How managers generate ideas and why it matters

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to describe a study of the styles and patterns people use to recognize the need for ideas, and generate and evaluate them to determine if understanding those patterns can help executives improve creativity and innovation in their organizations. People generally assume that good ideas are the result of good management and bad management leads to a dearth of them. But it might not be that simple.Design/methodology/approach – We talked with 49 senior executives about their process for generating and implementing ideas. Their approaches to information, problem solving, and interacting with people both inside and outside their organizations determined the kinds of ideas they generate and consider.Findings – We identified five distinct strategies or idea management types among the executives with whom we spoke: Incrementalists who take small steps and whose ideas are usually modest changes; Consensus builders who focus on agreement among stakeholders rather than ideas, per ...