results are powerful. Participants are more likely to generate powerful, differentiated ideas with a strong self-belief in those ideas and a willingness to adapt them. Better said in my one of my favorite quotes: Strong opinions, loosely held. 😊

So, the next time you plan a collaborative session, prioritize preparing mindsets. You may be surprised by the depth and quality of ideas that emerge.

Happy Thinking! 😊