What do Successful People Have in Common?

Ask any successful businessman or woman and they will tell you the same thing. Their success is not something that happened by chance. Of course, being in the right place at the right time is crucial, but it is only half of the equation. Just as important is trusting your gut feelings, planning, not giving up, and following through with your ideas.

The Business in Motion radio show has spent years interviewing business leaders to find out what makes them successful. Whilst they may work in a variety of industries, and have very different personality types, there are similar themes running through almost all their stories. Lets take a look at some of these themes and pinpoint what they have in common, why they provide the foundation for success, and how they can help us to succeed. 

Following the advice of business leaders who have changed the world may not make you a success, but it is certainly a step in the right direction.

Surround Yourself With Brilliant People

Any business leader will happily admit that surrounding yourself with brilliant people is often the difference between success and failure. A true business leader is not threatened by talented people. They embrace the abilities of others and are always willing to listen to their input. They delegate and utilize the skill-set of their entire team and are never so stubborn that they refuse to change course when necessary.

An Innovation Need Not be Original

Although this may seem contradictory, true business leaders know they do not have to 'reinvent the wheel' to become successful. Perhaps the most revered business leader of our time was Steve Jobs. The company he founded in his bedroom has been credited, among other things, with inventing the personal computer, the MP3 player, the smartphone, and the tablet. Whilst, Jobs was a colossus in the information technology world, Apple invented none of those products. The invention of the personal computer is generally credited to Henry Edwards Roberts, whose Altair 8800 kickstarted the personal computer industry. 

A German technology company, Fraunhofer-Gesellshaf, manufactured the first MP3 player back in 1997, whilst IBM were ahead of their time and developed the first smartphone back in 1992. Admittedly, these products bare little resemblance to the electronic devices that went on to change the world, but the concept and early advances in technology were there for all to see. What of the personal tablet? Well, a strong argument could be made that Pencept developed that technology as long ago as 1985, whilst Microsoft ushered in the modern mobile computing age with it's range of 'tablet' devices at the turn of the century.

Standing on the Shoulders of Others

What made Steve Jobs such a visionary was his talent for analyzing the current market, and being remarkably accurate in predicting what technologies would change the world and those that would end up 'in the dustbin of history'. By standing on the shoulders of innovators that had gone before, and designing aesthetically pleasing, simple to use products, Apple became the company it is today. 

Bill Gates did a similar thing in the 1980's with Microsoft. He agreed to a deal to license parts of Apple's Macintosh GUI for a new piece of software Microsoft had written called Windows 1.0. The next version of Windows (2.0) resulted in Apple taking Microsoft to court for copyright infringement. The case lasted 4 years. The judge eventually dismissing Apples claim. Ironically, the Macintosh GUI was heavily influenced by work that had taken place at Xerox a decade earlier. 

Once again, we find successful companies need not lead the way as innovators. However, they do need to be in the right place at the right time, trust their instincts, understand the direction the market is heading, and market their product successfully.

The Importance of Advertising

One can have the best idea or product in the world, but unless you get the word out it will never be successful. Truly successful business leaders already know this. They promote their product through a variety of media. They understand that during a downturn in the economy this is more important than ever. 

Of course, a promotional campaign does not have to cost a fortune. Business start-ups should always allocate a proportion of their budget for promotional campaigns that get your message across in unique ways. Building a brand that the consumer instantly recognises is fundamental to this strategy. All true business leaders understand the importance of this. People do not just buy products. They buy into a brand and what it represents. It becomes a lifestyle choice, something that demonstrates to the outside world who they are, and what they believe in. 

Once again, Steve Jobs knew this. Apple, under his leadership, became the technology giant it is today not just because of its great products. People also bought into them because they believed Apple stood for something. IBM and Microsoft represented the status quo. Apple stood for the counter-culture and a fresh approach.

