It was 75 years ago today that Elvis Aaron Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi. There’s no truth to the rumour that other babies in the maternity ward immediately began impersonating him.
Since Presley’s death from a heart attack in 1977, however, Elvis impersonating has been a growing industry. From about 170 impersonators at the time of his passing, today there are an estimated 250,000 to 400,000 Elvis impersonators worldwide, from singers to skydivers.
Mathematically, therefore, if this growth trajectory continues by the year 2030, one in every five consenting adults will be an Elvis impersonator.
Elvis impersonation is a fertile business opportunity – evidenced by the announcement that a new AI powered concert will bring a holographic Elvis back to the stage!
While travelling in the northeast of Nigeria and arriving in the regional capital of Yola, I met an amazing character who, having been informed that his pizza restaurant had foreign visitors, came to introduce himself. This gentleman had a serious personality and entertained us with stories of the great and the good who had visited his establishment.
We sat together late into the evening, chatting about life and the cosmos. Suddenly, he asked me if I knew Sir Richard Branson and then quoted verbatim a huge series of wisdom words from the business guru himself. He told me that he had read everything that Sir Richard had ever written and that he had modelled himself on the guru and planned to take over Nigeria with his unique form of pizza restaurant. I was amazed that even in a city with no beauty, no distinctives, and no attraction, a vision of this scale could have been birthed in the heart of man.
To this day, I’m not sure if my new Nigerian acquaintance achieved his ambition, but what inspired me was the ability of ideas to port cultures, environments, nations, and peoples. Sometimes “ideas” and creative thinking have transportability; sometimes they don’t.
Why Elvis continues to have global appeal I’m sure it is worth future investigation. That got me to think: what environments foster and cultivate creative thinking, and what are the environments that don’t?
Some thought leaders draw inspiration from the past but have the unique ability to both textualize the thinking of the ancients and apply it to present-day reality.
Some businesses ring fence their creatives and visionaries because of the risk they pose! Settling for a banal form of business, as usual, is the preferred working environment. In other words, don’t you step on my blue suede shoes.
Visionaries can destabilise the status quo and sometimes rock the boat because of their alternative viewpoints. Some have suggested they can be the grit in the oyster. Or the thorn in the flesh.
Other business environments uncage their lions and cultivate a culture where the power-gift of creativity is unleashed. Sometimes these lions are those who are experts in the new technologies of today and, arguably, tomorrow. I’m thinking beyond technology and highlighting thought leadership.
Impersonators tend to look backward, perhaps drawing inspiration from the past.
Thought leaders can both shape the present and the future by both the way they live and the way they think. Some thought leaders draw inspiration from the past but have the unique ability to both textualize the thinking of the ancients and apply it to present-day reality.
Ideation
In contemporary business parlance, the word ideation has become familiar to those influenced by Gallup’s StrengthFinder profiling tool. Ideation is vital in the design thinking process. It’s like injecting a shot of pure creative adrenaline into your project. It encourages divergent thinking, expands the solution space, fosters collaboration, and promotes experimentation.
Ideation in design thinking is all about getting your hands dirty and experimenting. Rapid prototyping and fearless iteration drive you towards the ultimate solution.
So buckle up, embrace the power of ideation, and unleash your creativity. Here are some well-tested top tips.
- Be crystal clear with your chosen team about what the issue is that you want to bring into your ventilation chamber. Not a talking shop, more an incubation chamber. Circulate your thinking five days ahead.
- Begin with a statement about good meeting practice. No overspeaking; respectful and encouraging statements; mutuality of endeavour.
- Let loose your lions from different disciplines, preferably. Mix juniors and seniors together.
- Underscoring the importance of attentive listening and succinct contributions.
- Make it clear that there is no such thing as bad ideas.
- Do your best to get people into a room together. Chemistry doesn’t flow as well as it could via Teams/Zoom
- Bring a gifted administrator into the room (preferably physically) to catch the rain.
- Quantity, not quality, is the intention.
- Reward participants with comfortable surroundings.
- Treats and surprises help. Good coffee, treats, good food, refreshments, and great pizza.
- Keep the team together.
- Communicate well.
- If you emerge with one winning idea and celebrate the team’s great work, the payback is well worth the effort.
I will personally never become an Elvis impersonator. I will, however, always be found guilty of letting the lions out, listening with forensic intensity to everything the creatives have to offer. Ideation is welcome in my world if it is not celebrated, and I will never be disavowed of the belief that mediocrity will never have a place in anything that I am involved in.
So don’t you ever step on my blue suede shoes.
