By my nature I am a Creator.

I live in my own head a LOT. And that means I come up with a lot of ideas. Some of them are good..and lots of them aren’t.

As founders of businesses many of us pride ourselves on our ability to come up with an idea for our business and then implement it – fast.  After all, isn’t that what business is about?  Think. Decide. Execute. We’re in charge, so lets show everyone that we are the smartest and can make things happen.

But the problem is, as a business grows and evolves, we need a more structured approach to discerning and evolving those ideas.  In fact, if we really want the business to achieve its potential then it shouldn’t be us as the founders having the ideas at all.

Don’t get me wrong, decisions still need to get made as the business grows, and this comes from the ideas we generate.  Businesses need a decision making system.  They just don’t need it to be all about one or two people.

But I think we need to move from ideas to IDEAS.

In the early days we have an idea, we think about it (for at least five minutes), tell someone about the great idea we have had and then go make it happen.  This is ideas in lowercase.

A better way to tackle this as the business grows is to evolve it to the uppercase; IDEAS the acronym.

What does it stand for?

  • (I)nsight – the idea or insight someone has had
  • (D)eliberate – thinking about the idea to accept, reject or improve
  • (E)ngagement – talking with others to accept, reject or improve
  • (A)lignment – getting all the key stakeholders on the same page
  • (S)ynthesis – making it happen in a coordinated way

IDEAS provides a framework to still think and innovate, but takes the onus away from the individual and moves it to the group.