“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.” – Randy Pausch

People used to think an airline couldn’t be a cheap AND pleasant experience, until Southwest broke that barrier. Ken Olson said, “There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.” Vacuum cleaners were meant to be fashionable, until James Dyson created one.

The barriers are there for entrepreneurs to innovate. They’re there to keep out the other companies who refuse to try.

What are the barriers in your industry? Could they be the very source of your future success? Try this exercise to help you develop ideas on how to innovate your company.

1. Identify 4 “absolutes” in your industry of things that can’t be done.

2. Break up into 4 teams, ideally at least three people on each team.

3. Have each team “attack” one barrier. They should brainstorm ways of how your company could overcome them. You can choose to capture the ideas in any way you like. However, post-it notes or whiteboards tend to be the best ways because they’re easy to use and flexible.

4. Use this list of potential areas you could use to help in brainstorming specific ideas:

New or improved feature(s)
Customer service
A new product
New equipment
Change in process
Different target market
Branding

5. Give each team 1-2 hours based on your scheduling for this exercise.

6. After everyone is done, bring the entire group together and review the ideas for each barrier. Work on identifying which ideas could make the most impact.

7. Choose the top 5-10 ideas and work on figuring out how to actually implement them.