by John Brooker | Jan 13, 2012 | Innovate
YES! AND… Facilitate. Innovate. Transform – Gorilla # 13 If you treat staff as consumers rather than as human resources, might you effect change better…? “We cannot change anything unless we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses. “ Carl Jung Psychologist When you are faced with a change programme at work, would you rather be treated as a consumer or a human resource? I read somewhere that 80% of change programmes don’t achieve objectives, (if you know the source please let me know). Why might this happen? Could it be because so many change programmes treat those involved as resources to be controlled by using e.g. “bogus consultations”, “traffic light” project tracking, name and shame progress reports and “copy all” e-mails to managers who are slipping deadlines. It is little surprise that people revert to previous behaviours once the controls are released. Some years ago I took responsibility for a company change programme, to implement and document all processes. There were a few challenges because the company was not process oriented outside of computer operations, people were change fatigued after three company change programmes and the day job was keeping them busy! Had I accepted a poison chalice or a G & T on the patio? It depends how you frame the problem and reframing a problem in a different way is a powerful creative technique. “What if,” I mused, “we treat the staff as consumers rather than human resources? Would that make them more responsive?” So we did, and they were. We ran the change programme as a consumer campaign. We held optional consultation sessions (over a third...
by John Brooker | Jan 12, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
YES! AND… Facilitate, Innovate, Transform – Creative Gorilla # 12 If you seek a way to challenge conventional thinking, try this technique… “Not even the fastest, most modern jet can come close to matching Santa’s speed.” Petty Officer Bev Allen, NORAD If you are looking for a way to challenge conventional thinking, might Santa give you food for thought? On Christmas Eve my children had great fun (me too!) tracking Santa’s progress towards London on the web site www.noradsanta.org (NORAD is a US / Canadian military radar defence organisation. If you have young kids, do check out their Santa site next year). As we watched videos of Santa crossing many different cities in the world the children marvelled at the speed at which he progressed and the idea for this article sprang to mind. Thanks for the unexpected present Santa (and the people at NORAD). A technique you can use to challenge convention is to ask the “What If” question. What if we had to deliver these goods to millions of customers in the world in one night? (Wonder where that idea came from?). What if we could reduce the lead-time for this process from sixty days to one? What if we had a policy of NO redundancies? If you examine these questions, you should see that they are challenging accepted norms, the “rules” and the assumptions (which may be implicit) about a situation. “It takes sixty days to process this form”. “If business slows down, we make people redundant”. You can use the question as a stand-alone technique to aid your creative thinking but I find a...
by John Brooker | Jan 11, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
YES! AND… Facilitate, Innovate, Transform – Creative Gorilla # 11 Here are five principles to help you design meetings with more impact… “The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity” Ascribed to Dorothy Parker, Novelist Do you want your meetings to have more impact? Hi! It’s a beautiful sunny day here in London, glorious spring weather. I am just back from a two hour bike ride and I feel great. I did some exploring, ventured down some new “secret” paths that I had not noticed before, saw stunning scenery and even met a number of people who replied to my, “Good morning”. I was whipped by stinging nettles, shaken to bits on bridleways (horse tracks) and stuck in mud in a hoof hole, but I came back energised, uplifted and so raring to go, I am writing this in my cycle shorts. You know that feeling? Like when you come out of meetings? Energised, uplifted, motivated! Or maybe not. More likely you come out bored, listless and seeking caffeine to change your state. It doesn’t have to be that way. Meetings are something I have thought about a lot this week as I redesigned my “Training with More Impact” course and designed a couple of workshops for clients. The course is based on five principles, which I have adapted over the years from various aspects of accelerated learning and brain friendly (see www.kaizentraining.com) training. Whilst cycling, I reflected that meetings are about learning too, at least they should be. Therefore, it would be useful to share these principles with creative leaders like you, so...
by John Brooker | Jan 10, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
YES! AND… Facilitate, Innovate, Transform Creative Gorilla # 10 You may never be as creative as Beethoven, but would you like inspiration when you need it? “I need some help, some inspiration. (But it’s not coming easily)” Natasha Bedingfield “These Words“ I needed to write this Creative Gorilla article one evening when I had been facilitating all day and Natasha Bedingfield had written the above words for me. Luckily in these situations I have a short cut to tap in to some inspiration. I play my favourite piece of classical music, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, played by the Boston Philarmonic, conducted by Benjamin Zander. There is a moment in the Fourth Movement (“Double Fugue. Allegro energico chorus “) in which Beethoven (forgive me if I describe this poorly, I am not a music scholar) counterpoints three strands of music in a climax that raises the hairs on my neck. My spirits soar. At the moment he wrote this piece one might truly believe Beethoven was kissed by a higher being. Ludwig’s genius worked its magic again as I listened to the music and my mind began to work. Those of you conversant with Neuro Linguistic Programming will know that this is a change of “state” from unproductive to productive, by altering my focus (listening to a favourite piece rather than thinking of less inspiring things). In addition, I can reinforce the new state by altering my physiology. Often this involves just tilting my head back to listen, but sometimes I stand up (and if no one is looking, I might try a bit of conducting too!) You will have your...
by John Brooker | Jan 9, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
YES! AND… Facilitate, Innovate, Transform – Creative Gorilla# 9 How can you be lucky and creative? “If an unlucky man sold umbrellas, it would stop raining. If he sold candles, the sun would never set; and if he made coffins, people would stop dying.” Yiddish saying quoted in “The Luck Factor by Professor Richard Wiseman This week I am running a course in Togo. It’s a hot, humid place; livid with mosquitoes eating Brooker Thermidor and my hotel is listed by the Foreign Office as being in a dangerous area. So am I unlucky to be here? Well, I swim in an Olympic sized pool every morning, the food is good, my co – instructor left me a good bottle of wine and the trainees are warm and welcoming. I figure I’m pretty lucky to be here and with that attitude, Professor Wiseman in his book (click the link in the quotation above) says that I am likely to be a lucky person. Great, but what has that to do with creativity? The book outlines how you can make yourself lucky in a few simple steps. As I read the book I can’t help notice the similarities between the characteristics of creative people and the lucky people described in the book. Take his Principle One (and sub principles): “Maximise your chance opportunities…lucky people create notice and act upon the chance opportunities in their life. They network well, have a relaxed attitude and are open to new experiences”. Substitute “creative” for “lucky” and you could read that in any book on creativity. Likewise Principle Two: “Listen to your lucky hunches… lucky...
