by John Brooker | Jan 29, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
YES! AND… Facilitate. Innovate. Transform – Creative Gorilla #29 Creative thinking is not just about using the right side of the brain. You need to use the whole brain in a fluent way. “I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now” Joni Mitchell ~ Lyrics from “Both Sides Now” Do you think fluently? Driving to Pevensey in Sussex, (close to where the Normans invaded England), I played over in my mind thoughts about a course design. Arriving on a cold but sunny Pevensey beach I found myself pointing at the blue sky, using the fluffy cumulus clouds as virtual “Post It” notes to construct my course. With startling clarity I “saw” the course, murmuring “Creative Solution Finding there, creative styles there, Solution Focus at that end…” Onlookers would have seen a lunatic waving his arms at the sky but my children provided the perfect excuse for lunacy. And my impromptu “cloud mapping” worked well, allowing me to dictate the course outline on to my tape recorder. A silver lining indeed. I am not suggesting “cloud mapping” as a new technique (though wouldn’t you love to have “Post It” clouds to move on the beach) but you could give it a try (in a very isolated spot). On the drive home, my impromptu use of clouds prompted me to think about what constitutes a “creative” technique. Logically it is one that nurtures creative thinking. Books on creativity contain scores of creative techniques, including mapping. Some help analyse or structure our thinking on a situation. Some prioritise ideas. Others help us to plan implementation. Is that creative thinking? You could argue it...
by John Brooker | Jan 28, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
YES! AND… Facilitate. Innovate. Transform – Creative Gorilla # 28 The search for a solution should be as much fun as finding it… “The Palaeolithic hunters who painted the unsurpassed animal murals on the ceiling of the cave at Altamira had only rudimentary tools. Art is older than production for use, and play older than work. Man was shaped less by what he had to do than by what he did in playful moments. It is the child in man that is the source of his uniqueness and creativeness, and the playground is the optimal milieu for the unfolding of his capacities.” Eric Hoffer Do you allow yourself and your team the opportunity to enjoy tackling challenges as much as finding the solution? On our recent holiday in a game reserve we went in search of a leopard. We drove for miles in an open top Land Rover, knowing there was a leopard around but not knowing quite where. We didn’t find it, but we had a great time looking! It struck me as we drove around that we spend a lot of time tackling challenges in our work. Finding the solution is rewarding, but we spend a lot more time searching than finding, so wouldn’t it be great if we could enjoy the “hunt” too? This relates to “Value Play”, one of the twelve precepts (or principles) for fostering creativity in an organisation that John Martin writes about in the Open University course on Creativity, Innovation and Change (click for further details of the course). “Value play” means (in my words) to allow yourself and others to be childlike (not...
by John Brooker | Jan 27, 2012 | Facilitate meetings
YES! AND… Facilitate. Innovate. Transform – Creative Gorilla # 27 Metaphors are a great tool for transformation and innovation. Are you using metaphors to their full power? “The metaphor is probably the most fertile power possessed by man.” Jose Ortega y Gasset (1883 – 1955) Spanish philosopher “Tim, you’ve changed. You’re caring. Giving. You’re… loving. And you’ve got a termite coming out of your ear.” TV Programme Home Improvement; script We were driving round the Shamwari Game Reserve in South Africa, when our ranger stopped at a termite hill. “This one is dead” she remarked. “The aardvark (anteater) has burrowed in to feed on the termites and has rooted out the queen along with the others. Without the queen, the colony dies within weeks.” As we drove on I considered that if the aardvark had been brighter, he could have had an endless supply of food, as the queen produces twenty thousand eggs a DAY. I wondered too if we couldn’t use this as a metaphor for some organisational interventions. In a bid to capture the most “termites”, e.g. obtain greater productivity, from the “termite hill” i.e. the organisation, the “aardvark” i.e. management, destroys the “queen” that sustained it, e.g. its creative staff? Having pondered that, I got on with my holiday! So Metaphors are a powerful way to view a situation. Zoltan Kovecses explains in his book (“Metaphors. A Practical Introduction”) that the metaphor has a target (e.g. the organisation) and a source (e.g. the termite hill). You compare the characteristics of the source (e.g. aardvark eats queen) with the characteristics of the target to visualise the target, (I’ll let you imagine your...
by John Brooker | Jan 26, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
YES! AND… Facilitate, Innovate, Transform By meditating you can make yourself more creative and innovative. “I am very busy today; I must meditate for two hours instead of one.” Mahatma Gandhi Do you ever get days when you are frayed at the edges? Imagine the dodgem cars at a fairground. Cars are flying around in different directions; some hit each other head on, some sideways, some from the rear. They all bounce as they collide, narrowly missed by the crafty “bravehearts” cruising round the outside. I’m not sure the above descriptions make much sense in some countries but imagine the cars are the neurons in your brain on a hectic day. There is so much information assaulting your senses you can barely think, let alone be creative. Have you ever considered meditation? Lying in yet another hotel bed at four a.m. local time, my brain is a kaleidoscope of information, images running through my mind…if this were a TV script I’d probably say something like “cue dream sequence”… I see the embarrassment of going for a quick rest break and leaving my lapel microphone on for the delegates to hear…walking in to the ladies changing room in the swimming pool because I didn’t understand the Russian sign (making apologetic sign language as I backed out!)…the dull thud in my head of the two beers I had before bed… At times like this I find it helpful to meditate. I sat up, meditated for thirty minutes and slowly the dodgem cars began to form an orderly queue around the rink with “careful driver” awards for all. So It is...
by John Brooker | Jan 25, 2012 | Develop Opportunities, Facilitate meetings, Overcome Challenges, Solution Focus
YES! AND… Facilitate. Innovate. Transform – Creative Gorilla # 25 If you have people focus on strengths you can help them to achieve more. “What have you done today, to make you feel proud?” M People, Lyrics Has anyone ever said they were proud to be on your team? After an evening’s speaking engagement, I rose at 4.30 a.m to drive from my hotel back to home, for my 7 year old son’s class assembly. It was worth the early rise. Each child stood in front of the school and parents to say what it was that had made them proud during their year at school. Their teacher had made a great PowerPoint presentation, with a slide recording each child’s contribution, to aid their memory and help the audience when a small voice occasionally faded. In addition, the children sang “Proud” and performed a choreographed song and dance to “Reach for the Stars”. It was a pleasure to listen and watch. Two inspiring moments were: The child who haltingly and confidently read from the screen how proud they were to have improved their reading skills The child who loudly and clearly related how proud they were to have improved their speech A few of the adults were wiping their eyes by the end. I reflected on the event afterwards, delighted to know the school are developing in the children a sense of pride in their achievement. It was also a useful reminder of how important it is to focus on the positive things that are happening, not just the negatives. In “The Solutions Focus” (a great read by Paul Z Jackson and...
