Okay, now I have enough to run with this

If you want to get good at executing other people’s ideas as well as your own, then you’ll need to achieve minimum viable inspiration.

This is crucial for any collaboration. Before you take initiative and start working independently, you need to get sufficient context so you can confidently say, okay, now I have enough to run with this.

That’s one of my favorite expressions. To run with something. It doesn’t necessarily mean to take over and to take control of someone else’s project. It’s more about curiosity, generosity and velocity.

I learned this distinction at my last few startup jobs, where the work has always been cross functional. Marketing departments typically operate this way. In addition to building the consumer facing brand, they also work with every department at the company to help them codify and communicate their ow messages.

Personally, I’ve always viewed it as a privilege. I learn so much more about how businesses run by collaborating cross functionally. And that’s where minimum viable inspiration comes in.

Whenever I’m tapped on the shoulder to support another teams, there are certain questions I always ask people.

First of all, where did your initial inspiration for this idea come from?

This origin story is essential for guiding the creative process. You need to identify the initial pain that somebody else felt compelled to alleviate. The problem they sought out to solve.

Or as the tech startup folks are fond of saying, the job to be done.

However your curiosity arrives at that insight, it will be your north star going forward. As long as you’re aligned with that goal, you can’t go wrong.

This is my favorite part of the process. It’s like therapy. People just start riffing about something they’ve been thinking about for a while, and all these gems fall out the bottom.

Like my old colleagues from the sales department at my startup. Emily told me that selling was all about storytelling. But since she has just graduated college and hadn’t been at the company very long, she didn’t have any stories. She asked if there was a way to tap into the reserves of other people’s stories until she got her own.

An that’s exactly what we built together. A library of customer stories sorted by industry, company size, pain point and outcome. Each one was like a macro for empathy. Now she was fully equipped with sales ammo to relate to our customer’s struggles, make them feel less alone, and close more deals.

Another helpful question to ask your collaborators is, what’s prevented your idea from getting done so far?

Remember, if another team is coming to you for help, it means the project has been on the backburner for some time now. Or at least been discussed at length by multiple stakeholders. But for whatever reason, the execution failed to come together.

That’s okay. It’s a cold start problem. Somewhere somebody can’t get over the hump. Maybe it’s money, time, skill, technology, permission, initiative, or some other resource.

The good news is, now you can bring generosity to that gap. Simply find the work that you’re so good at, you make look easy. Find the mundane tasks that that would give most people a panic attack, but that you actually enjoy doing. Find things that your coworkers would never do for themselves, but will be thrilled that someone did for them.

Executing against those filters optimizes for energy, speed and quality. It’s amazing how one man’s burden can be another man’s blessing.

I remember one project that involved our data science team and our business development manager. The latter needed access to a repository of statistics to use for presentations to potential partners. The former had all that data available, but not in a form that was presentable.

And that gave me the idea to build a master deck with all of the stats in one place. Updating it each time we ran new queries and discovered interesting trends. My bizdev manager told me it saved him literally hours of preparation time each month. The whole thing took me about forty minutes to put together.

Boom. Generosity is velocity.

Here’s one more question to ask as the collaborative process comes closer to an end.

Is this what you had in mind?

Since you’re running with another person’s idea, you will want to strike a balance between interpretation and innovation. Make sure to check in periodically with updates, status reports and even prototypes to see if your physical equivalent tracks with their original vision.

It may not perfectly represent their initial back of the napkin brain fart, but ideally they should see it and think one of two things.

Cool, this is exactly what I was thinking; or

Awesome, this is even better than I had imagined.

Now, sometimes you run with something and somewhere it goes off the rails. It does happens. I remember hearing a few human resources folks chatting about this internal core values model they needed for new hire onboarding.

But instead of finding out what kind of help would be most useful, I spent two days building this amazing thing in silence. And then dumped it into their laps.

Here ya go, I’ve fixed your issue. You’re welcome.

Turns out, they were jolted by my oppressive helpfulness. And in my overwhelming attempt to solve their problem without asking, it looked nothing like they were hoping. Woops.

That’s why checking in periodically with your collaborator is such an important ritual. Otherwise you might end up running too far down the road of your own imagination. The other person will look at you like you’ve kidnapped their child, shaved its head and tattooed its entire body.

What the hell is this thing? What have you done with my baby?

In summary, here are my three best questions for running with another person’s idea.

Where did your initial inspiration for this idea come from?

What’s prevented your idea from getting done so far?

Is this what you had in mind?

Using that combination of curiosity and generosity will earn you velocity.

And hopefully won’t get you fired.

Do you have minimum viable inspiration?