Message in a Minute: Great ideas aren’t found, they’re built

On my continued theme of experimenting with different forms of content, today I bring you “Message in a Minute,” which is — you guessed it! — a one-minute video about a single idea.

In this first version, it’s all about this one:

Great ideas aren’t found, they’re built.

Here’s the Red Thread of the video:

• GOAL: When you’re an expert with big ideas, one of the biggest challenges you face is getting people to understand your idea and why it’s so powerful.
• PROBLEM: The challenge? Understanding doesn’t happen all at once. It’s not (just!) an event, it’s a process — one where your brain continues to collect pieces of information and connect them until they all make sense together.
• TRUTH: In other words, great ideas aren’t found, they’re built…piece by piece by your brain, in your brain.
• CHANGE: If you want to make sure people understand your idea, don’t just give them the idea, give them all the pieces of the idea that will help them make it makes sense. (*ahem* Red Thread® *ahem*)
• ACTION: That, of course, means you need to understand those pieces, too, and check that they do, in fact, add up to your idea — in a way that your audience would agree with.
• GOAL REVISITED: When you give someone those connected pieces, they’re able “rebuild” your idea in their own minds. That often leads them to not only understand why your idea is powerful, but why it’s powerful to them, and for them, too.

How to apply it

The whole point of these “Message in a Minute” videos and posts is to keep things short, so I’ll resist the urge to go too much deeper here. Since “great ideas aren’t found, they’re built” is one of the foundational concepts of all my work, you can see it at work in all my content. In every case, I’m focusing on a particular piece of an idea, or an element of the understanding-to-action process, or presenting a complete idea with all of its pieces (a la the Red Thread outline you see, above).

That last part is how all of this comes back down to you and your work: when you understand your idea at both the “whole” and “parts” level, you open up a huge world of how to talk about your idea. Depending on the format, or even your mood, you can choose to focus on:

• a particular element of your idea (e.g., What question does it answer for your audience (the Goal)? What are all the different ways people ask that question? Why are all those different versions valid? etc.)
• different audiences for your idea (e.g., What story would leaders tell themselves about why your idea is the right one for them? What story would front-line staff tell themselves? etc.)
• different applications of your idea (e.g., How does your idea apply to or affect individuals? Teams? Whole organizations? How would it apply to different stages of a decision-making or other process? etc.)

Given that combination of elements, audiences, and applications, the potential variations on your message could be nearly infinite — as could the potential audiences and impact for it.

This post, along with other great content, originally appeared on www.tamsenwebster.com. Want to get it before anyone else? Sign up for my newsletter! Questions? Email me!

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