Branding, logos and a company slogan on office products or other advertising can help you stand out from the crowd. Smaller companies lack the experience and staffing levels to compete with the industry giants. However, with a creative approach it is quite possible to turn a disadvantage into an advantage. Office products can be tailored to sing the praises of a smaller company. For instance, the personal touch is often lost when doing business with large multi-nationals. Smaller businesses can point this out whilst designing their office products or other advertising campaigns. Finding a 'niche' market or audience can help level the  playing field. Successful branding can help a business achieve this.

Hard Work and Never Giving up

Perhaps the one quality that almost every successful business leader has is their capacity to work hard, believe in themselves, and a refusal to accept defeat. At some point, most of the true giants in the business world failed. What differentiates them from most of us is their ability to pick themselves up, dust themselves down, and learn from their mistakes. They turn failure into opportunity. Steve Jobs was once thrown off the board at Apple. Although despondent, he refused to stop believing in himself. He founded another computer start up company called NeXT, bought a computer graphics company and renamed it Pixar, and 13 years later was invited back to join an almost bankrupt Apple company. The rest is history.

Guest Post by 
Melissa Barry


George Torok Host of Business in Motion Business Speaker Listen to Business in Motion audio PodCasts On iTunes Business in Motion on Facebook

Creative Thinking vs Creativity vs Creative Problem Solving

What's the difference between Creative Thinking, Creativity and Creative Problem Solving?

Enjoy this video with George Torok as he explores and clarifies the differences.



George Torok Host of Business in Motion Business Speaker Listen to Business in Motion audio PodCasts On iTunes Business in Motion on Facebook

Fail Often, Fail Fast, Fail Cheap

That's powerful advice from Jim Estill. He is a successful entrepreneur who build his business from nothing to annual revenue of over $300 million. He then sold the business - like a smart entrepreneur.

I have shared the stage with Jim as presenters and expert panelists. Jim has much wisdom to offer. Of all the advice I've gathered from him this one resonates with me the most.

"Fail often, fail fast, fail cheap." - Jim Estill

Just imagine how "the fear of failing" can halt success. Instead, Jim suggests that we accept failures as necessary to growth.

Jim Estill discusses each point in more detail in this article.


For Better Innovation - Fail Often, Fail Fast, Fail Cheapby Jim Estill

Companies need to be encouraging of failure. Too often people are disciplined for trying things that do not work. I advocate the opposite. Praise those who try - even if they fail.
Read the rest of this article at For Better Innovation - Fail Often, Fail Fast, Fail Cheap

This line in the article particulaily jumped out at me.

"Having failures does not make you a failure. Not trying makes you a failure."


George Torok

Host of Business in Motion

Fools & Experts on Creative Problem Solving Team

Why do you need both fools and experts on your creative problem solving team?
What are their strengths and roles that help you solve problems?

In this video George Torok explains the answers to those questions.





George Torok - Creativity Catalyst

Creative Facilitation

Creative Problem Solving training seminars

Recruit Both Fools and Experts to Your Creative Problem Solving Team

You need both fools and experts on your creative problem solving team. They bring different and essential strengths to your team.

But they are needed for different purposes. You will get the most from them if you understand their strengths and use them accordingly.


Fools on your creative problem solving team

Fools are good at asking questions

Fools help you discover options

Fools are best at stepping into new paradigms

Fools are fond of breaking rules

Fools are helpful in defining strategy

Fools are effective

Fools are best at divergent thinking

Fools help you zoom out to see the big picture



Experts on your creative problem solving team

Experts are best at answering questions

Experts help you focus

Experts are best at maintaining the status quo

Experts are fond of following procedures

Experts are dependable with tactics

Experts are efficient

Experts are best at convergent thinking
Experts help you zoom in on the details


When you form your creative problem solving teams, be sure to include both fools and experts. Both groups play critical parts in the creative problem solving process. It’s not about being right or wrong. It’s about finding and implementing the best solutions to the challenges you face.


