Brilliant ideas are simply table stakes. .🃏🎲 Even the best ideas don’t win on their own merits.
Spencer Silver, one of the 3M employees who invented the Post-it note 🟨, had a nickname within the company: “Mr. Persistent.” He refused to give up on an idea 💡 he believed in.
He had been *trying* to create a new adhesive for aviation ✈.
Instead, he created a weird adhesive 🧪 that could be applied and removed without leaving a residue.
“It was a [brilliant] solution to a problem that did not [yet] exist.”
Silver spent years giving seminars across 3M about this weird glue.
He hoped one of the product managers would see a use for it.
What can #thoughtleadership lessons can we learn?
🔬 Silver chose to see the weird glue as an opportunity rather than a failed experiment.
📢 He chose to share his “failure” with others.
💡 He asked people to help amplify his idea.
I’m reminded of a great quote by John Doerr. “Ideas are easy. Execution is everything. It takes a team to win.”
I’ve relied on Post-It notes 🟨 for hundreds of work sessions during my career. Maybe you have too.
How are you evangelizing your ideas? Are you persistent?