“This is how humans are: we question all our beliefs, except for the ones we really believe, and those we never think to question.” Orson Scott Card ~ American Author Do you feel uncomfortable when people challenge your thinking or beliefs? Do you ever put yourself in the position where others can challenge your beliefs? Or do you seek to avoid such situations? If you do you may be missing an opportunity to stimulate your creativity and innovation. If you have the chance to attend a workshop on Solutions Focus (SF), do attend. Solutions Focus is an approach to change and tackling people issues. It differs from more conventional approaches such as Creative Problem Solving (CPS) because it focuses on finding a solution for messy situations (i.e. there is no right answer) rather than exploring the problem. Its central hypothesis (in my words) is that focussing on the solution builds positive energy to create change whilst focussing on the problem can develop a negative energy (resistance) for change. In that hypothesis, it has links to other positive approaches such as Appreciative Inquiry (AI). Having attended a course on AI and read a book on SF [The Solutions Focus by Paul Z. Jackson and Mark McKergow], I had been seduced by the positive approach; it appealed to my nature. But seduction can be dangerous (de Laclos didn’t call his book “Les Liaisons Dangereux” for nothing) and I had doubts that SF could replace CPS entirely. After all I have spent ten years schooling myself in various aspects of CPS and I find it works. As a recent participant in... read more
“I’m not at all creative, so I want to see how others do it.” Open University Student You can create and innovate. With knowledge of different methods and techniques and a creative climate, you can become more successful at both… The quotation above was the response from an MBA student (an experienced manager) when I asked for his learning objectives at an Open University, Creativity & Innovation course. Now I believe even gorillas can be creative, though I can’t prove it because I’ve never found one that spoke English. (This thought makes me wonder what it would be like to facilitate a group of gorillas. Would they listen more effectively than some humans?). So I asked the student what led him to believe he was not? ‘Because I am 64 on the Kirton scale and that means I am not creative’. ‘Whoa, that’s some limiting belief you’ve got their’ is a thought that crossed my mind but I empathised and explained that the ‘Kirton Adaptation Innovation’ inventory reflects whether you have a more adaptive or innovative style of problem solving, not whether you are more or less creative. [See here for information] What would you say to that student? Now, I say something like: ‘You can all create and innovate. With knowledge of the different methods and techniques and a climate conducive to clear thinking, you can become more skilled at both’. Many people say they are not creative. Some feel it is ‘arty farty’, tree hugging, warm and fuzzy stuff and they aren’t like that. Others see creativity and innovation as the generation of ideas. But this is... read more
“Miracles, you do not have to look for them. They are there, 24/7, beaming like radio waves around you. Put up the antenna, turn up the volume – snap… crackle… this just in… every person you talk to is a chance to change the world…” Hugh Elliott, American blogger How can you sense more opportunities; more novel opportunities? Recently, I went to the Design Museum in London with my son. For him, it was a way to fulfil his Design and Technology homework requirements. For me, it was a chance to tweak my creative antennae. The “Design of the Year” exhibition is running and from a sizeable list I made a tough choice for my top three: a. the “Lego Toy” bottle top; b. a roll up bicycle mudguard and c. a medical syringe that turns red when it has been used. Along with an excellent exhibition on the work of designer Daniel Weil, this is a great opportunity to stimulate your people to sense opportunities. SO Many of you do not live in London or nearby, so here are six ways to enhance how you sense opportunities: Free time to sense opportunities People become so focussed on the day job, they fill their waking minutes with it. When this happens, weak signals of opportunity become lost in a storm of “noise” and your competitors are likely to hear louder signals too. You have to free up time to give your mind quiet and space. It is worthwhile to record potential opportunities so that a list is always at hand. Use the notes app on your phone. Create a regular... read more
What are the dimensions of challenges and how might you begin to build resilience? “There are no rules and regulations so rigorous, no organisation so hierarchical, no bosses so abusive that they can prevent use of your energy, ability and ingenuity. They may make it more difficult but they can’t prevent it. The real power is yours, not theirs.” Dee Hock – founder of Visa Do you or your teams need to be more “resilient”? This is a popular term in organisations at present and a recent Open University alumni course on the topic of Motivation, Mindset and Resilience stimulated my thinking on it. A while ago, I wrote a practical article (find it here), which explained a Solution Focus way to facilitate teams through difficult times. It did not though, refer specifically to resilience, which is “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.” However, some people on the course thought that “recover” should be “recover and move forward quickly from”. I wrote this article to encourage you to think about resilience and also to help me reflect on the course. I realise I could read a book on resilience, but I like to think topics through myself before turning to the experts. Your constructive feedback on my thinking would be most welcome. During the course, Barry Russell, from the Environment Agency, gave a talk on motivation and resilience, using the severe flooding in the UK as his context. He explained that Environment Agency staff had been so motivated to help, many had worked too many long and repeated shifts, to the point that there was a need... read more
YES! AND… Collaborate. Innovate. Transform – Creative Gorilla #174 How can participants improve the meetings they are in? This is the first time I have run someone else’s blog in the Creative Gorilla. However, I think this blog from American facilitator Steve Davis is very useful. Group Process Skill As the information age races on, we find ourselves facing constant change, a global economy open for business around the clock, and increasingly complex challenges. With much of this work done virtually, via the telephone or the Internet, we’re becoming more isolated than ever and left yearning for human contact. To keep the machine chugging along, we find ourselves attending more and more meetings to keep up to speed and to stay connected. Research shows that a great percentage of these meetings are run poorly, resulting in huge losses of time and productivity. Why is this? I believe that there are three main reasons meetings continue to leave us wanting:
1) People underestimate the complexity of group thought.
