Here in the Knowledge Economy, it's become a commonplace that growth is powered by ideas and innovation — especially "disruptive" innovation, Big Ideas that change the whole game (for instance, the Internet). Yet most ideas start out "fuzzy, weak and partially baked," says Gerald Sindell, and then they fizzle out altogether. Sindell would like to fix that. A successful book-publishing executive and former award-winning Hollywood film director, he founded a consulting firm called Thought Leaders International that purports to teach clients like Yahoo! and Accenture how to turn sketchy concepts — the proverbial scribble on the back of an envelope — into blockbuster products and services. Now he has written a nifty little book — only 134 pages — called The Genius Machine: 11 Steps That Turn Raw Ideas into Brilliance (New World Library).
Given that people have been thinking since the dawn of time, you may wonder why we suddenly need a book to teach us how to do so. Well, Sindell has an answer for that: "People have been running, too, for thousands of years. But if you want to be in the Olympics, it's generally a good idea to get a coach." (See 10 ways your job will change.)
And a no-nonsense coach he is. Consider, for example, Step 5, which posits that many ideas fail to amount to much in the end because their creators don't bother to do any research on who else has already tried something similar and then what roadblocks they ran into. Ignoring the work of others, Sindell says, is a form of laziness hidden behind "the metaphor trap of 'not reinventing the wheel.' In reality, the wheel gets reinvented all the time because we need an almost infinite variety of wheels. The gear was a reinvention of the wheel, as was the pneumatic tire. Nano wheels are being invented that will [run] nano machines, coming soon to an artery near you." (Watch TIME's video of Peter Schiff trash-talking the markets.)
Another cause of idea malfunction, Sindell believes, is that we tend to see things through a haze created by our own limited personal worldview. To get to the bottom of whether a given idea has any real merit outside our own heads — or outside the lab or conference room, where a team may have been sweating over it — Sindell recommends continually asking, "Why?" As in, "Why is this a good idea?" To each subsequent answer, he says, ask "Why?" again, until you've gotten down to the bedrock that underlies your assumptions. Then look at your idea again. Is it still breathing?
This may not win you any popularity contests. "In most social and workplace environments, asking 'Why?' can seem rude," Sindell acknowledges. "Unfortunately, if we allow ourselves to be forever polite, we will never get into the habit of good thinking. We will get so used to accepting every inanity uttered near us that we will completely lose our critical faculties ... The word why is a wonderful dumb-conversation stopper." Your next brilliant brainchild may not survive Sindell's 11 steps to become viable, let alone profitable, but if his method truly does lead to fewer dumb conversations, let's hope it catches on.