The first step in innovation is to have an idea. The second is to value your idea. That is, to treat it like it is important. That sounds simple but it's not, because when we have an idea we don't necessarily know whether it's brilliant, ridiculously stupid or somewhere in between. The temptation is often to think it's no good and to let it go.

When an idea comes, there's usually an initial surge of excitement, but soon the doubts set in:

• ‘It's probably no good.'
• ‘There must be a problem with it that I haven't seen yet.'
• ‘What if it doesn't work?'
• ‘How could I think of a great idea?'
• ‘Surely if it was a good idea, someone else would have already thought of it.'

It's normal to doubt the quality of your idea. Do you think those who first thought of the wheel or frozen yoghurt or the scarf knew immediately they were onto a winner? They probably experienced the same doubts as you and I do, and the same mixture of excitement and uncertainty.

Over the years many people have approached me and said, ‘You know that thing you had on The New Inventors … I thought of that years ago'.

I always say, ‘Great! Well done!', because thinking of a better way of doing things is always worthy of congratulation. Then I ask, ‘And what did you do when you had the idea?'

And often they will pause, look at the ground and say, ‘Nothing'.

Their idea had never gone beyond being just that — an idea. They had never discovered how good it could get, because they hadn't valued it highly enough to find out.

An idea that remains locked in your mind and is never let out into the world can't change anything. The only way to find out if an idea is any good is to value it, and grow it.

Imagine how you would feel if you thought of an idea, but because you doubted its value you didn't do anything with it, and then later someone else had the same idea, developed it and made a success of it.

Don't let it happen!

One reason we can be reluctant to value our ideas is that we fear failure. What if we have an idea and it doesn't work? We might look and feel stupid.

We have all met people who constantly tell their colleagues all the things management should be doing, but who never actually share their own ideas. By keeping their ideas from those who might be able to assess and implement them, they protect themselves from being judged, and from the possibility of discovering that their ideas aren't quite as good as they think they are.

If you want to innovate, it's important that you develop a healthy relationship with failure, because it is an inevitable part of the process of innovation. It is very rare to succeed without first failing. Think of something you are good at: your job, playing piano, push-ups, sailing, reading, whatever … Were you good at it the first time you did it? In all probability you weren't. Who sits down at the piano for the first time and plays well? Who tries reading for the first time and completely nails it?

The way to get good at something is to try, fail, try again, fail again, try some more … and slowly get better. It's the same with having new ideas. I don't know of any innovator who claims that every idea they have ever had has been successful. Innovators often have to go through many ideas to get to the one that works.

As educator Ken Robinson puts it, ‘If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original'. Innovators do not fear failure; they embrace it. ‘Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker,' writes Denis Waitley. ‘Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.'

Others have captured the same idea in different ways:

‘Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.'

Robert F. Kennedy

‘I have not failed. I've just found 10 000 ways that won't work.'

Thomas Edison

Accept that failure is part of the process. Try to take the pressure off yourself to have a great idea and, instead, accept that having any idea is a good start. Value every idea that you have. Ideas are our point of difference as a species. They have taken us out of the cave and allowed us to create the sophisticated and ingenious world we live in. Treat every one like it is important.

Innovators want to find out how good every idea they have is. And when they discover that one is not so good, that's okay. They learn what they can from their failure and move on, and try to think of another idea. Only a small percentage of ideas will grow into things you can implement in your business, but it's very hard to get to the good ones without going through all of them.

Ideas are like balloons

It's really easy to punch holes in a half-formed idea, be it your own or someone else's. When the inventor of the wheel or the telephone or the wheelbarrow or the toothbrush or the jam-filled doughnut first had their idea, it wouldn't have been difficult to find fault with it.

