I always enjoy reading articles from the Harvard Business Review and today was no exception, when I came across the article, If You’re the Boss, Start Killing More Good Ideas, which examined idea generation and pursuit. The article primarily deals with creative teams, the ideas they generate and the reality of implementation. What is that reality? There are simply not enough resources or focus to implement all the ideas that are generated in a company. Certainly not the bad ones, and generally not many of the good ones either! A great quote that describes this is:
It turns out, however, that the best managed enterprises don’t just recognize the flowers among the weeds; they mow down a lot of the flowers, too.
There is a tendency to want to chase after and monetize all of our different ideas, but with finite resources this is impossible. As this article suggests, one should employ at least two filters on ideas. First throwing out the bad ideas, and second tossing out “the good ideas that aren’t quite good enough to justify a thinner spread of resources, a greater diffusion of focus, and possibly a more complex customer experience.”
This is especially true for startups. You have to be ruthless with your ideas and stay focused or pivot based on new learning that tell you one of your ideas is better to pursue! I have seen too many companies try to do too much and blow their brains out (and their investors money up!), failing to accomplish anything meaningful. Simply because something could be a good thing to pursue, doesn’t mean it should be pursued.
