Tag: creativity

Protect Yourself From Your Own Ideas

What’s up?  I’m chilling on vacation in Northern Michigan.  Here are some thoughts from earlier this summer…

 

90% of my ideas are terrible.  No, for real.  They’re really bad.  What sucks is that I’m full of ideas.  I’m constantly dreaming up how to tweak or completely transform our approach to student ministry.  I generate so many bad ideas that my team often just tunes me out.  I get the courtesy, “That sounds cool” with a plastic smile.  Currently I’m doing my best to convince our team that what we need is a ginormous student building with 5 attached houses.  I’m telling you it’s the future—for so many reasons.  Someday when every church has a student building with 5 attached houses and our church missed the boat everyone will realize how innovative I am and promote me.

Here’s the thing about my ideas.  While 90% of them are terrible and following them they could lead to immediate dismissal, the loss of thousands of dollars and probable hospitalization, 10% of them are genius.  10% of my ideas could potentially change the world.  The trouble is that I can’t predict which ideas are in the 90% and which ideas are in the 10%.  You really don’t want to guess wrong because great ideas invent the Internet and bad ideas take you to a Nickleback concert.

My guess is that whether you realize it or not, you also have more bad than good ideas.  The thing is, if we could better discern the quality of our ideas we’d save ourselves and our teams a lot of grief.  Nothing is more demoralizing than when the team is chasing down an idea that everyone knows is a dead end.

The good news is that somewhere along the line I stopped implementing all of my bad ideas.  When?  What was the big moment?  It wasn’t a big moment but it was when my ideas were forced into community.  When my ideas are stuck spinning within my own head almost all of them sound fabulous.  However, when having to verbally explain and defend my ideas, 90% of them are revealed for what they are.  Dumb.  I know you’ve been there, when you realize that the words coming out of your mouth are exceeding illogical and you wish you never started talking in the first place—humbling.

Within the context of community (that is well intentioned debate over the validity of ideas) my 90% was revealed to be what they were and my life and ministry was protected from stupidity.  The unforeseen byproduct of submitting my ideas to community is that my good ideas were refined and became significantly more awesome.  “I like this idea that you call the Internets.  But what if we could connect our gaming systems and play each other?  And what if you took the “s” off it and just called it the Internet?”  GENUIS!  You might say that in the context of community my 10% became 90% better.  If you’re not strong at math I probably lost you right there.  I think I lost myself.

The point is, when you have the humility to submit your ideas to your community before implementing them you will uncover the fact that most of your ideas are terrible but a few of them are genius.  Failure is not the best way to learn.  Realizing that an idea is a failure before failing is a cleaner and less destructive way to learn.  The moral of the story is this:  if you don’t have an ideas community, get one!  Honest community will save you from your terrible ideas and help reveal and refine your great ones.

5 Tips to Unleash Innovation

If I had created the world, no one would be allowed to touch anything.  I’d treat every little thing like those weird knickknacks that overcrowded my Grandma’s mobile home.  Don’t you dare touch that gnome!  Thankfully I’m not God…for a lot of reasons but mostly because I wouldn’t have given my creatures free will.

One of my favorite parts of the Bible is the beginning.  God creates the most amazing planet ever and after placing Adam in the garden, God gives him freedom.  “Fill it.  Subdue it.  Rule over it.”

How does a person subdue God’s creation?  The way I understand it, subduing has to do with bringing order and sense out of chaos.  It’s almost like God gave us the freedom to improve on His creation.

I think that part of God’s design is that we never be satisfied with OK.  We honor our creator when we constantly ask, “How can we improve this?  How can we bring more order out of chaos?”  New ideas.  New questions.  New practices.  Relentless innovation.

The thing is, innovation is difficult.  It doesn’t come natural.  But, it is paramount.  Otherwise, our practices become archaic and we lose effectiveness.  We can’t afford to lose effectiveness in student ministry.  There’s too much at stake.

Here are some tips on pursuing relentless innovation.

1.  CREATE MARGIN

Innovation requires space.  If there’s no margin in your life there won’t be much ingenuity.  It requires quiet, solitude and focus.  If you are over-committed, your practices will probably never change.  Pull back, cut something and create space for ingenuity.

