Push Past Obvious

Whenever a student asked legendary Stanford Professor Bob McKim for feedback on a new design concept, he consistently gave the same response: “Show me three.”

That simple response contains a remarkable depth of wisdom.

The truth is, innovation is a low-percentage endeavor. The best way to improve your odds at innovation is to commission a portfolio of experiments, in parallel when possible.

But there’s another, more fundamental reason: we tend to believe the first idea we think of is the best. And this just isn’t true. There’s loads of research that suggests that the best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.

We see this all the time in class. In a recent entrepreneurship class, founders shared the results of their pricing experiments, whereby they put three different ways of capturing value in front of potential customers. As often happens, they were shocked. One founder said, “The worst performing result is our default pricing plan, the one we had been planning on going with all along!”

The reason we go forward with a particular plan or idea is NOT because we think it’s probably the worst, but because we think it’s the best. In many, many scenarios, questioning that assumption (ie “my first solution is my best solution”) yields better insights, ideas, and outcomes.

Innovative leaders can amplify their teams’ potential by simply asking the question McKim did. Astro Teller, CEO of X, Google’s “Moonshot Factory,” recently told me he asks teams for 5 ideas. And even though they try to game they system by bringing one favorite idea and four dummy alternatives, Astro says it’s not uncommon for one of the dummy ideas to outperform the original favorite.

So when you think up a potential solution to a problem, or a new groundbreaking idea, channel Bob McKim: tell yourself, “Show me three.” If you’re trying to encourage your team to be more innovative, imitate Astro Teller: tell them, “Gimme five.”

Push past the obvious answer. You might just come up with something better than what you would have originally gone with.

You never know until you try.

Related: Request Options
Related: Consider the Odds
Related: Create A Portfolio
Related: Hack Your Creative Block
Related: Have Lots of Ideas

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