Jeremy Gutsche shares tips on becoming better and faster at finding big ideas

Jeremy Gutsche, innovation expert, award-winning author and CEO of Trend Hunter spoke to Johnson Space Center employees about finding ways to be lean, agile, responsive and adaptive to change.

Gutsche’s book “Better and Faster” explains how being on the lookout for certain patterns in the market can help you spot your next big idea. He also stresses the importance of looking for connections between seemingly very different disciplines.

In a workshop following his presentation, JSC employees got a chance to dive deeper into one of NASA’s big ideas: putting humans on Mars. Gutsche led team-based exercises for exploring the pros, cons, potential setbacks and potential victories of different scenarios on the #JourneyToMars. He encouraged participants to think past the technology hurdles of going to Mars and focus on identifying and developing solutions for organizational challenges, which we have an opportunity to address in the short term as part of JSC 2.0.

Prototyping and running through all the potential scenarios that can arise in space are already a huge part of the culture at NASA. Gutsche said NASA can use that experience to its advantage by running through scenarios related to NASA’s broader, more long-term mission goals. Not only would the agency get a bunch of new ideas, but it would also get a secondary benefit in that everyone would be an active participant in the activity they joined NASA for—being part of an epic mission like putting humans on Mars. As Gutsche noted, it’s easy to lose sight of the larger goal when you are working on smaller, more specific goals with a shorter time frame in your day-to-day work.

“In order to make it real and keep people connected, I think these sorts of activities are what can help liberate creativity and even empower people to realize, ‘No, I can do something,’” Gutsche said.

Even when not working on the next big thing, there are ways to improve how we generate ideas every day. Gutsche indicated that adding a little structure to any brainstorming session can help ideas flow more freely. The key to making sure that everyone has their best chance to contribute good ideas lies in setting a few basic rules.

For instance, asking team members to silently brainstorm ideas on their own for 30 seconds before sharing with the group can ensure more introverted colleagues have a chance to contribute and prevent the conversation from being dominated by those who are more extroverted. If someone’s voice is being lost in the crowd, don’t hesitate to draw them back in by asking for their thoughts periodically.

Not only is it important to cater to the needs of both extroverts and introverts in a brainstorming session, it’s also important to make sure employees at all levels feel comfortable contributing. Gutsche said there are a couple techniques to make sure new employees don’t feel too intimidated to contribute their most out-of-the-box ideas in the presence of senior employees. It also helps for senior employees to reserve their ideas for last, giving everyone else a chance to contribute.

Another thing senior employees can do is throw out an intentionally goofy idea to ease tension and let everyone know it’s OK to have fun with the process. To really take the pressure off and get the creative juices flowing, one can even have a quick practice brainstorming session first, where the team brainstorms ideas from a silly prompt like “How to sell pantyhose to men.”

Gustche suggests experimenting with different combinations of brainstorming rules to find out which method helps your team come up with ideas better and faster.

Most importantly, don’t get so caught up in the big picture that you forget to share the little things that make space exploration so awesome. Just demonstrating how a drop of water behaves in microgravity can connect emotionally with your audience about how different life in space can be.

“It might be hard to see it since you work with it everyday, but there really is so much magic here,” Gutsche said.

To learn more about Gutsche’s work and access NASA-customized resources from his presentation, click here.

Hayley Fick

NASA Johnson Space Center