Try to resist the temptation to engage your inner critic too early and to judge ideas before you give them a chance to grow. Of course we have to judge our ideas at some point, but let the idea get as good as it can get first. Very few ideas sound great when they are first thought of. Sometimes we can be so judgmental of ourselves (and others) that as soon as we have an idea we start to look for all the things that are wrong with it. Often we are trained to look for problems, and our first instinct when confronted with a new idea is to poke holes in it. It's not hard to find fault with a new idea. The wheel, for example:

• ‘Surely it will just fall over.'
• ‘It will be too hard to make them perfectly round.'
• ‘Even if you can get it to roll along, how can you carry anything on it?'
• ‘If you make it out of stone it will be too heavy, but if you make it out of wood it won't be strong enough.'
• ‘I just don't think there's a market for it. People are used to carrying things themselves.'

When you have an idea, try to suspend judgement for a while and just ask one simple question:

‘How can I make it better?'

Treat ideas like balloons. Blow them up as big as they can get before you judge them. If you showed an empty balloon to someone who had never seen one before, they would think it was just a shrivelled up piece of plastic. Once you blow it up, though, it becomes a lot more impressive.

When you have an idea, brainstorm it enthusiastically. Grow it without stopping to criticise or to think about whether the things you are thinking of are good or bad. Don't stand in judgement — just think. The aim is to grow the idea as much as you can, in as many different directions as you can, and to discover how big the idea can get. Judgement can come later.

At high school, one of my English teachers would come into the room and say, ‘Write! Write! Write!' We would start to ask him what he wanted us to write about, but he would cut us off. ‘Just write. Write for five minutes. Don't stop. Write anything. Just write.'

It was a great lesson in not judging ourselves too early. Instead of agonising over whether a sentence was completely perfect, before we knew it we had written a page without any interference from our inner critic. Once the words were down on paper, we could go back, judge them and work out how to make what we had written better.

Hold the phone

Have you ever experienced this? You have an idea, then the phone rings. You answer and afterwards you go to write down your idea … and it's gone! And it never comes back.

Ideas can arrive at odd times, and so can phone calls. When you have an idea, drop everything and write it down. If the phone rings, ignore it. If your spouse calls you, ignore that too. If you are walking along the beach and someone is drowning, and you have an idea, ig— … no, wait! Some things are more important than ideas. But not many.

Treat ideas like they are important. When you have one, make a note of it straight away. Keep thinking about the idea and developing it.

Listen sometimes, don't listen sometimes

As you begin to share your idea with others, you will get feedback and comments. Sometimes you should listen to them and sometimes you shouldn't. The hard bit is to work out when to do what.

Here's the thing. When it comes to innovation, no one knows what's going to work. A lot of people think they know, and have intelligent-sounding arguments that back up their point of view, but no one actually knows.

Keep open to advice, and listen to those who urge you to be cautious. It is foolhardy to ignore well-intentioned counsel. Keep in mind, though, that there have been many instances in the past when people who have had a great deal of expertise have confidently written off innovations and inventions — and got it way wrong!

‘Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy.'

Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist for
his drilling project in 1859

‘This “telephone” has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.'

Western Union internal memo, 1876

‘Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.'

Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, 1895

‘Everything that can be invented has been invented.'

Charles H. Duell, Commissioner of the United States
Patent and Trademark Office, 1899

‘Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?'

H. M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927

‘Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.'

Marshal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy,
École Supérieure de guerre, 1911

Be mindful of the problems and the obstacles that need to be overcome to turn your idea into reality; be realistic about the risks that are involved; and be open to the possibility of failure.

To be an innovator you need perseverance and determination. Of course, there is sometimes a fine line between determination and obsession, and it's important not to get too blinkered, and to be clear-headed in assessing the progress of your idea. Some innovators find it difficult to let go of an idea they are attached to, even when everyone else has concluded that it will never work. Occasionally they confound everyone and make their idea work in spite of the doubters. Other times they spend all their money and end up frustrated and broke.

Accept that there will be obstacles, work hard to overcome them, but try to remain objective. If you think you have become too close to your idea and may have lost that objectivity, then ask someone you trust for their opinion on whether the idea has run its course. Remember, if one idea doesn't work, there's always another one.