Red Thread Thinking: Weaving Together Connections for Brilliant Ideas and Profitable Innovation

"Red Thread Thinking" makes innovation accessible, fun, and actionable for everyone. The author makes it clear that no matter who you are or what you do, you have the power to be innovative, and turn your ideas into reality. There's no business theory or jargon here. Instead, the author has created an approach to innovation that's deliberate, insightful, and down to earth.

The book has been written for people, not organizations. And, you don't have to be an entrepreneur or work in research and development to take advantage of these insights. The author's approach will help you think of new ways to do your work, give a better presentation, teach a class, or come up with good ideas to make your organization a better place.

Debra Kaye is a global innovation and trends expert who specializes in brand strategy and innovation. She's a partner at the innovation consulting firm Lucule, and is the former CEO of TBWA-Italy. She has used her red thread thinking technique with many global clients, including Colgate Palmolive, American Express, McDonald's, and Johnson and Johnson.

So, keep listening to find out what you should focus on to strengthen your creative thinking, several tips to make your next brainstorming meeting more productive, and why looking back at old research can help you solve today's problems.

The red thread metaphor comes from an Oriental legend about an elderly god who lives in the moon. He has a bag full of red threads, representing the ties between people. Each evening the god's mission is to connect the red threads, and the people whose lives are destined to cross.

The author uses this metaphor to explain how good ideas can emerge from unexpected connections, not just between people, but among history, technology, culture, and behavior.

There are five threads in the author's "red thread thinking" approach, and each thread gets several chapters in the book.

Red thread 1 is innovation. Here, you learn how to fire up your brain to better observe what's around you and start making connections.

Red thread 2 is called "Everything old is new." Here you learn how to look into the past to get fresh ideas for the future.

Red thread 3 is called "Consumers: the strangest animals in the zoo." This thread is all about knowing your market, and knowing what they want to buy.

Red thread 4 is "What you see is what you get." This thread shows you how to create a new language around your product or service to make it stand out and be universally understood.

The last thread is "The force of passion." Here you learn how to keep reviewing and refining your ideas without violating your integrity, beliefs, or values.

In the first chapter, we get a fascinating and uplifting look at how brains work. And you'll be happy to learn that your brain is just like any other muscle. No matter how old you are, you can develop and strengthen your brain through certain activities and exercises. This can help you see connections, be creative, and innovate better.

The author quotes a fascinating 2008 study published in the Creativity Research Journal. In it, researchers found there are four core areas you should focus on to enhance your ability to innovate. These four areas are capturing new ideas, engaging in challenging tasks, broadening knowledge, and interacting with stimulating people and places.

Eight months into this study, participants who focused on these four core areas had increased their rate of new idea generation by 55 percent. They brought in $600,000 in new revenue for their organizations, and saved $3.5 million dollars through innovative cost reductions.

The study shows that anyone, regardless of position or skill, has the potential to be incredibly creative and innovative if they're given the chance.

The author cites a lot of cutting-edge research in this first chapter. We enjoyed learning what happens in the brain when you work on creative tasks. Parts of your brain actually power down, for lack of a better term, enabling the rest of your brain to wander and make new and unexpected connections.

If you're in a leadership role you won't want to miss chapter 2, titled "Stop brainstorming and take a shower." Here, you learn why brainstorming in a group can be a really bad idea. In short, people generate more and better ideas when they're on their own. When they're in a group, they're often pressured to follow someone else's lead, or conform to others people's ideas. Or they just feel shy. The number of unique ideas falls dramatically in a group setting.

Although it sounds great to brainstorm on your own, many people might still have to go to group brainstorming sessions. So, the author provides some useful tips to make these meetings more productive.

Start by listing a bunch of ideas that people believe are wrong or misguided, and then revise them. For example, ask the group to write down why a certain idea is wrong. What can all of you do to make it right?

This shift in thinking will cause the group to go down a different cognitive path, and it increases the chance that a new and creative connection will be made.

You can also try throwing out some bizarre ideas. Lateral-thinking expert Edward de Bono calls this "random input." Say a random word or idea that's completely unrelated to the topic you're discussing. Then, try to carve a path between this word or concept back to topic you need to discuss.

Your goal during a brainstorming session isn't to play it safe and find the "right" answer. Your goal is to come up with new ideas. And sometimes the only way to get people out of their comfort zone is to be a bit unusual and provocative.

In this chapter you get many more tips to increase your creative thinking. And, all of the author's suggestions are backed up by recent research. By the time you're done reading through the first section you'll know why you need to start exercising, sleeping, and meditating more if you want to think more creatively.

Red thread 2 is "Everything old is new." There are three chapters in this section that teach you why it's valuable to look back through time to get ideas.

