Upside Down Cake
Another salesman couldn’t sell the aluminum package of cake mix Reynolds was pushing in a pineapple upside-down cake promotion. He went home and brainstormed the problem and came up with a screwy idea. He baked an upside-down cake himself and then, dressed in his wife’s apron, drove the cake, piping hot, down to the store and served it to the sales manager and some customers. He got the sale, and the sales manager wrote the head of his company. The result, the item was sold to the whole nation-wide chain.
In Reynolds’ Los Angeles packaging division office, for example, they couldn’t have a “classic dozen” brainstorm. They have only five men. Instead they have a regular weekly five-man brainstorm session. Each week, in rotation, one of the men picks his toughest sales prospect, and all five brainstorm how to sell him. This has boosted sales in that area enormously.
Brainstorming is a part of every Reynolds sales meeting, and the men who come in off the road have contributed literally hundreds of usable, sale-producing ideas to every Reynolds division.
Stick Your Neck Out And Make A Difference
When Dr. James B. Conant was president of Harvard University he not only made many revolutionary changes in the policies, administration and curriculum of many of its schools; he also became a leading force in U.S. education, a constant source of new and stimulating ideas. It is significant that during his years at Harvard he kept a picture of a turtle on the wall of his office with the caption: “Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when his neck is out.”
This is the basic reason for brainstorming, dramatically expressed. It is a technique, which encourages people to stick their necks out so that radically new ideas will constantly be produced.
When was the last time you heard anyone come up with a radically new and unconventional idea in an old-style conference or committee meeting? I can’t remember one. Conferences are supposed to stimulate thought, but, as we all know, they usually stifle it.
You know the saying, “A camel is an animal which looks like it was made by a committee.” Committee meetings in almost every case are the place for compromise, diplomacy, or careful one-upmanship. The members spend ten minutes analyzing the problem, fifty minutes arguing about it.
See The Difference An Idea Makes
You know the difference an idea makes.
You may not realize it, but if you look about you where you work, in a large office, on an assembly line, in the government, on a salesman’s beat, in a small store, in a laboratory, in the shipping room or the executive suite, you will see the difference an idea makes.
You will see the difference in the men who move ahead. You will see it in the products, which make sales records. You will see it in the business, which prospers. You will see it in profit and loss statements, on the stock exchange, in the delicatessen, which closes, in the headlines. You will see it in your home and other homes, in the family, which does things, in your church and lodge, in your political party, in your government. The one quality, which turns the ordinary into the extraordinary, is ideas.
Seeing New Solutions
Brainstorming teaches us the importance of spontaneous, uninhibited thought. It makes us realize that even when we look at old, familiar problems we can see new solutions if we don’t let preconceived judgment and prejudice rule our mind. It shows us how new and important ideas come to those who aren’t obsessed with what can’t be done.
One scientist, in talking about a genius who has had little formal training, told me, “He doesn’t have a great deal to unlearn. Most of us with Ph.D. degrees know all the things that can’t be done. He doesn’t. He tries them, and they work.”
A city editor told a writing friend of mine, “A good reporter is forever astounded at the obvious.”
This is important. We must, the older we grow, the more experienced we become, cultivate a naiveté about our work. The fact that this is difficult explains why most scientific discoveries are made by young men. They don’t know what can’t be done.
The Nose For Needs
Let the Johnson & Johnson Company tell a story about a nose for needs:
It was a great joke in the Order Department of Johnson & Johnson. Five thousand rolls of surgical tape ordered by a druggist in Detroit who couldn’t sell that much tape to all the hospitals in the city.
He had probably added an extra zero by mistake, suggested someone. Send him 500 rolls. Back came an indignant telephone call from the druggist. He had o dered 5000 rolls. Why only 500? He needed the rest of the shipment and fast.
The Sales Department lost no time in sending their Detroit representative to determine the reason for such an order. The salesman’s report was brief and to the point. An auto-body manufacturer was buying the surgical tape at the rate of 200 rolls a week-he had found a practical answer to masking two-tone paint jobs. That was the beginning of Permacel Tape Corporation.
From this one clue, Johnson & Johnson realized the great possibilities for pressure-sensitive tapes in industry. The problem of exploration and development was turned over to one of the Johnson (7 Johnson subsidiaries, the Revolite Company, who were then making waterproof sheeting.