Introduction: How to Get Ideas by Jack Foster
What will it take for you to become successful? This may be a question that you frequently ask yourself. It certainly is one that I ask myself from time-to-time.
No one succeeds alone, and I have seen it for myself so many times. You can always learn how to build on the work of others to create something new. This means that you must learn continuously, so you can unearth things your peers will not.
You can stand on the shoulders of a giant. And you will find those giants only if you look for them. “Expect the unexpected or you won't find it,” is the name of a book by Roger Von Oech. Jack Foster stood on the shoulders of a giant, which helped to catapult him to success.
Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
Jack Foster stood on the shoulders of James Webb Young, and turned A Technique for Producing Ideas into How to Get Ideas. When you read Jack Foster's book, you see James Webb Young's influence, but you will also see a new body of work.
Have you read?
A Technique for Producing Ideas by James Webb Young
Before I write about How to Get Ideas, I want to mention some other information that adds credence to the concept of standing on the shoulders of giants. James Webb Young stood on the Shoulders of Graham Wallas.
A Technique for Producing Ideas is not ground-breaking work. In fact, James Webb Young built on the work of Graham Wallas. And Graham Wallas and Henri Poincare built on the work of Herman von Helmholtz. This is a classic case of standing on the shoulders of giants so you can see and go a little further. To understand and learn the creative process outlined in A Technique for Producing Ideas, let us take a trip back in time. See the timeline, which places things into context.
Getting Ideas Timeline
- 1896, Herman von Helmholtz, a German physician and physicist, first described the three stages of generating ideas- saturation, incubation, and illumination.
- 1908, Henri Poincare added a fourth stage verification.
- 1926, psychologist Graham Wallas formally described the creative process – preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification.
- 1940, James Webb Young publishes A Technique for Producing Ideas, a book that presents the creative process.
- Since then, others like Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Jack Foster have updated the creative process.
How to Get Ideas by Jack Foster in a Nutshell
Briefly, the book is about how to get idea after idea. But what is an idea?
According to James Webb Young,
“An idea is nothing more nor less than a new combination of old elements.”
You may know this already, but your ability to produce ideas is important to your success in life. Some of the most successful people read books to prime the pump for generating ideas. Finding that one or two or three ideas helped them to achieve and sustain professional success. The right idea when implemented can transform your life.
The book builds on the work of James Webb Young's A Technique for Producing Ideas. It is a 5-step process for producing ideas. Jack Foster points out that the creativity model for producing ideas leaves out something critical, and that is preparing your mind to produce ideas. He emphasizes that if you do not prepare your mind, you will never get the ideas you can get. I have read several books on creativity and none of them have mentioned going through the process of preparing your mind to produce ideas.
Not surprisingly, because of his belief about preparing the mind, the first part of Jack Foster's book – 10 chapters – is unique. He teaches you how to condition your mind to regularly encounter ideas, and he presents 10 things that are worth thinking about.
Preparing the Mind
- Have Fun
- Be More Like a Child
- Become Idea-Prone
- Visualize Success
- Rejoice in Failure
- Get More Inputs
- Screw Up Your Courage
- Team Up with Energy
- Rethink Your Thinking
- Learn How to Combine
In the second part of the book, Foster deals with the five-step process for producing ideas – a chapter for each step.
Core Ideas from How to Get Ideas
- Become idea prone: Expect to find ideas, so you will always be able to spot them.
- All problems have a solution, your job is to find them. This may mean reframing the problems.
- There is always another answer, you just have to search for it. The next answer could be much better.
- Is your problem similar or dissimilar to another problem? Let's say that the problem you are facing is that your product or service is not selling as much as you would like. And a key benefit of your product or service is speed. What is the fastest thing in the world? Compare benefits of your product or service to that thing. I think this is huge and will allow you to identify solutions you normally wouldn't.
- Implement your idea. Does it help someone? Does it save, fix or create something. Get it going now, don't wait to start.
Five-Step Method for Producing Ideas
A question you may ask is, Do all problems have a solution? Jack Foster thinks so. If that is the case, then it is important to ask the right questions to discover the answers you are looking for.
Step 1: Define the Problem
Foster believes that problem definition is critical because if you do not define the problem accurately, you can end up solving the wrong one. This step is more important than finding the answer to the problem. How can you reframe a question to get a better solution? When you do this, many solutions appear. To reframe the question, you can ask the opposite of what you were asking.
Continuing along that train of thought, what’s a different problem you can solve that eliminates the original problem? What’s an unconventional way to solve the problem? This is worth thinking about.
Step 2: Gather the Information
- What’s one thing that makes you different from your competitor?
- What makes your product and services unique?
- What’s a relationship between your product and another?
There is always some overlooked relationship with something else, or a nugget of information that will help you to solve its mystery and open the door to the solution. This is the specific knowledge that James Webb Young talked about. Think about it for a second, What specific knowledge can you get to combine with general knowledge. You need information to make the leap to the idea you are trying to find.
The author wants you to know that it is important to note that you cannot leap from nothing to a great idea. You have to find that nugget of information. How do you get specific knowledge about a problem? Search the internet, read books, magazine articles, and news stories, that one piece of elusive information is waiting for you to discover it. Do everything you possibly can to get the information you want.
Step 3: Search for the Idea
Get many ideas before you get a good one. Do something, do not play the waiting game. There is always another answer, you simply have to search for it. Look at the problem you are facing, to search for an idea, to find the solution. Here are some ways to search for ideas.
- Ask what if?
- Combine information.
- Look for something that’s similar and comparable.
Step 4: Forget About It
If you are having trouble coming up with an idea, solving a problem, forget about it and work on something else. This is about switching gears and focusing on another project. Let your subconscious mind work on the problem.
Step 5: Put the Idea into Action
Apply your idea, or what’s the point? Does your idea save or fix or create something? Does it make something better or solve some problem? When you get an idea, act on it, do not wait. Keep the momentum going. Give yourself a deadline to implement your idea and list the things you have to do. Take action every day. Stay with your idea. Give yourself reasons to stay with your idea.
Insights Gleaned
- You have to prepare your mind to find ideas.
- There are no shortcuts to generating ideas, you have to do the work, following the stages in the creative process.
- You cannot leap from nothing to a great idea. You have to find that nugget of information that can make a difference.
Key Takeaways
- Anyone can get ideas. You have to understand the process to do so.
- Prepare your mind to get ideas to solve your problems because there is an answer to every problem.
- An idea is a combination of two or more elements, therefore, spend time everyday learning something new.
- Give yourself permission and the freedom to get ideas.
What I Didn’t Agree with in How to Get Ideas
It is not so much about not agreeing with what is in the book. How to Get Ideas by Jack Foster commands a different way of thinking, which is not a bad thing. I just have to adjust my thinking and try something new. Sometimes that is very hard to do.
Avil Beckford's Musings
Earlier in the book summary, I presented the evolution of this problem-solving process. I read the Art of Thought by Graham Wallas and A Technique for Producing Ideas. I have seen how each author made the process better. This context gave me an appreciation for How to Get Ideas by Jack Foster.
As I was reading the book, I thought it is important for me to recommend that you read A Technique for Producing Ideas, or at the very least, to read my book summary. If you are interested in getting ideas, read Do the Work, because you have to act on ideas if you want to benefit from them. Another cool book to read is the War of Art.
Next Steps
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Buy my new book, Leadership Reading: Spilling the Tea on How Top Leaders Read
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