What Iron Chef Teaches About Discipline in Business Creativity

The Iron Chef franchise of cooking television shows, which started in Japan in 1993, saw its most recent U.S. reboot in 2022 with a series on Netflix called “Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend.” Like other entries in the franchise, the new series showcases chefs with extraordinary culinary creativity, able to transform seemingly disparate ingredients into gourmet dishes.

However, the key to the structure of these shows is that the chefs who participate must operate within strict time limits and use a designated “secret ingredient.” Which in turn forces them to channel their creativity within specific constraints.

Constraints that might be in turn be thought of as extreme versions of the limitations that chefs might face in real-world operating kitchens. Where time, budgets and equipment are also finite.

It isn’t just great chefs, however, who must do this type of problem-solving.

Indeed, many people make an intuitive connection between creative ideas in business and unconstrained, blue-sky thinking. And yet, many executives aren’t clear enough about what they would consider a good idea and what’s a non-starter in light of an organization’s strategic priorities.

That’s according to Joseph V. Sinfield, Tim Gustafson and Brian Hindo, who published an article in MIT Sloan Management Review called “The Discipline of Creativity” in 2014.

At the time of the article’s publication, Sinfield was an associate professor of civil engineering at Purdue University. And a senior partner at Innosight, a global strategy and innovation consulting firm based in Lexington, Massachusetts. Gustafson was a principal at Innosight, and Brian Hindo was a manager at the firm.

Although thinking divergently is critical to idea generation, it’s important to delineate boundaries around both the business problem (exactly you’re proposing to solve) and the solution (what types of answers you seek and find acceptable) Sinfield, Gustafson and Hindo say, based on a decade of research and client work.

Once the problem and solution space are defined, a subsequent preparation step before brainstorming can be breaking down the problem into component parts to reduce complexity.

Teams can then take other preparation steps such as examining stakeholder needs to achieve greater empathy with solution end-users. And gaining additional perspective on the problem by consulting creative minds from both inside and outside the field.

When it comes time to start actually generating ideas, before leaping into a traditional group brainstorm, it’s instead helpful to ask participants to write down as many ideas as they can individually for five to 10 minutes, the researchers say.

One benefit of this approach is that it gives introverts — who may be shy about sharing their suggestions in a larger group setting — a chance to maximize their contribution. And a second is that having many ideas already on paper prevents the group from rallying around any specific solution too soon.

Once individuals have made their own idea lists, teams can then review the ideas and sort them into categories (for example, big picture, finer details). To ensure that the output is fully developed, teams can then detail ideas in one-page “idea resumes” that are customized to the problem at hand.

These resumes should describe the main solution features. Including how customers will learn about it or access it; what resources or processes are needed to make it a reality; and how the solution will achieve economic sustainability.

Examining business ideas in such a structured and consistent manner facilitates “apples-to-apples” comparisons, the researchers say. And ensures that ideas are evaluated on their merits rather than on how well they are pitched.

As a final step, teams can then make lists of the most important ideas to validate and design tests for each of them.

This can include spelling out exactly how much money and time each test would require, what the team hopes to learn from them and how they would reshape the platform based on the results. Sinfield, Gustafson and Hindo call this collection of assumptions and tests a “plan to learn.”

By following such an approach, teams can weave a deep understanding of the marketplace, business model generation and emergent strategy into their creative processes, according to the researchers. And thus increase chances that the thinking they generate can lead to real business impact.

And assumedly, more delicious strategic results.