by John Brooker | Jul 30, 2015 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate, Tools
An eBook that shows you how to create ideas in ten to sixty minutes I am busy writing eBooks for my web site and thinking of a topic for a blog at the same time. So I thought “why not combine the two?” It will make a nice change for me and hopefully for you too. So this week, I will summarise the eBook and you can then link to it if you wish to. The eBook combines two older blogs in to one book, with illustrations. I like to think it is user friendly and good to download to your phone, pad or computer. Download it here: ebook Creative Ideas in 10 Minutes final. Summmary of eBook Creative Ideas in Ten Minutes In this eBook you will find how blackberry picking is a great analogy for idea generation. From low hanging fruits, to hidden gems, tangles in the brambles to maggots on steroids, it can all be related. Add to this six tools for idea generation. You can use one in ten minutes or all six in sixty. They include DREAMERS; 5W & H; Get Fired; Where in the World; Yes! And…; Random Connection and a bonus tool. If you need to run or are planning to run an idea generation session and don’t have a lot of time, this article will provide you with some thoughts on how to do it. Download it here. To Close I would love to receive your feedback on the eBook. Please let me know if you like it and how I can improve it! John Brooker I Yes! And. Think Innovatively. To receive regular articles, register at...
by John Brooker | Jul 21, 2015 | Collaborate, Facilitate meetings, Overcome Challenges, Solution Focus, Tools
“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.” Confucius Use Reflecting Teams to find better insights and solutions for an issue or opportunity Imagine you have an issue and want to obtain input from others to broaden your perspective and gain ideas. If you do this in a typical meeting it can often result in frustration as some people throw in ideas prematurely, others dominate the conversation and the talk spirals in endless circles. If that is your experience, you might find it useful to use the Reflecting Teams tool I describe in this article. I have experienced Reflecting Teams many times in UK chapter meetings of the Association for the Quality Development of Solution Focused Consulting and Training (see the web site here, http://www.asfct.org/) and have found it to be an excellent tool, both for the person with the issue or opportunity and the team. How it works There are a number of variants on the tool I describe here, however, this is the one I have experienced most. Appoint a moderator Choose someone who will run the process and moderate the team so that everybody can contribute equally. This is an important role. Form the team Assemble the team so that all can see and hear the client clearly. This can be around a table or might be a half circle of chairs facing the client. There is no ideal number but it needs at least three people and, for reasons of time, probably no more than 12....
by John Brooker | Jul 20, 2015 | Collaborate, Develop Opportunities, Facilitate meetings, Innovate, Tools
“Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.” John Steinbeck, Author You can make an idea generation session run more effectively with these tips. This week, I ran a creative thinking workshop for a client. I showed them how to build the climate and introduced tools for creating solutions. They were particularly keen to know how they might best apply the tools in their own workshops. Instead of pre-designing a session on this latter topic, I ran an “ad lib” session. That means the participants identify the concerns they have about running a session and I answer them. This is something I enjoy doing as an experienced facilitator and like most improvisation work, is very rewarding. I thought it would be useful to write an article on this topic for you and so here are some of the concerns and my responses. Please see Yes! And blog 136 for a selection of tools you might use. 1. How to get people to attend: Schedule a few short sessions rather than a long single session. Provide a brief that explains the purpose and outcomes and make it sound interesting. 2. People are silent, no ideas are forthcoming: This usually occurs as a result of inhibition (e.g. different status) or participant style. To overcome this, start with a “Vent”, i.e. have everybody generate ideas individually without speaking and note these down. Once these are exhausted, share and record them one at a time. 3. People are not participating: This usually arises when people work in teams that are too...
by John Brooker | Apr 27, 2015 | Facilitate meetings, Free Articles, Innovate, Solution Focus
Sometimes even successful endeavours can hit a bump, just when success seems certain. Creative leaders can deal with this… “How my achievements mock me!” William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida How might you motivate a team that thinks it has succeeded, only to hit an obstacle? I cycled 100km around Warwickshire (or Shakespeare County as the PR people like to describe it) for charity. It was a bitterly cold day, my gears kept slipping on hills and I lost the route four times, ending up cycling on my own for most of the day. About three hours in to the ride, tired and a bit miserable, I was riding up a hill. I kept going, seeing the top get ever closer until at last I breasted the hill… and found it was what I call a false peak, an optical illusion; there was yet more of the hill to climb. After some choice words I chewed an energy bar, drank water, focused on two metres of road to make the hill seem flatter and inched my way up to the top. I was reminded of this scenario, when facilitating a group to revise their strategy. I had worked with most of them two years before, to set their strategy and whilst they had not achieved everything, they had done well with minimal resources. In particular, they had recently received confirmation of substantial funding to recruit more people, which greatly boosted morale … until they realised that they would not actually receive the funding and the new people for some months. At that point, their energy started to falter. They...
by John Brooker | Apr 10, 2015 | Collaborate, Develop Opportunities, Facilitate meetings, Free Articles, Innovate, Overcome Challenges, Tools
And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic. Will never find it. ROALD DAHL – THE MINPINS Everyone can be creative; with the right process, techniques and a little magic … Footballer scores 99 goals but stalls before the hundred. Cricketer hits 99 runs and stalls before the hundred. Brooker writes 99 articles and stalls… After the 99th article, I decided to write something “special” for the 100th. I thought I would review all 99 articles, identify the themes and write about them. I didn’t realise how busy I would be and how long it would take to review 99 articles. And, when I had done it, I had no enthusiasm for it! So tonight in my hotel room I gave up on the idea. My 100th goal would not be a thirty metre volley in to the top corner of the net. My 100th run would not be a six in to the crowd. Instead, I would scramble the ball over the line, sneak a quick run, write on any topic and… Just write it…! And a question arrived. In the three months since writing the 99th article, what was the stand out moment about creativity that has stuck in my mind? Here it is. I was running a residential weekend on creativity with MBA students. Two of the students were, I suspect (I didn’t measure it), adaptive rather than innovative in their style and they were both more introvert than extrovert. They were great people...
by John Brooker | Apr 3, 2015 | Collaborate, Develop Opportunities, Facilitate meetings, Free Articles, Innovate, Overcome Challenges
“Perhaps some day we shall know how to heighten creativity. Until then, one of the best things we can do for creative men and women is to stand out of their light.” John W Gardner ~ US Educator Is your organisation trying to convert the unconvertible?? If you can recruit a few people in the organisation as champions of creativity and innovation then you should be able to increase the organisation’s capability without trying to convert everyone to your mission. I attended a concert by Harrow Young Musicians, my daughter being a member of the group. The standard was mixed, as you can imagine with children aged from seven to eighteen, but the evening was enjoyable. There were six conductors and when the whole group played (over a hundred children) four people conducted simultaneously. It worked! It seemed that each conductor was a creative leader, passing on their passion and enthusiasm for music to this large number of children. And if these six people can do that, surely we can use this as an analogy for increasing creativity and innovation (C & I) in organisations? Let’s mix in a metaphor of “traffic lights” (“robots” if you are reading this in South Africa!) and try. Imagine the conductors as the “green light” people in your organisation. These “green light” people enjoy C & I, believe it can do wonders for an organisation and will happily “bore for their country” on the topic if allowed and given the resources – even if it is not in their objectives. The child musicians are the “amber light” people in your organisation. They can...