George Torok

Creative Facilitator

Creative Problem Solving seminars

The truth about the APICS Innovation Showcase

Before you decide about registering for the APICS Innovation Showcase read these probing questions and revealing answers.


Why is APICS Ontario Grand Valley offering this new program of ½ day workshops?

These workshops offer you an effective way of developing critical success skills. These are the transferable skills that might never show up on a resume or in a job ad. But success is never based on your resume or job description. Success is based on how you do things

These workshops will help you improve “how” you do things. APICS wants you to be more successful.


What skill building programs are offered?

These programs are focused on you. You have a choice of six workshops. You may attend up to two. You can discover better ways to manage your thinking, your time and your communication skills. Imagine how you will feel when you can make smarter decisions, get more done and convey your message with better results.

If you planned to improve your personal skills this year this is opportunity knocking on your door.


If I’m attending the APICS conference why should I also attend the Innovation Showcase on Saturday?

You will receive tremendous value from the conference. You will make old and new connections with colleagues and industry leaders. You will learn about trends, ideas and opportunities. You will recharge and find renewed energy.

Is that enough? Maybe. But all around you people and companies are expecting more from you. Ideas and knowledge are not enough. Success comes from doing things well and that requires effective skills.

These ½ day workshops are much more than theory and ideas. They will help you develop the skills you need to be more successful.


If you are unable to attend the conference, can you still attend the Saturday Innovation Showcase?

Yes. Be sure to register early to save your spot because these workshops are limited to small groups for effective learning.

Reserve your place. Click here now.


Can non-members attend the Innovation Showcase?

Yes – and they can register at the member rate. This is your opportunity to develop your net worth with your network by sharing this timely information with them. How many people do you know that might want to improve their success skills?

These are transferable success skills that your contacts in other fields can benefit from. Perhaps your spouse wants to attend or has colleagues who are desperate to improve their effectiveness.


Can you attend only one workshop?

Yes. Select the skill set that you most want to develop now. You can register for one or two workshops. It’s your choice.

What programs are available?

• Here are the workshop titles. Which ones can help you the most?
• Innovate: Five Steps to Get Better Results with Reduced Resources
• Understanding Yourself and Others
• Managing Time for Success
• How to Deliver Superior Presentations because Inferior Never Wins
• Guide, Energize and Excite Your Employees
• Dynamic Communications

Ready to register? Click now.


Yours in the interest of Success

APICS Grand Valley Chapter


PS: Invest a half day or full day in your success. You’re worth it, aren’t you?


Click here to register for Innovation Showcase

APICS Ontario Grand Valley Innovation Showcase

Innovate: Five Steps to Get Better Results with Reduced Resources
In this entertaining and practical program you will discover:

• The 5 key principles on which to base your Innovation process
• A 7-piece tool kit to generate dozens of new ideas in minutes
• How to recognize the two types of problems and handle them appropriately
• How to know which question to ask and when (yes there are dumb questions)

Presented by George Torok, Creativity Catalyst

Attend this practical workshop at the APICS Grand Valley Innovation Showcase on Saturday Feb 19, 2011 in Cambridge, Ontario.

If you are a member of APICS or work in operations management then this Innovation Showcase is an easy opportunity to boost your business smarts and career success.


"Innovate: How to Get Better Results with Reduced Resources" is a practical and systematic approach to getting things done, overcoming business challenges and reducing the stress in your life.

This is the first time that this game-changing program will be open to the public. George Torok normally delivers this program exclusively to private clients who want to transform the culture and operations of their organization.

In a rare opportunity for you, George Torok has agreed to work with Cambridge Solutions to offer this program to the members and guests of APICS Ontario Grand Valley.

Don't miss out.

Register here for Innovation Showcase

Learn more about Creativity Catalyst, George Torok.


