Dream your ideal state from the view of your customer. If you are focused on internal concerns or needs you limit yourself to putting a bandage on the much greater issue of bottom line results.
1) First look inside of your team and locate the low hanging fruit also challenge the current methods for doing your work. Your employees directly feel the pain from doing the same thing over and over and have great insight as to how they might be able to make a quick improvement in your daily performance.
2) To truly achieve a dream state you need to look outside of your organization and understand your role from their expectations. Be open to ideas which are not part of your normal business today because someone in the organization has a need. Perhaps your view on their issue might either lead to a solution that does not directly impact your team, but by being a team player you might be able to provide a solution that can contribute to their goals.
3) Brainstorm all good ideas. Identify at a high level what the most important ones have in common with each other - what is the big picture this provides?
Pick a clear high level common focus point that provides you with the true goal that you wish to focus resources and efforts to improve.
Have senior level management as team members of your efforts to focus on a goal that supports your companies bottom line. Having the management team as part of the planning stage in the forming of the concept idea brings their much needed support you when it gets time to resource your plans.
Remember to always bring your goal back into terms related to money.
OK - their are some times where it might not be easy to make the jump from your idea to money. In these cases step back from your idea and view them from out side the company - how would "60 Minutes" view your goal? Does your idea meet the condition of being fair and just in today’s world market?
- Next steps ... Going from an idea into having a focused target.
