People of a creative nature, often, need the time and space to do internal thinking work. Oh it may look like no progress is being made or maybe we’ve gone mad, but the reality is we’re just thinking. Check out this example from Mr. Henry Ford. This is from his own story found on Wikipedia. It goes as follows:

Henry had returned from that trip to Detroit with something on his mind. In reply to her (his wife’s) anxious inquiries he told her not to bother, he was all right a statement that had the usual effect of confirming her fears. She was sure something terrible had occurred, some overwhelming business catastrophe and Henry was keeping it from her.

From the kitchen window she saw him sitting idly on the horse-block in the middle of the forenoon, twisting a straw in his fingers and frowning intently at the side of the barn.

Sometimes after supper, instead of settling quietly down with his papers, he walked up and down, up and down, the sitting-room, with his hands behind his back and that same frown on his forehead. At last she could endure it no longer. She begged him to tell her the worst.

He replied, surprised, that it was a steam engine he couldn’t figure out the ratio of power to weight satisfactorily. The blame thing bothered him.

“Oh, is that all?” Mrs. Ford said indignantly. “Well, I wouldn’t bother about it if I were you. What does an old steam engine matter, anyhow? Come and sit down and forget about it.”

It was the one thing Ford could not do. His mind, once started on the project of building an engine to use on the farm, remained obstinately at work on the details. He spent weeks considering them one by one, thinking out adaptations, new devices, in an effort to overcome the difficulty.

Still he could not see how to construct a cheap engine which would pull across his soft fields, carry the necessary weight of water, and still develop enough free power to be useful.

He was still struggling with the problem three months after his trip to Detroit.

“I declare to goodness, I don’t know what’s got into you, Henry. You act like a man in a dream half the time,” the wife said, worried. “You aren’t coming down with a fever, are you?”

“I should say not!” Henry replied hastily, with visions of brewed snakeroot and wormwood. “I feel fine. Where’s the milk pail?”

He took it and his lantern and hurried out to the barn, but even while he sat on the three-legged stool, his practiced hands sending streams of warm milk foaming into the pail, his mind returned to that problem of the steam engine. He was sure a machine could be made to do the work of horses; he was confident that he could make it if he persisted long enough.

Interesting that thinking is really one of the keys that leads to innovation. Thinking and time. So next time your boss catches you staring off into space, tell him you are doing invisible work on the inside. Either that or point him to this story – that might go over better.

Henry Ford once said that he didn’t want executives who had to work all the time. He insisted that those who were always in a flurry of activity at their desks were not being the most productive. He wanted people who would clear their desks and prop their feet up, and dream some fresh dreams. His philosophy was that only those with the luxury of time can originate a creative thought.

I won’t go into what that means for American culture, but think about it within your organization. Are the timelines always tight? Is there pressure to stay in your desk? Do you get to bill thinking time? A while back I came across a fascinating story about GE and how the means to distribute electricity came into being. As the story goes, electricity had already been ‘invented’, but the means to distribute it nation wide had not. The gentleman, Mr. Gene Eby, and his team, who had been given the responsibility to develop the means could not come up with a material that would insulate electrical wires and safely carry power to the homes across America.  After a few years of working on the solution, they were getting nowhere. During his vacation, however, while doing some quiet reflecting and reading, Mr. Eby came upon the solution while reading the story of Jesus at the wedding in Cana. From the story he surmised that the clay pots used to hold the wine had to have enough strength to withstand the power of changing from water to wine. After some testing on historic clay shards he had his insulating material.

I love that story. Down time, the secret to consistent innovation. Think about what it means for your organization this year as you try to innovate and lead with creativity. Give yourself time to think. Take a walk or daydream a bit. Who knows where it could take you?

The other night as we were driving home in the snow, my son marveled at how each snowflake has a unique design. Think about how many snowflakes have ever been created. Cloud physicist Jon Nelson at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan who has studied snowflakes for 15 years says that the number of cubic feet of snow that falls on the planet each year is about 1 followed by 15 zeros, which is a million billion. Now that is a crazy number of design variations. Someone would really have to love design to stay committed to a job like that. Snowflakes are temporary and the majority are never seen by anyone. It really makes the number of our design revisions seem insignificant

I came across an excellent post by Cooper that discusses both Six Sigma and Goal Directed design and how they differ and support each other for business success. Each methodology offers it’s own value within an organization. The truly successful organization will value both.

Here’s how to make sure what you are getting is good:

1. Does the design look like something Target would sell or something you get from Kmart?

2. How does the agency you hire assign projects to specific designers? Ask to see projects completed by the designer you will be working with. Does their work have a style you like?

3. Specifically for web projects, ask to see design comps from past projects and compare them to live sites.

4. Does the design look balanced? Is it top heavy? Does the eye naturally move around the page?

5. Is there a solid concept and explanation to support the design? This could be subtle elements that support the underlying theme. For example a strategy site may have a hint of a tic tac toe game within the imagery.

6. What type of mood does the site convey? Good design will create a sense of emotion whether through movement within the graphics or through the choice of imagery and color.

7. Is the design cohesive and consistent? For the web you want to look for buttons that are the same and a strong 4 to 5 color palette.

8. Think about the clothes you wear and the car you drive. They say something about you as a person. A website will say something about your company. What is the proposed design saying?

9. Work with quality designers to get quality results. You do get what you pay for so it makes sense to look around and find the best person/firm for the job.

10. Hiring a big name agency does not mean you will get good results. I’ve seen appalling work by some of the top agencies.

I’m sure I could add to this list, but it’s a start. Send me an email and I can help you validate the quality your proposed designs.

Could this be the problem with business today? They don’t trust the voice of the designer. Prove it they say. In companies, like Apple, they don’t do much user research or prove to themselves that a design will work, yet their products are admired everywhere. By using design thinking they harness technology in unique ways to come up with revolutionary products. The proof is in the sales.