2) Few people are trained in meeting facilitation skills.
3) Boggled by group complexity and lacking requisite skills, people fall into dysfunctional patterns of action or inaction, failing to do anything to change meeting dynamics. Given that in any given group there are, on average, eight times more participants than there are meeting leaders, targeting meeting leaders alone in our efforts to improve meetings may be missing the mark. What if we were to arm meeting participants with the basic knowledge, skills, and attitudes they could use to contribute to keeping their groups on track and moving forward? The 12 Acts below... read more
How can you trigger creative ideas? “Insights obtained from conceptual blends constitute the products of creative thinking, however, conceptual blending theory is not itself a complete theory of creativity, inasmuch as it does not illuminate the issue of where the inputs to a blend originate.” Mark Turner, author in “The Literary Mind” (Page 93) How do you trigger creative ideas? Here’s one way. At the weekend, I struggled without success to find a topic for this article. Monday morning I went for my regular walk. I had a goal to climb Pinner Hill, a strategy to use a different route to the normal and no conscious thought of the Creative Gorilla. I walked across a meadow, saw a gap in the hedge and cut through it. Surprise. I discovered a semi formal public garden I had not seen before in 20 years of living here. I wandered around looking for the exit and realised the only exit was the entry I had come through, away from the houses that surrounded it. It was like a secret garden. I was looking at the garden when my article came to mind. The seed of a topic arose, “disrupt your patterns and you might discover something new.” Inspired, I completed the first draft of the article on the walk, using the recording app on my phone. What did I do to provoke this idea? I did nothing that I planned. So Let’s consider what I did do and elicit some creative principles: I had a goal to climb the hill and deliberately chose a different route, which meant that I broke my pattern. Creative principle?... read more
YES! AND… #172 How might your team make better decisions? “When we hear all voices, we make better decisions.” Headline on Loomio website. Four years ago we had to make a decision to buy a bigger house or extend our own. That was a hard enough decision for two people to make. How much more difficult is it to make a decision when there is a group of people involved? Last week, I completed an Inn8 Workshop programme with twelve senior managers, using the Inn8 Model and Tools, to help them innovate. They developed two excellent new service propositions for their company and to achieve this had to decide on the opportunity to exploit, the solutions to implement and whether to proceed. To have twelve people agree on a decision requires them to understand the situation fully (in our case, the opportunity and the solution). This requires a willingness to listen to all voices, a structure and thinking tools. How can you gain that agreement, efficiently and effectively, so that people don’t leave the meeting thinking, “That’s what we agreed, but this is what I will do.” True, if you have enough power, you can force through decisions unilaterally. Strange though how difficult it can be to implement such decisions! So Here are some ideas and links to descriptive articles of tools that should help you to build sustainable decisions in your organisation, in the context of facilitating people to innovate. Most should help in other contexts too. Create Understanding Good decisions are informed decisions. Therefore, you need to create understanding amongst the decision makers (the group). This entails processing... read more
YES! AND… Collaborate. Innovate. Transform – Creative Gorilla #171 How might you engage teams using metaphor? This week, I ran a workshop for SFCT UK (Solution Focus Consulting and Training). We used the Explore Metaphor tool and this article will help you to use it. The SFCT workshop was to discuss my Team Impetus Model. This is a model designed to engage teams and shape strategy, using the metaphor of a ski jump. The ski jump metaphor was conceived after some iteration. The original concept was a traditional model with steps that went up. While “up” is a very ingrained metaphor, with positive meanings, I think it is easier to walk down than up! So I redesigned the model with descending steps. After discussing the downward step model with an international group of SF users, the idea arose for a metaphor that went down, but not steps; steps are fixed and don’t provide much impetus to move forward. The “ski jump” model was conceived. The concept is that ski jump has the advantage of taking you down to gather speed and lifting you up to “fly”. The jumper has control over momentum and the flight to ensure a good distance and safe landing. How did the SFCT group view the metaphor? “Explore Metaphor” Tool I introduced them to a tool to explore metaphors, developed while writing an article on metaphors. (Click here to go to a page and scroll down to download, “The Power of Metaphors to Transform Teams”) The Explore Metaphor Tool is based on four questions, laid out in four columns in a table. Here is the table used... read more
YES! AND… Collaborate. Innovate. Transform – Creative Gorilla #170 How to Coach People to Be More Creative “The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.” Oscar Wilde Recently, someone asked me how I might coach someone to be more creative when they think they are not creative? The question provoked a lot of thinking on my part and I would like to share my response with you as leaders so that you can deal with such a situation. Everyone can be creative In my career as a business leader and as a tutor with the Open University, I met a few people who told me they were not creative and I observed quite a few who were not being creative. You probably have too. However, that does not mean they are not creative, it means we have different ways of approaching it. Dr. M. J. Kirton, creator of the Kirton Adapter Innovator (KAI) style profile, says: “Those who are adaptive in style are characterised by precision, reliability, efficiency; seen as methodical, prudent, disciplined. Those more innovative in style are seen as thinking tangentially, approaching tasks from unsuspected angles; undisciplined, unpredictable.” From this description, do you agree that adaptive people are more likely to say they are uncreative? In my experience it is true, but as Kirton explains, “One must remember that adaptors and innovators can have equal capacity, insight and creativity.” So, if someone tells you they are not creative, reassure them that we can all be creative, though we have different ways of contributing to creative outcomes. Four issues that inhibit creativity Having reassured them they can be... read more
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