Suppose you are a CEO/founder of a company that has MVP (minimum viable product) in the rear view mirror and are scaling — “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!”

You will from time to time encounter a “good idea” either of your own origin or a bit of “monkey see, monkey do” which is a vastly underrated idea source.

How do you approach it? You let the idea germinate. [You can stop reading right now. Good day.]

Germinate, Big Red Car?

Yes, dear CEO, you let it germinate — to grow a little, to bud out, to take on a little form, to sprout.

BIIIIIIIG ideas come from seeds that are allowed to germinate.

How does it germinate, Big Red Car?

Here are some worthy steps to consider as a process:

 1. Write the idea down and see what it looks like in two dimensions. Edit it and make the clearest description of it you can.

 2. Sleep on it. This is a learning process consideration.

I am not by nature an introvert — someone who  requires a lot of reflection to formulate and make a decision, so I have forced myself to do just that. I was actually taught to make decisions, monumental decisions, literally under fire.

“Let me sleep on it,” is not a bad reaction.

 3. Run it out in front of those whose opinion you respect, “Look, amigo, an idea jumped into my head the other day when I was swimming. Can I run it by you and get a reaction?”

Good CEOs have a “go to guy” and great CEOs have a CEO coach with 33 years of CEO experience.

Always remember, the greatest oversupply in the world? Bad advice.

 4. In your written description, now go back and make sure you have: who, what, when, where, why, how much, and the desired outcome.

I also like to add:

What is the best possible outcome?

What is the worst possible outcome?

Am I betting the company’s survival on this idea?

A small digression — one of the bits of genius (there were many) of General George Washington as a military chieftain was his insistence on never allowing his army to become “decisively engaged” meaning never risking the survival of his army — and thus, the nation — on the outcome of a single battle.

Geo might be criticized for not being as swashbuckling as Patton, but the outcome speaks for itself — he beat the bloody King of England (who had the largest army in the world, the largest navy, and had rented German mercenaries, a steady and capable lot) like a rented mule on the last day of a long month.

Geo Washington never bet the army on a single battle regardless of how sweet the victory before him appeared.

He also had the great wisdom to enlist Von Steuben to drill his army and to teach them how to maneuver at a run from a column of platoons to a battalion front with the American guns behind them facing Brits across a field. This one maneuver transformed the Colonials from a bunch of sharpshooters behind trees to a serious army that could kick British ass and did. Well played.

 5. Decide how you might sell the idea internally — my foolproof, never fail technique was to declare, “This looks like a worthy experiment. If it doesn’t work, then we pull the plug on the experiment. Just an experiment.”

I never said, “If this experiment works, then it becomes the new law of the land.” I didn’t have to; it was baked into the cake.

As a CEO — if the idea works, hand out credit like Halloween candy corn.

If the idea tanks, take all the blame — nobody will get in your way in that line. Trust me.

 6. Run it by your board of directors — boards are notoriously pissy when you surprise them and, please God, you might have a former CEO or other useful person on your board who could say, “Yeah, I did something like that. Let me tell you how it worked out.”

Always rent experience.

 7. Then, and only then, wiggle it into your strategy, tactics, and objectives.

Bottom line it, Big Red Car

Let that sucker germinate.

But, hey, what the Hell do I really know? I’m just a Big Red Car with 42 years of experience CEO-ing and advising CEOs. WTF would I know?

Have a great week. Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas! Smile a lot — everybody wonders what the Hell you’ve been up to.