by John Brooker | Mar 11, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
Creative Gorilla #71 Rather than quashing ideas it would be great if organisations could have an intrapreneur fund that encourages employees to develop their ideas into fledgling companies… “It is awfully hard to be b-b-brave,” said Piglet, “when you are only a Very Small Animal.” A. A. Milne in Winnie the Pooh Is your organisation losing great ideas because they don’t fit your business model? I was watching a rerun of the TV programme Dragon’s Den recently. This is a programme in which budding entrepreneurs and inventors get to pitch their idea or invention to a group of successful entrepreneurs who might invest in it. The programme I watched featured a review of how some of the budding business ideas were flourishing. One that caught my attention was a young 19 year old who had invented a new type of portfolio case for artists. One entrepreneur liked the idea so much he effectively bought the company and installed the young man in the office next to his, to develop the idea. This set me thinking about those employee ideas that organisations reject because they don’t fit the strategy or business model or because managers don’t have the vision or the time to address it. I know that when I worked in organisations I met a few very frustrated people who had a great idea but couldn’t get attention for it. Most left. So pondering a little more, the concept struck me of an Intrapreneur Fund. So The concept is this: A senior manager (with entrepreneurial instincts we shall call the Intrapreneur Development Director or IDD) is responsible...
by John Brooker | Mar 9, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
YES! AND… Creative Gorilla #69 By altering the concept, you can generate new ideas… ”There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.” Ansel Adams, photographer Have you some concepts you might challenge? If you have ever travelled by train, you will likely empathise with my thoughts as I sat on a Metropolitan Line tube train in to London, one which appeared to be auditioning for a bit part in the World’s Slowest Railway Journeys and watched as a fast train sped past mine. “I’ve paid only a few pence less than them,” thinks Grumpy Old Man, “they leave from a more distant station and get in earlier…that’s not fair!” That led me to think about how Transport for London charge for Tube travel, which is based on the concepts of distance and the time of day you travel. I pondered over alternatives to these concepts, e.g. cost per “kilometre minute” but it was all a bit fuzzy and the slow motion of the train led me to doze. Cut to a Flexible Thinking course I was running recently, a few weeks after my train journey. The group used “Super Heroes”, where people adopt the viewpoint of a Superhero to generate ideas, as a technique. Andrey, a participant, decided to use “Dash”, the speedy little kid from “The Incredibles” as his Super Hero. His idea was that you could use an electronic chip to measure the speed Dash travelled between two points. That was the “Eureka” moment for me and my fuzzy pricing concept. With 3 million London commuters using Oyster Cards (these use contactless chips,...
by John Brooker | Mar 8, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
Creative Gorilla #68 If you are careful about the rules and policies you set, you can help stimulate innovation… “As innovation is hard to micromanage, the best policy is to attract smart people and get out of their way!” Edward L. Glaeser ~ Glimp Professor of Economics and director of the Rappaport Institute at Harvard University Are you getting out of the way of your smart people? Taking a paddle on the Internet recently (at my line speeds it’s hardly surfing), I found an article in the Boston Globe by Edward Glaeser, a Profeesor of Economics at Harvard University. In the article he outlines how Massachusetts might reinvent itself again and how the state government could help or hinder this. His driving idea is that the government should have policies to attract smart and talented people and then get out of their way so that they can innovate. Unfortunately recent government policy has had the reverse effect. They introduced onerous business regulations that deterred organisations from setting up in the state and heavy taxation for high earners, which drove them away. It reminded me of a workshop that I ran which we designed to encourage individuals to be more innovative. It was a young, enthusiastic and talented group and a significant number cited company rules and bureaucracy as a deterrent to their innovation, this in a company that positively encourages innovation! So If you work in an organisation, it probably invests a great deal to attract, keep and develop talented staff. Unfortunately, it doesn’t cost much to set up the needless rules and policies that then drive them...
by John Brooker | Mar 7, 2012 | Facilitate meetings
Creative Gorilla #67 By reducing a process to its fewest steps, keeping it simple, you can reap a number of benefits… “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” Albert Einstein Are your processes simple? Here’s a good news story. My paper shredder broke down. The motor ran but the paper didn’t shred and I delayed calling the manufacturer for a while because I have had some bad experiences with equipment service organisations and didn’t want hassle. I anticipated the usual array of excuses why they couldn’t do anything: I must have pushed a sheet of aluminium through the shredder; the shredder only shreds papyrus made by Ancient Egyptians; the warranty is only valid in the grouse shooting season etc. So I procrastinated and eventually my wife telephoned. So where is the good news? “No problem”, the manufacturer said. “We’ll send you a new one,” which they did. And the old one? “Throw it away.” So we kept the bin and recycled the rest. “That is so unfair,” I thought, “why was I not the recipient of that great piece of customer service? And why do other companies not do this?” That set me thinking about the benefits to them. These include: They have a raving fan who is writing about them (the manufacturer is Fellowes) which should improve sales They probably have low turnover of customer service staff as they deal with delighted customers not grumpy people Repeat calls will be fewer so they need fewer staff Supervisors and senior managers are not dragged in to a dispute They know exactly how much the problem...
by John Brooker | Mar 6, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
Creative Gorilla#66 A Haiku is a great way to consider and refine a challenge … “Waterfall roaring – though the sparrow sings unheard, still he keeps singing” James Kirkup ~ English poet Do you need to make a concise statement of a situation to help with challenge definition…? My wife gave me a beautiful a book of meditations called The Bridge of Stars, beautiful because the visual design and photographs are as much part of the book as the poetry. Reading the Haikus in the book reminded me that this Japanese poetry form is not just a great method of writing poetry but also a great creative technique when you want to define a challenge in a succinct way. I first learned about the Haiku on a creative writing class. It is a form of poetry in which you use 17 syllables in three lines, five – seven – five. Strictly speaking it was not invented until the 1890’s, adapted from the Hokku, the starting verse of much longer poems. A hundred years later I thought it would be a great way to have people redefine their challenge definition and so I experimented in my Open University residential courses. It worked very well. So I invited the students to consider their challenge situation (e.g. How can I motivate my team?) and reduce it down to 17 syllables. The power lies in the brevity and in the discipline of achieving the syllable structure. Brevity provides clarity and having to find words to match the number of syllables helps to give a subtly different perspective on your situation. As an example, I...
by John Brooker | Mar 4, 2012 | Facilitate meetings
Creative Gorilla #64 The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. “The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen.” Rachel Naomi Remen, Clinical Professor of Family Medicine, UCSF School of Medicine Have you ever done something really stupid? Last week, I was in Southern Ireland, combining work with a family holiday. Driving through the beautiful scenery of the Wicklow Mountains, I felt my lips drying out and reached for the lip salve. Eyes fixed on the road, I flipped off the lid and applied the salve to my upper lip. I thought it felt drier than usual, but applied it to my lower lip too. When my lips stuck together, I looked at the “lip salve” and realised I had applied a glue stick! The family collapsed in giggles whilst Dad tried to maintain his dignity and work out who had left the glue stick next to the lip salve. “Don’t worry,” said my wife, “at least it should prompt a Gorilla article.” Whilst thanking her for the sympathy, I mused on the metaphor of “my lips are sealed” and thought how powerful it can be in business if we let others talk. Just sit back and think for a moment. When was the last time you were in a meeting where everybody managed to talk without being interrupted? Do senior colleagues speak over junior colleagues in your organisation? When you last had a discussion with a colleague, did you find yourself thinking of your response half way through their sentence? Have you interrupted someone...
