The Story of Purpose: The Path to Creating a Brighter Brand, a Greater Company, and a Lasting Legacy

10

Incubation

I think for a living.

—Joey Reiman, on Incubation

Fast thinking is an oxymoron. In fact, we consider fast a four-letter word at BrightHouse. We know that the work of purpose demands thoughtfulness, especially during the incubation phase of the Four I’s Ideation Process.

Ben Franklin credits good relations between France and America during revolutionary times to the fact that slow ships were carrying sensitive and important messages back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean.1 This gave each side time to think—and led to the expression floating the idea.

Today, we shoot the idea over via chat, text, tweets, blogs, Skype, pins, and tags. We have traveled from frigate speed to warp speed to warped speed. And we are paying for it. Fasting through the day has us starving for thought-filled thinking. But crafting a purpose takes thought. And thought takes time.

Business at the Speed of Molasses

When thinking is not possible, it becomes impossible to come up with thoughtful solutions. This is why we established incubation sessions; these meetings create a time of necessary contemplation that companies need to imagine the role they can play in the world. Businesses usually don’t work this way, which is precisely the reason that their plans don’t always work out.

Here’s an example that speaks to this concept: thousands of people are members of something called the Slow Food movement. The movement’s underlying concept is recognizing that we can enhance the pleasure we take in ...