Check out the rest of the workshops at the Innovation Showcase

Creativity Consultant Threatens to Tell the Boss

This was a letter that I wrote to Lynne Everatt, columnist for the Globe & Mail. Her column described the antics of a Creativity Consultant who seemed to force people into following his orders.
------------------------------

I read your column, “How Far will we follow the consultant?” (Mar 24) with both amusement and concern.

I was amused at the antics that your groups were “encouraged” to perform in the pursuit of creativity.

I was amused and impressed by Norm – the one who defied the instructions of the consultant – because I have done the same. If consultants expect to challenge the group they must expect to be challenged. This creativity consultant should have found a more creative tool to encourage participation other than threatening to tell the boss.

But what concerns me the most is the perception of Creativity than might have been left with your letter-writer and the other participants in this program. As both a student and leader of creativity it is clear to me that several prime directives of creativity were ignored by Bart the creatively consultant.

Even though creativity is the science of breaking rules – there are rules – or at least guidelines for creativity. It is a science – more than an art. It is only art to the uninformed.

One of the first rules of creativity is to provide a risk-free environment. If you want people to be more creative you must make them feel safe. Employees in a corporate environment will not be creative if they are punished for their creative excess or not participating.

If you are told that your idea was too crazy (or stupid) – you will be inclined not to play again. All it takes is a glance or rolling of the eyes to kill a creative thinker.

One of the greatest threats to creative thinking in a group is the non-acceptance of the group. The group leader determines and guides how the group might react. If you want people to be more creative – don’t punish them. If you want people to be more creative – value every idea and opinion.

To encourage creativity in a group you must allow individuals to choose not to play at any point. They need the option of calling a time out. This is a simple technique that reduces stress by giving a sense of control to the participants.

Robert Alan Black, creativity guru, called this, “Gone fishing.” At any time in his creative session a participant could announce, “Gone fishing”. The rest of the group would understand and that individual felt safe and still part of the group. That individual would also be more inclined to jump in later with creative ideas as they hatched.

Let’s be real. If you are told to jump around the room and you don’t want to – you don’t have to. If you are told to hug everyone and you don’t want to – you don’t have to. Although there might be creative aspects or interpretations to these actions they are not the goal of creativity. And creativity is not the goal either. Creativity is a tool that can be sharpened to reach a goal. And when it comes to business creativity should be focused on the bottom line.


Bottom Lines of creativity

Creativity is not about jumping around the room.
Creativity is not about being goofy.
Creativity is a skill set that can be learned.
Creatively is about thinking differently.
Creativity must be nourished.
Creativity is most productive when focused on a desired outcome.
There is a time to be creative and a time to follow procedure.
Management must clarify which is which.
Most creative ideas fail. That is normal. That is okay.
All great change comes from creative ideas.


George Torok is a student, instructor and explorer of creative problem solving.


“The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.”
Albert Einstein

------------------------------
George Torok

Creativity Catalyst

Creative Problem Solving

Thought Controlled Computing

"If you can plug it in, you can control it with your brain."

Is the message from leading edge technology company, Interaxon.

Their website describes a three stage process (Think - Tranlate - Activate) to control machines with your thoughts. And it's not theory but actual real technology.

Just imagine controlling your computer - not by typing or even talking to it - but by thinking.

Of course when machines can hear your inside voice some of us will need to control our thoughts a lot more.

Considering the science that must be involved I was impressed with the simplicity of the language on their website. They demonstrate a good sense of humour and realness. Pretty cool for high tech.

Here is the Interaxon website and blog.

http://www.interaxon.ca/

http://www.interaxon.ca/blog

PS: Be very careful what you think when you get there.


George Torok

Host of Business in Motion

Ray Simmons audio interview

Interview with Ray Simmons, President of CableTest Systems Inc.

CableTest Systems tests the wiring systems of military jets, high speed trains and the Space Shuttle (the exterior fuel tank has 8,000 connenctions). They provide a complex version of an electritian’s multi meter.

