First of all yes that is actually a real word, but don’t be frightened just yet. I didn’t know what this was until I started to try and understand what some of the traits of a Digital leader are and the first trait listed was that Digital leaders are Neophiliacs. I was like what in the world is a neophiliac? ... well, apparently it is someone who has a “love of or enthusiasm for what is new or novel”. This immediately resonated with me, I have a good friend who always referred to me as the “Blue sky boy” his take I guess on always coming up with something new, whether a new way to solve a challenge, a new product idea, new partnerships or simply a new idea to be discussed and assessed for consideration to execute. I love the fact that this has a definition, I can see myself introducing, “Hi I am Nathan Bell and yes I am a neophiliac”. On second thoughts that might simply scare the hell out of people as they take two steps back.
Over the years I have learned that the “guy” with the new idea can quickly be side-lined if they haven’t thought through the implications, the value and investment required to see it through, simply identifying something as being “cool” is not enough when you are dealing with the continual constraints of time, budget and resources to execute with. Sometimes I reflect that this lesson for me took a while to sink in as I was fortunate to work with teams who were willing to see my ideas through, whether related to a product, customer segments, customer experience or even designing organisations.
As leaders it's important that we are always open to new ideas, these ideas can come from anyone, those with a fresh perspective, voice of the user / customer, or those facing the challenge they have a solution to on the frontline. As I shared though the idea alone is not enough, in fact, having a great idea is like showing someone a picture of a car I have drawn when I was five and the response being, “well yes that’s nice but how is it actually going to work?”.
When we are supporting our teams with the ideas they bring to us as leaders it is a joint responsibility. Challenging the individual or team to come up with the answers to how the idea would be executed and the value that would be realised, equally important is your commitment as a leader to see through the execution of that idea either with funding, resources or time. Many businesses today talk about ideation, and how any idea can be brought forward, however without the commitment to see it through or sharing a framework that team members can understand, collaborate around and ultimately realise the personal satisfaction of driving change within their own business, will only lead to frustration, disillusionment, and negativity.
Therefore it is important that while we want to encourage our neophiliacs to engage with the business, leverage them to help solve problems, drive real change, without the right framework to support such thinking, we can end up with neophiliacs becoming pessimistic. Hence let’s think through the framework for ideation, how will we encourage people, teams to thrive but in a way that is transparent and drives accountability and ultimately hope in how change within a business will be driven from within rather than top down or externally.
Hopefully this has given you some ideas, and if not at least given you pause to consider how you could help guide your idea people to their full potential.
Your truly,
A Neophiliac
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