by John Brooker | Mar 28, 2016 | Collaborate, Develop Opportunities, Facilitate meetings, Innovate, Overcome Challenges, Tools
“Before thinking outside the box, perhaps you might make the box bigger.” John Brooker Understanding and widening the boundaries of a situation can help you to create more options and potentially, better solutions… When I am facilitating workshops, I ask people what they want me to do to make the workshop outstanding. Someone will usually say, “Help us think outside the box”, i.e. facilitate the team to be more creative. While “thinking outside the box” is a valid request, I like to respond, “Before you think outside the box, how might you make the make the box bigger?” This question usually produces puzzled looks and no wonder, as “think outside the box” derives from the old nine dot puzzle of how to connect all nine dots with a single unbroken line. No matter how big you make that box, you are still going to have to go outside the box to obtain a result. To avoid confusion, let me explain that in my response, I mix box metaphors. My metaphorical box has six sides. It is a constricted thinking space people create in their mind because they: Apply “rules” that may not apply for this new situation, e.g., “HQ pay for training.” Make assumptions that may prove unfounded, e.g., “There is no budget for this.” Bring their biases and prejudices to the situation, e.g., “That level of staff could not be trusted to do that.” Allow their egos to impact upon the situation, e.g., “Only we can do that.” Take a narrow perspective on the situation, e.g., “Our cost centre can’t afford this.” Unnecessarily shorten their thinking time etc. e.g.,...
by John Brooker | Mar 28, 2016 | Collaborate, Develop Opportunities, Facilitate meetings, Innovate, Overcome Challenges, Tools
Over the weekend I read an article in the newspaper, about how the police in Spain intercepted a stash of cocaine worth around £240 million, concealed in a consignment of charcoal. My immediate thought was that the criminals had hidden it amongst the charcoal, but I was wrong. They had mixed the cocaine with glue and formed it into a resin. From the resin, they had made slats that looked like wood and made freight pallets from the slats. The charcoal sat in bags on the pallets. To process the pallets back into cocaine, they had set up a chemical company in Spain. Other drug smugglers have hidden the drug in hollowed out pineapples, woven 45 kilos of heroin into a rug and filled vanilla wafers with cocaine instead of cream. These examples of innovation in packaging and product demonstrate that the drug trafficking business has a positive side; it is innovative and I wondered what innovative leaders could learn from this case? Here are two examples: 1. Factors that Drive Innovators A first lesson from the drug traffickers is an idea of some of the factors that drive people to innovate. They: · Fear financial loss (if goods are intercepted) · Want to avoid regulatory restrictions (it’s against the law) · Do it for the fun of it · Like the intellectual challenge · Want to avoid “me too” competition (from other drug smugglers using the same ploys) · Have had their options reduced (because law enforcers know many options for smuggling). From this lesson, two questions for you as an innovative leader are: · What...
by John Brooker | Mar 28, 2016 | Collaborate, Develop Opportunities, Facilitate meetings, Tools
“Is there a more constructive way to do SWOT analysis?” John Brooker The Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis has existed as a planning tool for decades. I see it used most often as a 2 x 2 matrix, where the Strengths and Weaknesses are focused on the internal situation in an organisation and the Opportunities and Threats focused on the external, (but that is not an absolute requirement) Issues With the SWOT With that much history behind it and based on the amount of usage it gets, it can be said, fairly, to be a successful tool. However, because a tool is successful, does that mean that you as a creative leader cannot reconsider how you might use it? No. So, on what basis might you reconsider using SWOT in your next meeting? Here are a couple of thoughts: To overcome the extensive use of SWOT People, especially those in senior teams, can be bored with using it. This can lead people to have complete disinterest in using the tool or using it in a mechanical way – they “go through the motions”. This can lead to poor analysis or inaction as a result of the analysis. To avoid the language of the tool Invented in 1964, no doubt the tool carried some baggage from the ex-military leadership model still in management at that time. The term “weakness” is not something that those of us in the Solution Focus world use. We prefer to focus on what works, and if something doesn’t work, talk more about what we want to happen rather than delve further into...
