Who Stepped on that Crazy Boat and How do I get a Ticket

I just read an interesting post written by Michael Schrage in the Harvard Business Review, entitled, Managing the "Crazy Ideas" Conundrum. Really good article and the timing of  the post was great for me.  

My producer and I meet every morning on a Skype video call to talk business. Often, we discuss business and sometimes we brainstorm and sometimes we talk about sports, weather or whatever. The brainstorming usually comes from just talking.  This morning we were experiencing one of those moments when a seemingly innocuous comment by Mike starting me thinking about some of our strategies that we needed to put in place.  From nothing came something significant and now we are meeting in person this afternoon and evening to put these new ideas in place.

 

The funny thing, and as it relates to Michael Schrage's post, is that as our ideas evolved, we started laughing about how often, what we first react to as a crazy idea, later becomes the wise move.

Specifically, the way that he described it as:

"Sometimes when someone tells you something you feel like asking them, what crazy boat did you step on and a week later you are calling them up asking how you can get a ticket on that very boat."  

A very wise man.