Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky

• Ideas don’t happen because they are great--or by accident.
• Creative people are known for winking it: improvisation and acting on intuition is, in some way, the haloed essence of what we do and who we are.
• Making ideas happen = Idea + Organization + Communal forces + Leadership capability
• In the modern world of information overload and constant connectivity, you must manage your energy wisely. Otherwise you will fall into a state of “reactionary workflow,” where you act impulsively (rather than proactively) and simply try to stay afloat.
• Every project can be broken down into just three things: action steps, backburner items, and references.
• We discovered that the most productive creative individuals and teams have a lot in common when it comes to (1) organization and relentless execution, (2) engaging peers and leveraging communal forces, and (3) strategies for leading creative pursuits.
• The ideas that move industries forward are not the result of tremendous creative insight but rather of masterful stewardship.
• New ideas face an uphill battle from the moment they are conceived.
• The most potent forces that kill new ideas are our own limitations.
• Most ideas are born and lost in isolation.
• It is a tragic truth that most new ideas, despite their quality and importance, will ever see the light of day.
• The quality of ideas themselves is less important the the platform upon which they materialize. Realize that you control the platform for your ideas.
• It is undeniable that your approach to productivity largely determines your creative output.
• The way you organize projects, prioritize, and manage your energy is arguable more important than the quality of the ideas you wish to pursue.
• Productivity is not about how efficient you are at work. Instead, productivity is really about how well you are able to make an impact in what matters most to you.
• Extremely productive and accomplished people and teams capitalize on the power of community to push their ideas forward.
• As you become accountable to others, your creative impulses become tangible projects. Your ideas grow roots. Community strengths both your creative energy and your commitment to channel it.
• Leadership capability is what makes the pursuit of an idea sustainable, scaleable, and ultimately successful.
• Unfortunately, there is a huge void of leadership capability in the creative world, as evidenced by the high attrition and frequent management debacles across the creative industries.
• Leadership capability relates both to your leadership of others as well as to your ability to lead yourself.
• Perhaps some of the greatest hurdles in implementing ideas are personal deficiencies--a common psychological barriers that creative minds often face when executing ideas.
• The reality is that creative environments--and the creative psycho itself--are not conducive to organization. We become intolerant of procedures, restrictions, and processes. Nevertheless, organization is the guiding force of productivity: if you want to make an idea happen, you need to have a process for doing so.
• Only through organization can we seize the benefits from bursts of creativity. If you develop the capacity to organize yourself and those around you, you can beat the odds.
• Organization is just as important as ideas when it comes to making an impact.
• The harsh reality is that brainstorming sessions often yield disappointing results. Ideas with great potential fade from the participant’s minds which each additional idea is thrown into the mix.
• The tendency to jump from idea to idea to idea spread your energy horizontally rather than vertically. As a result, you’ll struggle to make progress.
• Brainstorming should start with a question and the goal of capturing something specific, relevant, and actionable. You should depart such sessions with more conviction than when you started.
• Each person needs to “own” their action steps. When tasks are written in your own handwriting, in your own idiom, they remain familiar and are more likely to be executed.
• The best methods for managing projects are simple and intuitive. They help you capture ideas and do something with them--no more, no less. This simple efficiency keeps you engaged and on task with as little effort as possible.
• Every project in life can be reduced into these three primary components. Action Steps are the specific, concrete tasks that itch you forward. References are any project-related handouts, sketches, notes, meeting minutes, manuals, web sites, or ongoing discussions that you may want to refer back to.
• Finally, there are backburner items--things that are not actionable now but maybe someday.
• Every project must be broken down into Action Steps, References, and Backburner Items.
• Action Steps are the most important components of projects--the oxygen for keeping projects alive. No action steps, no action, no results.
• Action Steps are specific things you must do to move an idea forward. The more clear and concrete an Action Step is, the less friction you will encounter trying to do it.
• To avoid this, start each Action Step with a verb.
• Action Steps should be kept short.
• An unowned Action Step will never be taken. Every action step must be owned by a single person.
• In other words, the aesthetics of the tools you use to make ideas happen matter.
• It turns out that most of us seldom refer back to all of this static documentation that clutters our lives.
• It is common that action steps get lost in the shuffle of non actionable stuff. The more energy you spend scribbling down notes, the more liable you are to miss the opportunity to capture valuable action steps.
• The action method reduces project management to its most basic elements so that you can focus your energy on the important stuff, like actually completing tasks and making progress.
• Actions are truly “delegated” only when they are accepted.
• Sequential tasking is better than multitasking. It is impossible to complete two action steps at once, which would suggest that “multitasking” is a myth.
• The action method suggests that action steps should be managed separately from communications.
• Capture action steps relentlessly.
• Collect them using whatever notebook or technology option you desire--but try to keep action steps separate so they stand out amidst your references and backburner items.
• Try to discard as many references as you can, because most handouts and notes will ultimately never be used.
• We must prioritize because we can only focus on one action step at a time.
• Prioritization should help us maintain both incremental progress as well as momentum for our long-term objectives.
• Prioritization is a force that relies on sound judgement, self-discipline, and some helpful pressure from others.
