{No Bad Ideas} in Business

“Good morning, brain trust. I bet you’re wondering why I’ve assembled you today.”

Christa, Bryant, and Khir exchange glances; eager. Giles, the introvert, gazes into his coffee cup.

“We’re staring down the barrel of our fiscal Q4. On the heels of the belt-tightening measures from the leveraged buyout, we need to demonstrate value across our core competencies in at least five dimensions.” Jonathon unscrews the cap on his Pellegrino and takes a short sip. “I want to delight our investors with forward-looking concepts rooted in legacy best practices. I’ve called upon you for a brainstorm.”

“A brainstorm,” Giles echoes; at the same time Khir murmurs, “Thought shower.”

Bryant looks up. “No. What we need is… blue sky thinking.”

“You’re right. For the next—” Jonathon checks his Apple watch “—fifty-four minutes, there are no bad ideas.”

“What if we tried increasing output through remote monitored time-phases?” Khir starts.

“Nice,” Jonathon remarks, typing it into his MacBook.

“Incremental asset processing.”

“Keep going—

“Incremental asset processing AND deconstructed benefits analysis.”

“I agree with Giles 100 percent.”

“I agree with Christa 110 percent.”

Christa nods. “She always gives 110 percent.”

Khir, looking satisfied, sidebars Bryant. “Do you have our first half knowledge-based asset matrix?”

“Good question. I think Ty has the latest version.”

“Ping Ty; see if he can pull up that report and, Giles, do you have the bandwidth to cross-reference it against our machine-learning algorithm?”

Giles makes a face. “Our exploratory research points to homogenized transitional flexibility… but let me see what I can do.”

“Mm-hmm. And what, generally speaking, do you mean by ‘homogenized transitional flexibility’?”

Giles looks over his acetate glasses. “What does anyone mean by anything, Jonathon?”

“You’re right. We’ll circle back to th—”

“I got it. Sorry.” Christa’s hands are frozen into a goalpost shape. “At base level, this just comes down to ambient strategic capability, right?”

Everyone agrees.

“We need to leverage our core competencies to implement systemized organizational mobility.”

“That’s so smart, Christa. What if we also applied our enterprise-scale AI on a parallel path?”

Jonathon closes his eyes, walking through a mental algorithm. “Team,” he raises an index finger to his lips, “we just reimagined modular alignment.”

Elbows bent, Christa leans back in her chair. Giles grips her shoulder with camaraderie; Khir and Bryant bump fists discreetly.

“We need to cascade memos about our collective, cybernetic super-intelligence project. Let’s get the whole department on the same page before the next investor meeting.” Jonathon presses his laptop closed. “Truly revolutionary work today.”