Suppose a brilliant idea just popped into your head. What is your first reaction? Probably to check if someone else has tried it (just google it!). Great, you say! It seems that the idea is new and unique. What is the next step? Lock it! Keep it tightly protected! Maybe you should not even write it down or someone might find it out and steal it!
People tend to behave like that because they place too much value on the idea itself. Innovation, which is what you should aim for, is based not only on new ideas but also (and most importantly?) on the implementation of those ideas.
Instead of keeping ideas tightly locked try to share them and collect other people’s insights. Using this approach you will realize that the ideas alone will not suffice. You will need to test, execute, understand the market, research, test some more, and so on.
As Howard Aiken used to say: “don’t worry about people stealing an idea. If it’s original, you will have to ram it down their throats”.
Comments are closed.