The author says that new eyes can excavate things that were overlooked in the past. You can use past ideas, information, inventions, and even failures to make new connections today.

Here's what this looks like.

The former president of Gatoraid, Sarah Robb O'Hagan, had her work cut out for her when she took over the brand in 2008. Sales were dropping every year, and competitors were taking more market share each month.

As soon as she was appointed, Robb O'Hagan went on maternity leave. But she took plenty of research with her. On her maternity leave, she read through reams of data about Gatoraid's target market, and who was actually purchasing the sports drink.

According to the marketing department, Gatoraid's target market was men aged 18 to 45. But this was not the group actually buying the product. The groups keeping the brand going were high-school athletes, marathoners, and other weekend sports enthusiasts. These three groups made up more than half of all sales. But none of the advertising messages were written with these people in mind.

Gatoraid's president did a lot more reading, but the result of her digging transformed the way the company marketed the drink. The brand is now thriving and fresh, and has a much broader market share than it used to.

We thought this was a great example to include because it shows that the information you need to innovate or transform your organization could be right at your fingertips. You just need to go find it.

And there's another lesson: instead of reading someone else's report or conclusions, look at the data yourself.

Another strategy you can use is to question the common assumptions people have in your office or organization. A good question to ask is, if you could no longer use this product or asset as it's intended, what else could you do with it?

The third red thread is called "Consumers: the strangest animals in the zoo." The three chapters in this section cover consumer behavior, and how you can figure out what people want, and what they're actually willing to pay for.

We particularly liked red thread 4, titled "What you see is what you get." And the author starts this section by talking about simplicity.

All of us have used a product that has many more features than we need or understand. According to the author, simplicity should be at the heart of the discussion when you're talking about innovation, because it's essential to good design.

Studies show that the more a consumer understands the unique features of a new product, the more likely they are to buy it. Marketers call this "decision simplicity," when it's easy for consumers to gather information about a product and weigh their options.

The author says that when consumers want a product to do one thing, they look for a product with the fewest obstacles to getting that one thing done.

This means when you're designing a product or service, you need to focus on what's most important and useful in order to keep things simple for everyone.

Research backs up the idea that too many choices or features can lead to a debilitating or dissatisfying experience. Studies show a direct link between the number of features a product has, and increased customer dissatisfaction.

Stop and think about how you feel when you sit down to watch TV, and you have to sort through literally hundreds of channels. It's hard to settle on one because you're afraid you might miss something really great somewhere else. More often than not, you might just flip through endlessly, and end up anxious or dissatisfied.

On the other hand, simplicity makes choices easy. Steve Jobs mastered simplicity at Apple. He pared down products and features so that anyone could figure out how to work the iPod or power up the MacBook.

The Herman Miller Aeron Chair is in the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection. It's the best-selling office chair in the United States, even though it's quite expensive. The technology that went into the chair is complex, but the designers kept that complexity hidden from users.

It looks simple and elegant, and it's very easy to operate.

Google and Facebook are two more examples of useful simplicity. When it comes to designing your product or service, think about how you could make it as simple as possible for your customers.

Simplicity is also important when it comes to marketing and information flow. Research shows that most consumers feel completely overwhelmed and bombarded with advertising and marketing these days.

To combat this, figure out how to connect with people in a way that respects the pressure they're under, and gives them some relief from the deluge.

One way to do this is to not waste your customers' time with details they really don't need to know. Trim down your communications so they're simple and powerful. The author suggests reading "The Elements of Style" by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White, which is a classic reference book in the United States.

The fifth red thread is called "The force of passion." In this last section the author talks about the importance of passion, and failure, when it comes to creating and sticking with new ideas.

So, what's our last word on "Red Thread Thinking?"

We think this is a fascinating book that's going to benefit anyone who reads it. The author's red thread concept is accessible and easy to grasp, and the book is written in a friendly and compelling voice. This is not a book you'll want to put down once you get going.

The book is full of cutting-edge research in neuroscience, psychology, and behavior. The author did a thorough job citing her sources, and because of her attention to detail, it's obvious her approach is backed up by science. We appreciate that she took so much care in quoting her research.

Once you're done with the book you'll have plenty of tips, tools, and suggestions that will help you think more creatively and innovate better.

We also really liked that the author wrote this for everyday people. If you're in a leadership role you can apply many of these tips to your team. But the author kept her focus on ordinary employees, from knowledge workers to school teachers: anyone who wants to know how to make their life a bit more fun and interesting with new ideas.

All in all, we have no trouble recommending this book.

"Red Thread Thinking," by Debra Kaye, is published by McGraw-Hill.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Thanks for listening.