It sucks when you don't have time to work on business growth innovation.

But if we don't have a lot of time to innovate but need that growth, what will we do?

In this session, you'll learn some battle-tested tactics to get business growth innovation happening with just 5minutes a day, Yep, 5 minutes a day.

So that you can not only generate business growth solutions to get the results you need but still do all the everyday stuff that needs to be done, day in, day out.

You'll discover the power of idea muscle drills to generate stacks of great ideas and a 5minute trendspotting activity that will provide you with valuable business intelligence every week.

I'll tell you about that trendspotting tech trick in a minute but first, let me address the concept of time. Or, more realistically, the lack of time.

Your available time is fixed. And in much of that time, you're only allowed to spend that time on certain billable activities.

That means we need to pull out some unorthodox yet effective techniques to get more innovation growth in the smallest amount of time possible.


Let's look at some unorthodox methods so you can win back 5minutes each day. 

Once we sit down on a chair, we relax. Our muscles switch off, our blood supply slows down, and our general level of alertness drops. Have you ever felt yourself start to wander off as you recline in a nice meeting room chair? We've all been there.

The brain is an organ that needs oxygen to function at its best. That's why when I run workshops and meetings, we try to do standing activities. Standing up increases the blood supply throughout the body, boosting alertness and brain function. It also tells us subconsciously that we are here to work on something and we will get involved.

The other benefits of a standing meeting are that people won't want to stand up for too long, so they will work harder to get stuff done in the allotted time.

I learned this from Creel (Andrew) Price from one of my clients, Creel (Andrew) Price. He sold his company in his early 40's for an 8 figure sum. Our meetings were often done walking briskly around the CBD, and the solutions did not disappoint. It was a cardiovascular win and a business win each time we met that way.

Most meetings create more work for people while taking people off the work they were supposed to be doing. By adding or substituting a meeting with an execution session, everyone focuses on accelerating getting work done in a shorter time.

I've found the best execution sessions are ones added before the end of a meeting. For example, "Okay, we've got 5mins to go before we break, and I suggest we make the next 5minutes and execution blitz on the actions we need to get started based on our meeting. We've already identified who's doing what. We've got 5minutes, the timer starts now…"

This technique was developed to help people focus on having uninterrupted work sessions. Say 20 minutes of continuous activity concentrating solely on one area of focus, so no multitasking and no distractions - no phone, no email, nothing. 

After the 20minutes, you then have a short break of 5 minutes. You do other activities that usually distract you during this time, i.e. check email, make a quick call, tidy your desk, etc.


The goal is to get as many uninterrupted activity blocks in each day. Change the time length of the blocks to suit your attention style.

If you don't know Italian Pomodoro means tomato!

Whether it's for a meeting or your own work, a countdown clock can work by compressing your focus and the amount of work you can achieve. The procrastinations disappear, and you get stuff done more effectively. I encourage my clients to use a tablet with a countdown climber, though you can just as easily use a smartphone instead.


Sometimes having a prompting question is enough to win you back time. A great buddy of mine, Matt Church, taught me one years ago. "How can I get twice as much done today in half the amount of time?". Having a Post-it Note with that question can work wonders.


If you find you're losing time, try to work out what you should be doing. ask this question by Real estate mogul Gary Keller. "What's the number one activity I need to do today so everything else becomes either easier or unnecessary to do?"


Another way we can find time to get those innovative growth solutions is to ask others to help. Duh, that seems obvious, yet too few of us ask for help for fear of being rejected.

Here's the thing, if someone says no, they can't help out, have you lost anything or damaged your reputation? No. It's like asking someone if they'd like a stick of chewing gum. Some will say yes, and some will say no. It's not the end of the world.

If you want to make it easier for them to say yes, you need to make the decision a no brainer. And the easiest way to do that is through a question. At the same time, you've got to put yourself in the shoes of who you're asking for help. What do they care about or want in their job?


Chances are, they're time poor like you, but nearly everyone in the business world responds to recognition. We react because we don't get enough of it out. So, starting out by saying something positive about what they've been doing will open them up. 


In some ways, you are helping their ego out, which initiates the law of reciprocity. 'They gave me something. What can I give back in return?'

