ideate from ax09001h on Vimeo.In the above recent TV ad, IBM pokes fun at those businesses (and consultants) who seem to over-value planning while under-valuing the implementation side of management--sort of a "knowing instead of doing" problem. In IBM's ad, a manager opens up a quiet room and flips the light on, only to find a large group of employees all lying on the ground quietly on their kindergarten mats and staring up at the ceiling. When he questions what they are doing, one employees responds "Ideating." Others separately join in to flesh out the answer by tossing out words such as, "Structure," "Process," and "We need to innovate." When they're finished, the manager asks how they intend to do all of those things. Their answer? "We haven't ideated that yet." The manager wishes them good luck, turns out the light and closes the door.
It's all in good fun, of course, but what makes it funny is that we've all found ourselves scratching our heads at times and wondering the same thing. How come we seem to spend so much more time talking about doing than actually getting something done? At work, at church, at home, even personally. If you're interested in how to change this paradigm and didn't get around to this resource when it first came out, I urge you to take a look at Pfeffer & Sutton's The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge Into Action (Harvard Business School Press, 2000). The book's certainly a great resource to read but also then to keep in a visible place in your office or at home where you won't be sucked back into the land of ideation. For a nice summary of Pfeffer and Sutton's work, visit this link at FastCompany There's also a nice summary of the book available in FastCompany.com.