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 | Sep 21, 2015 | Collaborate, Develop Opportunities, Facilitate meetings, Innovate
How might you facilitate Operations to innovate? When I inquired further on this, he explained that he could not understand why the Operations people in his area seemed to have an attitude of blocking innovation or at best, ignoring it. It was clearly very frustrating for him, as I know it is for other innovation teams. The innovation team leader had invited to the workshop one of the Operations leaders who was very supportive of innovation. Over a cup of tea, he explained to me that many people did not appreciate that the Operations managers were totally focussed on achieving their Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). He had spent a year turning round an underperforming team and while he was supportive of innovation and had encouraged it on his unit, unless the innovation initiative helped him improve his operation and did not divert resources, why would he support it? So here are three actions you might take: Focus on their pain Entrepreneurs look for where people have pain and develop (create) and implement (innovate) solutions to eradicate that pain (at a price). So look for where the Operations manager is having pain and focus on the challenge that provides the opportunity to create innovative solutions. This makes innovation real, not abstract, not “the fad of the month”. Once there is some payback on initial innovation, people become more willing to take risks. Make sure everybody knows about the innovation too. Success breeds. Make it simple. Make it real. I worked in the payment industry and one thing I learned is that if you make the product simple enough for the user, they will use it (and vice versa). My son...
by John Brooker | Sep 7, 2015 | Collaborate, Facilitate meetings, Free Articles, Overcome Challenges, Tools
“Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it” Alan Perlis – Computer Scientist How might you have a team explore complex situations? I was facilitating a workshop in August in which people had to explore a situation. I decided I would use Rich Pictures. Rich Pictures are used in the method known as “Soft Systems Methodology”. This is a method used to structure thinking about complex organisational systems. I first came across the Rich Pictures technique in the Open University course on Creativity, Innovation and Change and have used it for many years with groups. The example shows a Rich Picture. It represents just one perspective of the situation and would need to be brought together with other pictures to discuss and create an overall picture. This is a technique that people sometimes misunderstand, so I put together an explanation and some guidelines for the attendees. I thought you might find this useful, though you might want to adapt the guidelines to suit your style. People use Rich Pictures to portray complicated situations in a snapshot. A Rich Picture can help you summarise the situation using cartoons, sketches, line drawings, stick people, symbols and key words. I have also used photographs that people cut from magazines. In it you represent as much of the situation as possible e.g. its structure, how things connect and relate, what is important, what influences different aspects etc. This is all fairly objective, so it is also useful to include some more subjective aspects as well. Principles To help interpret a situation, choose symbols, scenes or images that represent...