Ray Simmons has been the president and owner of CableTest Systems for the past nine years. Previously he was President of CRS Robotics. After a two year “retirement” he got edgy and longed to get back into business so he bought CableTest Systems.

Insights from this interview with Ray Simmons:

“Going public with CRS … was not me. That’s why I retired.”

“Retirement was quite challenging. I felt like I was disconnected.”

“55% of our business last year was in Europe. Asia is our next frontier. We like India.”

“Regrets? Two…”

“I think that in a technologly company a president that is totally focussed on technology is dangerous.”

“We’re on Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter.”

Listen to interview with Ray Simmons on Business in Motion.

Jan Nichols, Bay Gardens Inteview

Interview with Jan Nichols, President of Bay Gardens Funeral Home in Burlington and Hamilton, Ontario.

Listen to podcast

This is not your standard funeral home. It’s exciting. It has high ceilings, a waterfall and videos screens.

Insights from this interview:

“The most successful opening of a funeral home in North America. Most are lucky to get 100 people to attend. We had over 800!”

“Rooms are named after waterfalls, plants or ponds instead of being called Salon A and Salon B.”

“People want food at a funeral – but not in the same room as the body or in the basement.”

“Reaching out to non-profit organizations and giving them free access to meeting rooms.”

Listen to this podcast of the 30 minute interview with Jan Nichols here.

More podcasts from Business in Motion

The Emerging Market In Health Care Innovation

Where would you expect innovation in health care to be leading the market? Read this article to learn where. You might be suprised.

George Torok

-----------------
McKinsey Quarterly as published on Forbes.com

The Emerging Market In Health Care Innovation
Tilman Ehrbeck, Nicolaus Henke and Thomas Kibasi

Emerging innovations in the delivery of health care, particularly in developing countries, offer insights on how to tackle its rising cost, estimated at $7 trillion a year globally. Health care is consuming an escalating share of income in developed and developing nations alike. Yet innovators have found ways to deliver care effectively at significantly lower cost while improving access and increasing quality. They are uncovering patterns for raising productivity, and leaders across health sectors--public, private and social--should take heed. With the recent passage of health reform legislation in the U.S., for instance, tackling costs is imperative there, but it is also an important goal in every other part of the world.

New approaches to the delivery of care abound. In Mexico, for example, a telephone-based health care advice and triage service is available to more than one million subscribers and their families for $5 a month, paid through phone bills. In India, an entrepreneur has proved that high-quality, no-frills maternity care can be provided for one-fifth of the price charged by the country's other private providers. In New York City the remote monitoring of chronically ill elderly patients has reduced their rate of hospital admissions by about 40%.

Unfortunately, health care can be an isolated and local activity: Innovations are not widely known across different systems or beyond sector boundaries. Merely identifying and promoting innovations isn't enough, however--leaders need to understand whether, and how, the lessons of innovators can be replicated elsewhere. To this end, McKinsey conducted research in partnership with the World Economic Forum to study the most promising novel forms of health care delivery and, in particular, to understand how these innovations changed its economics.

Many of the most compelling innovations we studied come not from resource-rich developed countries but from emerging markets. Two factors help explain why. First, necessity breeds innovation; in the absence of adequate health care, existing providers and entrepreneurs must improvise and innovate. Second, because of weaknesses in the infrastructure, institutions and resources of emerging markets, entrepreneurs face fewer constraints (this is one upside of the lack of meaningful oversight, which obviously also has many drawbacks). They can bypass Western models and forge new solutions.

The nearly 30 successful innovations we looked at pursued a handful of strategies to change the economics of health care delivery in a fundamental way. In other words, they were not successful by chance. By understanding the opportunities these innovators seized, leaders throughout the health care system can identify opportunities for their own organizations.

A broad scan of innovations across the field, as well as an in-depth analysis of the business models behind 30 of them, showed us that successful ones use at least several if not all of the strategies described below.

