by John Brooker | Apr 2, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
YES! AND… Creative Gorilla # 92 Process is a great tool, but have a way around it to avoid getting stuck… “Nowadays, we have become so obsessed with process, we go to restaurants and eat the menu!” Unknown Are your processes a burden? Many of you will enjoy listening to music and will use or be aware of iTunes, the Apple media download service, which allows you to purchase and listen to music on your PC. Recently, I have been enthused by a new service on iTunes called “Genius”. With this service, you click on a track you like, click the Genius button and it instantly provides a playlist of up to 99 songs to complement your selection. In addition, it lists similar tracks you might like to listen to and buy. I now use the Genius process regularly and this led me to think about my old “process” of music selection. Essentially, a song would pop in to my head and I would pull out a CD and play the album. The problem was that out of my large collection of CDs I probably only played ten, as I tended to play my favoured albums. Playing single tracks from others was a chore. When I bought an iPod, I transferred lots of albums on to it and I made up a few playlists. But again I found myself listening to the same ones. In other words, the process limited my exposure to new stimulation and so my music listening became somewhat stale. This thinking led me on to a recent conversation with a friend. He had mentioned that...
by John Brooker | Apr 1, 2012 | Facilitate meetings
YES! AND… Creative Gorilla # 91 It’s probably not too late to do the right thing … “Sometimes our best intentions do not go amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to,” Sheenagh Pugh, poet in the poem, “Sometimes” Is it ever too late to do the right thing? This year, our family, along with many others, has suffered from a poor decision by a Government appointed official, one that applies regulation retrospectively, despite Government promises to the contrary. Although we have sympathy and support from Members of Parliament, we are told that the only way to overturn this unjust ruling is to seek a judicial review at great expense. I have many feelings about this; annoyance, resignation, frustration. But my strongest feeling is one of sadness. I’m sad because the easiest and right course of action would be for the official to change their decision, but they won’t. One lesson I learned in management is that it is almost never too late to change direction, correct a poor decision, do the right thing. Some will argue that it is a sign of weakness. A creative leader would argue that it is a sign of strength to be able to admit that you are wrong and to make an appropriate change. So Most of us will make the wrong decision or take the wrong course of action at some point in our personal or working life. We may make the decision / take the action for the wrong reason e.g. for personal advantage. Or we may go awry because we misread or misunderstand factors in the situation. And it...
by John Brooker | Mar 30, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
YES! AND… Creative Gorilla # 90 When you need to meet a customer’s need quickly, there’s a lot to be said for a prototype… “I love these emails. I would really love them if you did podcasts” A Creative Gorilla reader, in an e-mail. Are you prototyping yet? The above quotation popped in to my e-mail box at the beginning of the month. Should I do a Podcast? I mulled over it for a week or so. “Nobody would want to listen,” “My voice sounds terrible on recordings,” “I haven’t got a clue how to do a podcast.” Oh yes, I had a fine list of excuses not to do it, but one day, with an hour to spare, I took the plunge, just because someone had asked for it. I researched software programmes for recording podcasts which took just fifteen minutes on the web, thanks to a handy review. I selected Propaganda because it was rated as simple, functional and good value. Downloading it direct from the US took ten minutes, a Visa Card and a willingness to invest USD 49. I have a microphone so plugged it in, looked at the tutorial (highly unusual for a man, that) and set to work recording. I was in need of silence. Cue calls from my wife, questions from my children and a loud presenter on kids TV. I ended up in the bedroom. Peace! I began recording and a neighbour set off loud fireworks. Not the best creative climate, but all creativity has its obstacles. Eventually, I completed recording and played it back. “Er, umm, ahh,” smacking of the...
by John Brooker | Mar 29, 2012 | Facilitate meetings
YES! AND… Creative Gorilla # 89 Your style of communication can influence how you make decisions in the creative problem solving process… “We don’t know the effect of our actions. That is because we are either too embarrassed to (want to) know what actually was implemented or are too busy to track what was implemented.” Pete Senge, Management Consultant, in “The 5th Discipline” Does your team struggle to make decisions or make them too quickly? I was re-reading a book this week on the science of non-verbal communication, “The Elusive Obvious” by Michael Grinder. (Buy it at www.michaelgrinder.com). In the book, Michael describes two types of communication style; Approachable and Credible. The Approachable style, he says, tends to be more People focussed and the Credible style more Issue focussed. Groups tend to form a culture over time which we can describe as mostly Credible, mostly Approachable or a mix. What was especially interesting for me, as someone who uses creative solution finding (CSF) processes with groups, was Michael’s comments (see Page 57 of the book) on how groups with a bias towards one style or the other work through the basic problem solving process of Gather (information); Evaluate; Decide; Implement. The mostly Credible groups tend to shorten the Gathering stage and are quick to make a decision. Whether they have gathered the appropriate information to make the decision is questionable. The mostly Approachable groups spend a long time gathering information and tend to be reluctant to move from the Gathering stage. They seek consensus and harmony and so can take an age to make a decision in case...
by John Brooker | Mar 28, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
YES! AND… Creative Gorilla # 88 If you set up too many rules and measures, people start to focus more on the rules and measures and less on what is really important … “We started off trying to set up a small anarchist community, but people wouldn’t obey the rules.” Alan Bennett, Playwright in “Getting On” Do more rules and laws really help? Do you know that scientists predicted that high mounted brake lights would reduce rear end car collisions by 50% and that studies reveal it is in reality 4.3%? Are you aware that anti lock braking systems have had a negligible effect on accident reduction because drivers with ABS drive faster and closer to other cars? I found these facts in an extract from Tom Vanderbilt’s book “Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do”. I noticed the article because he mentioned that in Kensington High Street, London, where I (and several Gorilla readers) used to work, fatal, serious and minor traffic injuries dropped by 60% in one year. “Wow,” you might think, “What miraculous road safety improvements did they install?” In fact, they removed the bulk of the previously installed road safety improvements, including 95% of the traffic signs and the guardrails along the pavement (sidewalk). Drivers are less distracted and so pay more attention to other road users whilst pedestrians are more cautious. How can we relate this to business? In 2002 the US Government introduced the Sarbanes Oxley Act, improving financial reporting to protect investors from the actions of a few criminals who had falsely reported company revenues and profits. Speaking with someone who...
