When was the last time that you had a good idea? Did you write down your good idea? Remember that ideas are transient — they vanish from our minds if we don’t immediately write them down. So always have a pen and a piece of paper (like your notebook, a Post-it note or maybe a napkin) ready to jot down a good idea before it disappears. One final question related to that good idea that you’ve recently had: What have you done with it?

“Ideas not coupled with action never become bigger than the brain cells they occupied,” noted Arnold H. Glasow. And he’s right. If you don’t take action on a good idea, you are just a dreamer. Dreamers are not innovators. The former temporarily change their states of mind from neutral to excited; the latter change the world. So what can you do to bring a good, meaningful idea to life? Follow three steps.

1. Act. Take action right away

One of the most avid producers and greatest geniuses of mankind was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In his 82 years of life, Goethe had a literary output of 142 huge volumes spanning the fields of poetry, drama, literature, theology, humanism, and science. In his dramatic masterpiece ‘Faust’, Goethe reveals the secret to his great productivity: “Lose this day loitering — it will be the same story tomorrow — and the next more dilatory; each indecision brings its own delays, and days lost lamenting over lost days. Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute — action has genius, power and magic in it. Only engage, and then the mind grows heated — Begin it, and then the work will be completed.”

The first important step to activate a great idea is to immediately act on it. Write it down. Sketch it out. Tell someone about it. Do anything to keep it alive. Thereby, you actively involve your mind and those of others and take the all-important first step toward completion of a new project.

2. Plan for Activation

The importance of immediate action (and planning) was also found by Napoleon Hill in his studies of the success secrets of business tycoons and multi-millionaires like Nelson Rockefeller, Dale Carnegie, Henry Ford and others: “After having analyzed thousands of people, I discovered that most ideas are stillborn, and need the breath of life into them through definite plans of immediate action. The time to nurse an idea is at the time of its birth. Every minute it lives, gives it a better chance of surviving.”

Hence, the second important step on your activation journey is to specify all necessary action steps to take. First, think of critical supporters for your idea whom you need to convince of its benefits, and of ways to articulate those. Then, devise the key parameters of your initial Idea Activation Plan:

• Resource requirements: How many resources do you need? Briefly outline the required financial and human resources for the activation of your idea. Thereby, follow the KISS-rule (Keep it short and simple), but be as precise as possible (e.g., write “two software developers for one day each” rather than just “two employees”).

• Timing: How much time do you need until realization? Specify a realistic final date for activation as well as the critical milestones and deadlines that need to be kept on the way toward completion. Settle on two to seven clear activation stages (depending on the scope of your project) that allow you to check on the activation progress.

• Roles and responsibilities: Who is in charge of the overall project? Who is responsible for certain tasks? Who could act as project sponsor (e.g., in senior management)? Who can you call on if things go wrong (usually some things will)?

• Performance Measurement: How do you measure your progress in the project? What Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are most appropriate and value-adding in this particular activation project (e.g., time to market, project ROI)?

• Assumptions: List all the key assumptions that you make related to your project.

3. Activate

The third major step is to start the first activation stage, which lasts until you reach your first milestone. Before you busy yourself with the operational details related to activation stage 1, run a Pre-Mortem Exercise: Ask everybody in your team to imagine and list what can possibly go wrong; then, brainstorm for ideas on how to prevent fatal mistakes before they occur. When you’ve reached your first milestone, don’t forget to check on the continued viability of your assumptions, and make necessary corrections before moving into activation stage 2. This process repeats itself until you arrive at the end of your project. Don’t forget to celebrate that your decisive actions have transformed an idea into reality.

Lao Tse said: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Don’t wait. Don’t procrastinate. Always take the first step in any activation journey now, not later. Then simply continue to take action.

© Dr. Detlef Reis 2008. This article was published in parallel in the Bangkok Post under the same title on 10 April 2008.