by John Brooker | Aug 13, 2015 | Collaborate, Develop Opportunities, Free Articles, Innovate
“They bartered, they smuggled and some sneakily stole from the opposite side to get a taster of the forbidden food.” Rachel Khoo TV Chef What might the benefits of innovative thinking be in your organisation? Recently, I came back from a walk one Saturday morning and the TV was on. The show was “The Little Paris Kitchen” hosted by Rachel Khoo. Rachel is primarily a culinary events organiser, many of which you can see on her site (of interest if you are looking for something different for your next corporate event!). In the show, chef Rachel used her 21 square metres Parisian flat as a restaurant with one table and a kitchen so tiny you can’t fit a full size chicken in the oven. It was innovative. It set me thinking about innovation and how, if it can be done in a tiny kitchen, it can be done anywhere, with often minimal resources. When you mention innovation there’s always a tendency for people to think of Apple and its products, or Amazon and its business model; innovation does not have to be that large scale or confined to products and delivery channels. Neither does it have to be the domain of the “expert”. Rachel Khoo was working in London as a PR for a fashion brand before she picked up her case and moved to Paris. She signed up to learn French and patisserie making when she got there. SO People can apply innovative thinking anywhere across an organisation. Why would your organisation want people to do that? Here are three reasons: Financial Organisations tend to introduce new...
by John Brooker | Jul 31, 2015 | Collaborate, Develop Opportunities, Facilitate meetings, Free Articles, Innovate, Overcome Challenges, Tools
“There is no truth. Only perception.” Edith Sitwell (English Author) Looking at a challenge in a fresh way can transform how you tackle it… Once, I gave an after dinner talk for around 80 college lecturers and examiners attending a seminar on innovation in assessment. The premise of my talk, more an interactive lecture, was that if we could inspire people to enjoy the whole process of exams, it would reap benefits for the college and be an innovation in assessment. This idea underpinned a study day that my friend, Elvin Box, and I ran for many years, for MBA students studying Creativity, Innovation and Change. We challenged the students to enjoy and look forward to the exam rather than dread it. I had happily accepted the challenge of giving the talk, but a couple of weeks after accepting I became a little nervous, wondering what I would find to talk about that would interest and be of use to the audience. I didn’t realise how nervous I was until one night, I had a dream. In it I was delivering the talk and in front of everybody, could not think of a thing to say. In the dream, (this is absolutely true) Piers Brosnan , ex – James Bond and erstwhile singer in “Mamma Mia,” appeared and sagely told me all I needed to know. He may even have sung it, I don’t recall because when I awoke, I had forgotten all he told me! However, some of you will recognise the type of dream as the “examination dream”, one I used to have regularly before appearing in plays, constantly forgetting...
by John Brooker | Jul 30, 2015 | Collaborate, Facilitate meetings, Free Articles, Innovate, Overcome Challenges, Solution Focus
“Where a minute before a handful of tech guys could agree on almost nothing, it took us only five minutes to identify the future perfect on which we all agreed.” Niklas Tiger. Managing Director of Hi5, Sweden. Want to solve challenges more effectively? How many meetings have you been in where you have tried to tackle a challenge in a team and it just kept going round in circles? The following is a true story related by Niklas Tiger, Managing Director of Hi5, an IT organisation in Sweden that provides outsourced IT services to customers over the Internet. Hi5 is not a client of ours but Niklas has given us permission to create an article as an example of how the Solution Focus approach to tackling challenges and change can work. (Please click on the link to read an article on Solutions Focus). I have adapted the wording for clarity slightly; otherwise this is his story, which, as it is from an organisation, I thought would be valuable for you. If you would rather read this article in an illustrated short ebook, please click here ebook A tale of two meetings. “Implementing Solutions Focus (SF) as a way of managing change in our organisation and also in collaboration with customers, really has transformed our company. A very low tech down to earth example of this happened as recently as this...
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 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 29, 2015 | Collaborate, Develop Opportunities, Free Articles, Innovate, Overcome Challenges
“Before thinking outside the box, think how you might make your box bigger?” John Brooker Understanding and widening the boundaries of a situation can help you to create more options and better solutions… I took my daughter to compete in the second round of an inter school public speaking competition organised by the Rotary Club. Teams of children, made a speech (no visuals allowed!) to an audience of around sixty people, about a topic of their choice. One introduces the topic and speaker, the second presents the case and a third gives thanks. This is a great challenge for the children and provides an element of entertainment as well as some thoughtful points. During a talk on “Breaking the Mould”, which challenged conventional thinking about small people, one girl in her introduction mentioned that phrase so often heard in the same breath as creativity, “Think outside the box”. She set me thinking. In my world, when setting outcomes with the group on a creativity course, people say regularly that this is what they want to be able to do. My normal response is that “thinking outside the box” is a fair outcome. Could they also make the box bigger? This question usually produces confusion 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. So to avoid confusion, let me explain that in my response, I mix box metaphors....
