Do you and your company have too many great ideas?

Unfortunately, probably not. In an IMD Alumni Club of Sweden event, hosted in Stockholm at Fortum, more than 100 business executives gathered to explore innovation and idea generation.

It’s not about what you already know now, but what you will learn next – that’s one of the underlying principles behind Professor Fischer’s concept of “idea hunting.” Co-author of The Idea Hunter and Director of IMD’s program Driving Strategic Innovation, Professor Fischer believes the ability to find good ideas is a learnable skill. But you have to prepare yourself.

“No one finds it odd to see a track athlete waking up at six in the morning to run laps – it’s necessary to train for the big race,” said Professor Fischer. “But how is today’s workforce, all the knowledge workers in offices, exercising their skills?”

Of his suggestions, Professor Fischer emphasizes the need of surrounding oneself with others and not just the others that you are used to. “More minds are better than fewer and more diversity is better than less,” he said. His point made looking at the discovery expeditions racing to the South Pole, where the successful team was led by an exemplar idea hunter, Roald Amundsen.

And in comes “The Bulldozer.” Pekka Viljakainen, author of No Fear: Business Leadership in the Age of Digital Cowboys, also underlines the importance of opening up to ideas.

“New business value is created through knowledge,” Viljakainen said. “Knowing things and people are more important than making tasks, as the basic component of an organization is dialogue, not a task.”

For Viljakainen, we must challenge our self through what he calls ‘social risk taking’ in order to best work with others and really benefit from shared ideas. For starters, Viljakainen said that in social risk taking, you must bring something to the table or have something valuable to offer. No one is going to share ideas with someone who doesn’t give back. He also warns that you’ll need to embarrass yourself sometimes. “You must be vulnerable and talk about your own mistakes and issues. It just makes people happy and happier people are better to share ideas with.” In his blog, nofear-community, Viljakainen invites business practitioners to share their own examples and stories.

Professor Fischer also insists on the age-old practice of note taking, but takes it a step further. “How many of us take notes in our daily tasks then close the book and set them aside,” he asks. “It must go beyond that. You have to write and rewrite, evaluate the learnings and, if you find something good, even bounce an idea off the person next to you.”

But how well might you know that person next to you, Viljakainen would question. In social risk taking, he believes one must go beyond the normal comfort zones and get personal. “You need to talk about private issues,” he said. “Social risk taking, at its best, is an unconscious way to get close with people.”

In addition to interacting with others, Professor Fischer also questions how well you know yourself and your surroundings. “You have to ask yourself, when – when do you get the best ideas and are you maximizing the benefit of that time?” He suggests we find a time when we are at our best and reserve it for ‘idea hunting,’ even if it means having to make a fictitious appointment on your agenda. Further, “there are ‘cool’ neighborhoods in every organization and place” and if you want to branch into the world of ideas, you must seek out these areas.