by John Brooker | Feb 6, 2016 | Collaborate, Develop Opportunities, Facilitate meetings, Innovate, Overcome Challenges, Tools
“…there were actually three different Walts: the dreamer, the realist, and the spoiler. You never knew which one was coming into your meeting.” Associate of Walt Disney Must you adhere strictly to creative techniques? Imagine this. It is 1.30 a.m. Your son has woken you by kicking something off his bed, you are wide awake with a mind full of ideas and you’re cursing that ba…rista in the coffee bar because you’re convinced she didn’t give you decaff cappuccino. Worse, you know you’re to blame because it tasted burnt and you still drank it because it was so d****d expensive. What are you going to do? It is now 2.19 a.m. and I have crept to my office downstairs to write this article. Hopefully my wife won’t think I’m a burglar and apply Government guidelines on tackling burglars (you can hit them with a weapon in self defence). Whilst lying awake, I had been running an idea through my head and using the Disney technique to evaluate it. The Disney technique helps clarify your thinking by having you take the perspective of three characters – the “Dreamer” (“we could do THIS and it would be terrific”), the “Critic” or “Spoiler” (“THIS will never work because of….”) and the “Realist” (“Maybe we could replace THIS with THAT and develop a plan”). Robert Dilts described in an article that Walt Disney adopted the different perspectives throughout his career to aid his creativity, albeit he never appeared to have regarded it as a technique. As I lay in bed using the technique I noticed that another “character” was lurking very close and I decided to...
by John Brooker | Oct 23, 2015 | Collaborate, Develop Opportunities, Free Articles, Innovate
“Know what the opportunity really is, before generating ideas” Opportunity. Solution. Two words that have a chasm of difference in meaning when you want to innovate. In a workshop in Bahrain, I asked teams to identify an opportunity to work on. One of the teams wrote as their opportunity, “Train staff better in our sales outlets.” I questioned what problem the customers have, as you have an opportunity when someone has a difficulty of some kind, a problem. “They have to queue too long in store to pay bills or buy our products,” was the response. So, a question for you: is “train staff better in our sales outlets” an opportunity or a solution? Training staff is one solution to excessive queuing in store. But what is the problem the client has? Is it not being able to pay a bill quickly in store? Or do they find stores an inconvenient way to pay? Or is it that they want to buy an expensive product but have to queue behind people paying bills? Or… the list could be long and the customer could have many problems. [Please refer to Yes! And blog 147 for a tool to map problems]. Equally, there could be many valid solutions from “stagger the billing date” to “introduce new channels for bill payment”, to…we don’t really know until we have explored and clarified the opportunity. One way to state this team’s initial opportunity is to say simply, “We have a lot of people queuing in stores, especially at certain times in the week and month. This causes customer complaints, lost sales…etc.” Why is...
by John Brooker | Sep 25, 2015 | Collaborate, Develop Opportunities, Overcome Challenges
“Inspiring quotations are often seen but not heard.” John Brooker How might you use inspiring quotations? I use inspiring quotations in my articles, I post inspiring quotations on workshop walls and on Pinterest. I’ve even developed some of my own. Advertisers use them, e.g. “Good things come to those who wait”, which certainly inspired a lot of people to drink Guinness. However, I notice that many people treat them like “wallpaper”; and if they see them I sometimes wonder if they “hear” them and understand what they mean. Or perhaps overuse has left them uninspired How might you encourage people to “hear” inspirational quotations so that they are inspired, and how can you use them in a practical way to get the best impact from them? Here are four ideas: In workshops, if the energy slips, you might have people review the inspirational quotations on the wall (or floor). Each person chooses their favourite one, then I form pairs or threes and have them chat about why their chosen quotation is their favourite. This is a good way for people to reveal something about themselves without asking a direct question. For example, my favourite quotation: “There is no truth, only points of view.” (You will see it written in different ways and accredited to Roman generals, French authors and English poets) It reveals that; a) I am willing to listen to many viewpoints before making up my mind and b) I think it essential that if we are to be innovative and make meaningful change, people must listen to the ideas of other people. What might your favourite quotation...