Yes, this works. Think of the last time someone complimented you on how you looked. "Oh, I love those shoes…" In an instant, you're thinking of how you can return the compliment. Use this subconscious response to get them to help with your growth innovation.

For example, "Hi Reyna, Great job on the Hastings project. I heard you came up with some cracker solutions to get it over the line. Speaking of which, I've got a question that I think your unique perspective could help us solve. Can I share a 60-second challenge with you?"

So with this opening, you've complimented them, and they're ready to return the goodwill. Then you position them with a no brainer, 60-second challenge. This elicits their curiosity and gives them a time frame.

They usually respond with "Sure, fire away" or "I'm just heading to a meeting, but we can chat over a coffee".

If they say no, ask them, "No probs. Who else do you think could help?".

Now it's time for the question/ problem you want them to help solve.

I've often said that if you want better ideas, ask better questions. So spend the time to ask a simple but straightforward question that includes the context of the problem or opportunity.

For example, "We've noticed a sharp drop in sales for our XYZ product. This is costing us [insert financial cost] in our revenue. Our research has found no new competitors, but an obvious increase in our competitors' sales. What would be the 3 best options we could take to rejuvenate our XYZ offering?"

Did you notice I used the word rejuvenate versus innovate? The reality is people are risk-averse to the word innovation. Therefore it makes sense to use other words to describe it. I could have called it a product improvement, modernisation, reinvention…


Make sure you've downloaded my list of 125 innovation synonyms which you can find in my Relaxed InnovationLeaders Guide to Getting Anyone to Innovate here. https://www.ideaswithlegs.com/



One of clients, Nokia, took asking for help to a very intimate space. The toilet. They had a small flyer on the back of the toilet doors with a pressing challenge asking people to help solve it. This is one form of multitasking that does work. Although a bit unorthodox, it is highly effective.


It's the start of your weekly Monday morning meeting, and everyone has a pad of Post-it notes in their hand and a pen. Your tablet countdown timer is set for 3 minutes, and you instruct them to…

"Write 20 ideas in the next 3minutes to solve our customer's biggest pain point of [insert pain point]. Your time starts now!"

This activity will create innovative growth solutions. It will also develop your team's idea muscle and neural flexibility (the ability to adapt and think differently for better solutions).


Trust me, this is fun and effective at the same time. It's counterintuitive because the more ideas you have to create forces you to generate more ideas than you would typically be capable of. A challenge of 10 ideas in 2mins will yield far less quality ideas than the 20 idea activity. You need to get the ordinary ideas out to create extraordinary ideas.

This trendspotting activity takes you 5minutes to set up once. Still, it will provide you with valuable business intelligence sent to your inbox every week for as long as you want.


If you want to know the latest things happening but don't want to fork out a fortune for a trends report. Then the simplest time-saving thing is to create a Google Alert.


Enter Google Alerts into your browser, and you will see how to set up a news alert on any topic you can think of. They're free and easy to set up. 


It makes sense to use keywords that relate to your business. For example, when writing my latest book, The Reinvention Sprint https://thereinventionsprint.com/, I had several active alerts using the keywords reinvention, pivot, thinking outside of the box, and business recovery. 
  
However, do not rely on just one search term as an emerging trend may not yet have a trend name. Your search terms may include increase in _______ or a decrease in _____ or a rapid adoption of ______ or a shift to_______. 
  
Identify which online publications or search terms you might want to check out. 

Go on, create a news alert now. 

Here's a simple way to get your team to help. Get different team members to monitor other areas or search terms and schedule a regular catch up session with the whole team to assess which ones you might want to capitalise on.


Okay, here's the last time-saving innovation technique I'll share today.

The following 5-minute technique saved my client's career. Not to mention that it made their business millions of dollars too.

When asked consistently (e.g. once a fortnight), this one question can also create an innovation culture without spending a lot of time, effort, or money.


Your task is to write up one question on the whiteboard at the beginning of every weekly/fortnightly
meeting.
"What's the most engaging invention/ innovation/ product/ process that you've come across outside of the
<insert your industry> and what made it so compelling?"
Once the team has shared, ask, "How can we adapt the best components or attributes to our industry or organisation.?"