Read the rest of this article at Forbes.com


George Torok

Creative Facilitation

Creative Problem Solving

Saturn, A Good Idea not allowed by GM to flourish

Innovation is never enough by itself. This article in Forbes - How GM Destroyed Its Saturn Success, by David Hanna - explains what went wrong at Saturn.

"A lesson in how to win at innovation in even the most traditional company--and then how to crush that innovation."
---------------
I remember talking with an official from Saturn in the nineties. I was excited about what they were doing then and quite optimistic about their future. The biggest innovation that I saw was the partnership between labor and management.

From my dealing with GM in the eighties as material manager for a just-in-time supplier, I witnessed first hand how both management and labor at GM were messed up.

There were many bad management decisions from GM. That included poor planning and the resultant knee jerk decisions to put band aids on problems.

GM visited our plant often and I visited their operations several times. During one of my visits to a GM plant a GM engineer was explaining a packaging idea for the parts that we supplied to them.

The engineer wanted to show me what they were using for another product. So we approached a production line that was machining small parts for transmissions. He pointed out the plastic trays that they used to hold the finished parts and prevent them from being damaged. Each plastic tray was similar to an over-sized egg cartoon holding about 20 finished parts.

The trays in front of us were full of parts so the engineer asked the production worker, "Do you have an empty tray that we could have?"

The production worker looked at the engineer, then calmly picked up a tray full of finished parts, dumped the parts in a scrap bin and gave the tray to the engineer.

The engineer and I looked at each other in shock, shook our heads and returned to his office.

My first three cars were GM. I've never even considered buying GM since.


George Torok

Business Speaker

Boundary Makers by Seth Godin

There is more than one way to be creative. Enjoy this perspective from Seth Godin. Where do you fit?

Boundary makers
by Seth Godin

Some artists continually seek to tear down boundaries, to find new powder, new territory, new worlds to explore. They're the ones that hop the fence to get to places no one has ever been.

Other artists understand that they need to see the edges of the box if they're going to create work that lasts. No fence, no art.

Can't do both at the same time.

My guess is that you're already one kind of person or the other. When people present you with an opportunity/problem, what's your first reaction? Some people immediately start looking for loopholes or weak boundaries. "You didn't say we couldn't do xxx". For these people, the best and most obvious solution is to completely demolish the problem and play by different rules.

Other people, some just as successful, take a hard look at the boundaries and create something that plays within, that follows the rules, but that is likely to win because of this.

In my experience, either can work, but only by someone willing to push harder than most in their push to be remarkable. Going with the flow is a euphemism for failing.
---------------

George Torok
Creativity Catalyst
Creative Facilitation

Segway

The Segway

Will it ever take off?

It is a neat machine. The technology is amazing. But will it sell?

That's me "riding", "driving" or "mounting" the Segway. I enjoyed my short ride and it was easy to control. So, "Why hasn't the Segway taken the world with a storm?"

Because the Segway marketers haven't indentified a particular need or want.

The first question is who "needs' a Segway? And the answer is no one.

The second and more important question is who might want a Segway? The answer is - techno geeks who love the technology and have five to eight thousand dollars to throw away. That's a small market. Certainly not a mass market like the Apple I phone.

The I phone feeds the wants of people to be cool and connected.

The Segway might be cool - but what other wants does it satisfy?

The competition is bicycles or motorcycles. Bicycles usually cost less. That's where the mass market is. And enthusiasts will pay five thousands dollars because they want a high end bicycle on which they can exercise and compete. The Segway doesn't measure up.

Motorcycle riders want the independance, speed and esperience of zooming along straight and curving roads. The Segway doesn't compete.

People who need a motorized wheel chair can not stand up on the Segway.

It's a case of cool technology with no viable market.

Good bye Segway.