• If you have lots of ideas, you probably have the tendency to get involved with or start lots of projects.
• Energy is your most precious commodity. Regardless of who you are, you have only a finite amount of it.
• The concept of the Energy Line is meant to address our tendency to spend a lot of time on projects that are interesting but perhaps not important enough to warrant such an investment of energy.
• Hoarding urgent items is one of the most damaging tendencies I’ve noticed in creative professionals who have encountered early success. When you are in the position to do so, challenge yourself to delegate urgent items.
• To achieve long-term goals in the age of always-on technology and free flowing communication, create windows of time dedicated to uninterrupted project focus.
• The more we hear about things, the more likely we are to focus on them.
• When someone is constantly bothering you about something, chances are you have become a bottleneck in the team’s productivity.
• Organizing each project's elements, scheduling time, allocating energy, and then relentlessly completing action steps comprises the lion’s share of pushing ideas to fruition.
• Our ideas become less interesting as we realize the implied responsibilities and sheer amount of work required to execute them.
• The easiest and most seductive escape from the project plateau is the most dangerous one: a new idea.
• New ideas offer a quick return to the high energy and commitment zone, but they also cause us to lose focus.
• Making ideas actually happen boils down to self-discipline and the ways in which you take action.
• Bureaucracy was born out of the human desire for complete assurance before taking action. When we don’t want to take action, we find reasons to wait.
• Even when the next step is unclear, the best way to figure it out is to take some incremental action. Constant motion is the key to execution.
• Taking actions helps expose whether we are on the right or wrong path more quickly and more definitively than purse contemplation ever could.
• Most meetings are fruitless.
• At the end of a meeting, take a few moments to go around and review the action steps each person has captured.
• Abolish automatic meetings without an actionable agenda.
• “Shipping” is when you release something--when you put a new product on sale, when you debit your latest piece of artwork in a gallery, or when you send your manuscript to the publisher. Shipping is the final act of execution that so rarely happens.
• A big part of execution is persistence. When we rely on others to drive momentum, our projects are at their mercy. Sometimes, to keep moving our ideas forward, we need to relentlessly follow up with others.
• “I’m starting to believe that life is just about following up”.
• It turns out that constraints--whether they are deadlines, budgets, or highly specific creative beliefs--help us manage our energy and execute ideas. While our creative side intuitively seeks freedom and openness--blue-sky projects--our productivity desperately requires restrictions.
• Well-articulated problems can also serve as helpful restrictions for the creative process.
• Constraints serve as kindling for execution. When you’re not given constraints, you must seek them.
• Brilliant creative minds become more focused and actionable when the real of possibilities is defined and, to some extent, restricted.
• As you successfully reach milestones in your projects, you should celebrate and surround yourself with these achievements. As a human being, you are motivated by progress. When you see concrete evidence of progress, you are more inclined to take further action.
• The inspiration to generate ideas comes easy, but the inspiration to take action is more rare.
• Feeling progress is an important part of execution. If your natural tendency is to generate ideas rather than take action on existing ideas, then surrounding yourself with progress can help you focus.
• When you make incremental progress, celebrate it and feature it. Surround yourself with it.
• It is no secret that design is a critical element of productivity. Design helps maintain a sense of order amidst creative chaos.
• You can only organize something if you understand how it works.
• Use your work space to induce attention where you need it most. You ultimately want to make yourself feel compelled to take action on the tasks pending, just as a marketer makes you feel compelled to buy something.
• Execution is rarely comfortable or convenient. You must accept the hardships ahead and anticipate the spotlights of seduction that are liable to stifle your progress.
• Perspiration is the best form of differentiation, especially in the creative world.
• Work ethic alone can single-handedly give your ideas the boost that makes all the difference.
• Ultimately, most ideas die in isolation because they are not shared and, as a consequence, are ultimately forgotten.
• The value of feedback is inarguable. It is a powerful, sobering force that can help refine good ideas, kill bad ones, and postpone premature ideas that are not yet ripe.
• Nothing boosts feedback exchange more than transparency.
• If you don’t normally work within a group, you may want to create your own.
• When groups get much bigger than that [15 people], people feel less accountable to a collective rather than to each other as individuals, which is less effective.
• Ideas often have the tendency to lie stagnant until we are jolted into action by either excitement or fear.
• The prospect of someone else completing and receiving fanfare for an idea that you had first is outright painful.
• Perhaps the most critical of all communal forces is accountability.
• Given all of the tendencies of the creative mind that we have discussed, it is no surprise that we need help staying focused and committed to our goals.
• Creatives are often guilty of leaping into new projects with a “build it and they will come” attitude that privileges notions of undeniable genius over the effectiveness of smart marketing.
• Your career is 100 percent your responsibility.
• Self-marketing should start with identifying the strengths that different you from others.
• Self-starters are often successful doing everything themselves. However, when forced to grow beyond the one-person show, may creative people struggle to make the leap from a solo success to a successful collaboration.
• Your ideas will thrive only if you manage them as a leader rather than as an independent creative visionary.
• There is a great void of leadership in the creative world.
