You Want To Do WHAT?

“You want to do WHAT?” the chemist asked me. I told her: “I need your help. I want to create a completely new material that permanently fixes this important and chronic customer problem. Also, I want to bring it forward using our existing production equipment, to keep costs down.” The chemist told me it was a very bold idea, but she was willing to help. We ended up co-inventing a new material that is made by the millions in high-volume production today. “You want to do WHAT?” the plant manager asked me. I told him: “I want to develop a completely novel and much more robust way of putting the reboil suppressing agent [to eliminate bubble formation in glass manufacturing: bubbles can cause breakage in the customer’s process] into the natural gas stream. I want to use direct injection rather than the current system. It will be tricky to get it going, but it will be much better than the current system. It has the potential to fix all of the shortcomings of the current process. We have to give it a try”. The plant manager supported my proposal, and we got the new direct-injection system going reliably in production. It was a tightrope act, because we were doing basic innovation in an operating production facility. We stuck with it, and developed a novel process that both the operators and our customers loved. “You want to do WHAT?” my boss asked me. I told him: “I have an opportunity to sail across the Atlantic Ocean with a couple of friends. However, I will need 6 weeks off at once, so I’d like some flexibility from you as far as how I use my vacation.” My boss was dumbfounded, but he eventually enthusiastically agreed. The next year, I completed the sailing trip from the Canary Island to Antigua. It was a very memorable 30 day adventure on the water. As I have reflected on my biggest and most memorable (personal and professional) adventures, I realized that often, in the beginning of the project, someone had asked me “You want to do WHAT?”. They were shocked by the boldness of what I was proposing, but agreed with me that it was worth giving it a shot. As Goethe (probably, but there is some dispute) said:

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.

My main learning from this line of thought has been the power of (well-conceived) audacious ideas, and how shocking they can be to others. It is a good sign if folks are surprised by the boldness of what you are proposing: it probably means the payoff will be large and useful.

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YOUR CHALLENGE THIS WEEK

Please think about your organization’s creation of new processes and improvement of key existing processes…

• What bold efforts have you launched and finished in the past 5 years? What was accomplished in and learned from these efforts?

• Do you give bold new ideas a fair hearing? Do you encourage bold process innovation via supportive behavior?

I’d enjoy hearing about your organization’s bold process accomplishments! As always, please email me and I’ll get back to you promptly.

All the Best, Marty

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