George Torok

Business in Motion

Business Speaker

Radio Show Guest: Bay Gardens

Radio show guest: Bay Gardens

My radio show guest today was Jan Nichols, President of Bay Gardens Funeral Home. I first invited Jan to join me on Business in Motion three years ago when he opened a new funeral home in Burlington, Ontario. I was intrigued by the playful open-house invitations. Listeners of my radio show learned that Bay Gardens was a pioneer – not a copycat. Three years later and they are opening another new funeral home in Hamilton. That suggests that what they did is working. Successful entrepreneurs learn from the successful buisnesses around them - expecially from other industries.

There were a lot of powerful lessons and tidbits for entrepreneurs in this interview:

When entering a new market don’t follow the leaders, instead discover what the customers really want and deliver that. And it’s not that hard to “discover”. You only need to ask and listen.
When entering a competitive saturate market you must be different - very different.


Big surprise – people like to eat – even – especially at funerals. So Bay Gardens planned and built proper kitchen facilities into their new funeral homes. As you can imagine there are some real and perceived health issues about serving food in a funeral home. At Bay Gardens you won't find the – move the body out of the room and let’s eat now.

The funeral business has been a stodgy business steeped in taboos and silence. Even though we all will die – we don’t want to talk about the details. Silly but true.

The best way to build a business in a competitive market is by building relationships.

Little details are important.

Listen to your customers.

Listen to your staff.

Train your staff and give them the permission to do what you preach.

Ask for the business.

Train your staff to ask for the business.

Do things that your competition hasn't or won't do.

Be bold and don't apologize for it.

Be willing to annoy the competition.


As you can guess, it was another wonderfully instructive interview on Business in Motion. Thank you Jan Nichols, President of Bay Gardens.



George Torok

Host of Business in Motion

Hamilton Business Speaker

Canadian Business Speaker

SCAMPER - creativity toolbox

SCAMPER - seven tools to being creative


SCAMPER is a creativity toolbox that you can use to generate more creative ideas on demand. Alex Osborne’s book, “Applied Imagination” emphasized the use of questions to spur ideas. Bob Eberle rearranged the questions to spell the word SCAMPER.

SCAMPER is an acronym for a series of questions to help you generate many ideas more quickly. Ask each question and force yourself to generate at least one answer for each of the elements in SCAMPER. When you are generating ideas remember that no idea is a bad idea. In the later stages of creative problem solving you will test, filter and strengthen the creative ideas. At this stage just generate ideas.

To instantly be more creative use the SCAMPER toolbox. Use SCAMPER to generate creative ideas for a new product or service. Use SCAMPER to generate ideas to change a process. Use SCAMPER to find solutions to a problem.
Here is how it works. For each element in SCAMPER ask the question, “What might I xxx?”

For example; the S in SCAMPER is for Substitute. So the question you ask is, “What might I substitute?”

The C in SCAMPER is for Combine. So the question you ask is, “What might I combine?”

Substitute:
Substitute one of the components for some other material. Substitute one of the steps in the process. Substitute a person on the team.

Combine:
Combine two or more concepts that do not normally go together. What can you combine that hasn’t normally been combined? Red and blue to make purple.

Adapt:
Adapt a product for a different use. Adapt a concept in a different way. Adapt your position in a changing market.

Modify - Minimize/Maximize:
How can you modify the product physically? Stretch, bend, fold or shrink it. Make it bigger. Make it smaller.

Put to another use:
If this dog won’t hunt, how can you use this dog in another way. Everything has more that one use.

Erase - eliminate:
Take out the parts that don't add value. Erase a step in the process. Eliminate some part of the product. What can you remove?

Reverse - rearrange:
Turn things around, upside down and backwards. Or maybe change your perspective.


That is the SCAMPER toolbox. Use it to generate creative ideas.

For more ideas on creative problem solving.


George Torok
Creative Problem Solving
Creative Facilitator


SCAMPER
What can you….?

Substitute
Combine
Adapt
Modify
Put to another use
Erase
Reverse