2.  CAPTURE IDEAS

I have lost so many brilliant ideas.  This is absolutely the worst.  You have to capture genius ideas like you would a great picture.  When I see my kids doing something hilarious or cute I snap a picture as quickly as I can.  It’s the same with ideas.  Write them down.  Make a note in your phone.  Take a picture.  Tie a string on your finger.  It doesn’t really matter how you do it just develop a system.

I am very forgetful so when I have a great idea I write it down immediately.  Seriously, I’ll pull my car to the side of the road and even hop out of shower to capture a good idea.

3.  FORCE THE ISSUE

Sometimes when innovation isn’t flowing it needs to be forced out.  This is why our team gets away to process and think strategically.  Asking hard questions as a community will flush out brilliant ideas.  On these retreats we present new thoughts, argue, debate and laugh.  We’ve never a staff retreat that didn’t generate at least one great idea.

Before I worked at a big church I would simply gather friends who were in ministry and take a study retreat together.  Both options lead to great thinking.

4.  CALL IN EXPERTS

Truthfully, I rarely conjure up a great idea on my own.   I need someone or something to prime the pump.   There are a few people in my life that somehow pull good ideas out of me.  The quality of conversation or the questions they ask just help me to approach problems from a different angle.

A great book will also spur on your thinking.  Sometimes it doesn’t even have to be a relevant topic.  Reading great thinkers often produces great thinking.

5.  PERMISSION TO FAIL

As I’ve written before, 90% of my ideas are no good.  But, 10% are game changers [read about this concept here].  Over time, I’ve accepted my 90% failure rate.  If I stopped all creative thinking every time I had a bad idea I’d never do anything new.  Some of my favorite practices in life and ministry would have never happened.  Give yourself permission to have a few bad ideas.

We’re called to innovation.  We honor God when we wrestle with hard questions and uncover brilliant solutions through pure hard work and laborious thinking.  This is how I tap into creativity.  How do you do it?

 

 

Genius Ideas

90% of my ideas are terrible.  No, for real.  They’re really bad.  What sucks is that I’m full of ideas.  I’m constantly dreaming up how to tweak or completely transform our approach to student ministry.  I generate so many bad ideas that my team often just tunes me out.  I get the courtesy, “That sounds cool” with a plastic smile.  Currently I’m doing my best to convince our team that what we need is a ginormous student building with 5 attached houses.  I’m telling you it’s the future—for so many reasons.  Someday when every church has a student building with 5 attached houses and our church missed the boat everyone will realize how innovative I am and promote me.

Here’s the thing about my ideas.  While 90% of them are terrible and following them they could lead to immediate dismissal, the loss of thousands of dollars and probable hospitalization, 10% of them are genius.  10% of my ideas could potentially change the world.  The trouble is that I can’t predict which ideas are in the 90% and which ideas are in the 10%.  You really don’t want to guess wrong because great ideas invent the Internet and bad ideas take you to a Nickleback concert.

My guess is that whether you realize it or not, you also have more bad than good ideas.  The thing is, if we could better discern the quality of our ideas we’d save ourselves and our teams a lot of grief.  Nothing is more demoralizing than when the team is chasing down an idea that everyone knows is a dead end.

The good news is that somewhere along the line I stopped implementing all of my bad ideas.  When?  What was the big moment?  It wasn’t a big moment but it was when my ideas were forced into community.  When my ideas are stuck spinning within my own head almost all of them sound fabulous.  However, when having to verbally explain and defend my ideas, 90% of them are revealed for what they are.  Dumb.  I know you’ve been there, when you realize that the words coming out of your mouth are exceeding illogical and you wish you never started talking in the first place—humbling.

Within the context of community (that is well intentioned debate over the validity of ideas) my 90% was revealed to be what they were and my life and ministry was protected from stupidity.  The unforeseen byproduct of submitting my ideas to community is that my good ideas were refined and became significantly more awesome.  “I like this idea that you call the Internets.  But what if we could connect our gaming systems and play each other?  And what if you took the “s” off it and just called it the Internet?”  GENUIS!  You might say that in the context of community my 10% became 90% better.  If you’re not strong at math I probably lost you right there.  I think I lost myself.

The point is, when you have the humility to submit your ideas to your community before implementing them you will uncover the fact that most of your ideas are terrible but a few of them are genius.  Failure is not the best way to learn.  Realizing that an idea is a failure before failing is a cleaner and less destructive way to learn.  The moral of the story is this:  if you don’t have an ideas community, get one!  Honest community will save you from your terrible ideas and help reveal and refine your great ones.