Innovation Now!

Too many CEOs are concerned that provoking 1,000 or 2,000 unconventional ideas will incite their people to waste time going off in thousands of crazy directions. That's not the problem. People have been beaten down, boxed in, and brainwashed for so long that the challenge is not to rein in their far-fetched and absurd fantasies. The challenge is to get them to expand their thinking.

Gary Hamel (gh@strategos.com) is founding director and chairman of Strategos (www.strategos.com), a Palo Alto - based company dedicated to helping its clients develop breakthrough strategies. He is also the author of Leading the Revolution: How to Thrive in Turbulent Times by Making Innovation a Way of Life (Harvard Business School Press, 2000).