• For most of us, the ideas we capture, the knowledge we choose to master, and the tasks we complete are heavily influenced by the demands of those around us--as well as our own thirst for swift gratification.
• As humans, we are motivated by novelty. This is what makes the honeymoon stage of any new idea the easy part.
• You cannot ignore or completely escape the deeply ingrained short-term reward system within you. But you can become aware of what really motivates you and then tweak your incentives to sustain your long-term pursuits.
• Recognition is a powerful reward that, whether or not money is tight, can help further engage those who play a role in making your ideas happen.
• In a ROWE [Results Only Work Environment], employees are compensated based on their achievement of specified goals rather than on the number of hours worked.
• To truly distinguish yourself as a creative leader, you must be able to gracefully incorporate a broad spectrum of ideas from the team and constituents of a project while still preserving the core mission.
• Team should not strive for complete consensus at the outset of a project. After all, consensus-driven teams run the risk of settling on what offense no one and satisfies no one.
• Early and complete consensus is comfortable but almost always unremarkable.
• Leaders of reactive teas should identify and highlight the noteworthy, memorable solutions at both ends of the spectrum that, in all likelihood, are not agreeable to all.
• Sound leadership in the creative world is all too rare. Creative minds flee their teams at an alarming rate and attrition is a common challenge. And when creative people do leave, it is seldom for a higher salary.
• The creative process is also a process of engagement.
• The ability to recognize and share appreciation may, in fact, be more difficult than offering constructive criticism. Human kind is critical by nature.
• The most successful leaders of change in organizations focus less on hierarchy and more on who has the best information.
• Ultimately, quality information leads to quality decisions.
• If you are able to identify the nodes of information in your organization, you will be able to lead with great understanding.
• We should all stop looking up and start looking around us for the people who seem to always know the answers.
• The most challenging one to manage is you.
• Some of the greatest barriers we face along the path to pushing our ideas to fruition lie within us.
• Self-leadership is about awareness, tolerance, and not letting your own natural tendencies limit your potential.
• Our best hope for staying on track is to notice when we stray and to figure out why--to be self-aware. Self-awareness is a critical skill in leadership, but it is deeply personal. It is not about our actions but about the emotions that trigger our actions.
• With increased self-awareness, we become better students of ourselves. When we make mistakes, we are able to identify what we could have done better more readily.
• The path to self-awareness never ends, but we must traverse it nonetheless.
• With greater self-awareness comes a greater tolerance for uncertainty.
• The best leaders have a high tolerance for ambiguity. They don’t go nuts over the unknown, and they don’t lose patience when dealing with disappointments. They are able to work with what they know, identify what they don't know, and make decisions accordingly. They also act with a faith in the law of averages. Over time, truth has a way of revealing itself.
• When a project goes awry, we must remain open to the lessons that can be learned.
• When a project falls short of expectations, there is almost always something that you could have done differently along the way. Previous knowledge is yours for the taking, often risk-free and time-tested. Today never feels like it will be history, but it will.
• For the small portion of society that is tasked with innovation and pushing the envelope, a reliance on conventional wisdom is damming. We have to temper advice with a dose of skepticism, and we must always consider the merits of developing new platforms rather than more and more derivatives.
• Contrarians are willing to manage (if not embrace) the uncertainties and risks inherent in thinking differently. And by questioning the norms, they are bound to either find better approaches or to feel more confidence in the old ways of doing things.
• The brilliant export from yesterday may have little insight that is relevant today. In fact, such experts may be too biased by their own past experiences and success to see how the times have changed. As such, you should question the correlation between one's past accomplishments and present knowledge.
• Most entrepreneurs will admit that the value of having a masterful business plan is overrated. What matters most is your ability to keep moving and pushing your ideas forward, yard by yard.
• The vision of extraordinary achievements is, by definition, a few steps beyond consensus and conventional logic. As such, we should become emboldened by society’s doubts rather than deterred.
• Ideas are not made to happen by accident or out of luck. Creative achievement implies the logical outcomes of doing something different and seeing it through to completion.
• What society views as a tremendous risk may appear to some of us as an obvious and compelling opportunity.
• Whether or not the project becomes something meaningful depends on our capacity to organize and lead.
• You must learn to gain confidence when doubted by others. The uncharted path is the only road to something new.
• You cannot rely on conventional knowledge, rewards, and procedures as you lead creative pursuits.
• Nothing extraordinary is ever achieved through ordinary means. With a deviant mind-set, the pressures from others become a source of confidence.
• By shedding the obligations and expectations bestowed upon you by the status quo, you can organize and lead extraordinary ideas to fruition.
• Optimization isn’t about making drastic changes. The key to optimization is making incremental tweaks in a controlled and measurable way.
• Don’t neglect your strengths and focus only on your weaknesses. On the contrary, efforts to optimize should be spent on your strengths. Small tweaks are the difference between 95 percent and 100 percent. If you can find your 95 percent and really bring it home, that’s where you are most likely to change the world.
• Despite the quality of your ideas and output, the impact you will make largely depends on your ability to constantly optimize--to build on your successes and grow them into something greater.