Point: Use a constraint to convert complexity into simplicity

Story: In 1954, Life magazine published an article on illiteracy among schoolchildren, reporting that children were not learning to read because their books were boring. “Pallid primers” featuring girls and boys who were “uniform, bland, idealized and terribly literal,” its author, John Hersey, contended. Publisher William Spaulding of Houghton Mifflin wanted to change that. He approached his friend Theodore Geisel (later known as Dr. Seuss) to write a much more lively primer. But he gave Geisel a challenge: the book could only use a vocabulary of 225 words, so that beginning readers could read it. Geisel took up the challenge. The result? The Cat in the Hat. Dr. Seuss used clever combinations of the 225 words and fanciful illustrations to create a playful story.

Action: A constraint limits the creative choices you have. Instead of viewing the constraint as merely negative and frustrating, consider the positive side: you can ignore those choices. Strip your problem to its basic elements. Then generate unusual combinations of those bare building blocks to look for a creative solution. This technique can be used in marketing, product development and strategy.

For more: Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel by Judith Morgan, Neil Morgan, Neil Bowen Morgan

Point: Jump in and create, don’t worry about getting it right the first time

Story: My friend Joel wanted to write a novel. He took classes. He turned in assignments. But, he just inched along because he tried to perfect each piece. Then he heard about “National Novel Writing Month.” The goal: write a 175-page novel during the month of November. Sounds intimidating — 50,000 words — but it comes down to 1666 words a day.

My first reaction was, “but would the novel make sense?” Joel pointed out that the rationale was not to have a publisher-ready novel in a month. “The point is practice,” he said, “and to have much more material to work with than you’d have otherwise.”

To meet the fast pace of the challenge, Joel had to give up his inner critic and just crank out some writing every day. Now he’s got the draft of a novel. He’s got some gems, and he’s got material to refine.

This process applies to writing business plans, marketing collateral, sketching new product ideas and other daunting tasks.

Action: The first step is to set a goal with a deadline. Then commit to making some progress every day. Rolling up your sleeves and jumping into a task creates momentum. The result is something tangible that you can refine.

Point: Measure innovation from a variety of lenses, not just one

Story: The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) conducted a 40-country study of innovation, ranking countries on competitiveness. The ITIF used 16 metrics grouped into 6 categories:

1. Human Capital
   * Higher Education Attainment
   * Science & technology Researchers
2. Innovation Capacity
   * Corporate Investment in R&D
   * Government Investment in R&D
   * Share & Quality of World’s Scientific and Technical Publications
3. Entrepreneurship
   * Venture Capital
   * New Firms
4. Information Technology Infrastructure
   * E-Government
   * Broadband Telecommunications
   * Corporate Investment in IT
5. Economic Policy Factors
   * Effective Corporate Tax Rates
   * Ease of Doing Business
6. Economic Performance
   * Trade Balance
   * Foreign Direct investment Inflows
   * GDP per Working-Age Adult
   * Productivity

Action: Translate these country-level metrics to your organization. For example, Human Capital metrics: the education level of your employees, the skills employees must have to meet customer needs; Innovation Capacity: how much do you invest in R&D or in innovation? How well do you understand your industry, technology and the specific markets where you compete? Entrepreneurship: do you encourage employees to suggest ideas? Do you have processes in place to evaluate and fund those ideas? IT Infrastructure: do you invest in IT and software to let your employees communicate and collaborate easily? Economic Policy: do you minimize barriers to innovation, like bureaucracy and silos? Economic Performance: how many innovations do you have per employee?

For more information, see the ITIF’s report The Atlantic Century: Benchmarking EU & US Innovation and Competitiveness