Going off my recent post about Subject Matter Experts HBR brings me back around to the topic again – this time with a discussion around Managing Crazy Ideas. This dovetails very nicely with the thinking about subject matter experts because that same group is usually the one that defines what is crazy and what isn’t. If you have a conservative group defining risk then you will never move down a path that diverges from what everyone else does. And if you don’t diverge from what everyone else does you’ll never find your Blue Ocean.
Sometimes (like with my recent post about Swamp Thing) you just have to go wide of the path. Tread where no one has dared before and see what happens. They say that kids say the darndest thing but you know, they really do. Those thinking about a topic for the first time will have an unfiltered look at the process. Don’t take that away from them. Let them be free to be crazy.