Kintsukuroi and the art of Solution Focus [Yes! And Blog # 182]

How a Japanese art form can enhance your business   The picture alongside [Source: www.kintsugi.jp through Pinterest] is of a broken vase that has been repaired with gold. Developed in Japan, making such a repair is known as  Kintsukuroi or kintsugi,  which is the art of healing broken pottery with lacquer and silver or gold. The philosophy behind this type of repair is that something should not be discarded just because it is broken. In fact, it is more beautiful for having been broken and repaired. I saw this on Pinterest and pinned it to my Think Innovatively board with this thought: How might you apply the principle of Kintsukuroi as a metaphor for repairing something that is broken in your business? You might consider this metaphor anytime something breaks; a process, a business (or personal) relationship, a bad media story. I feel it is a very solution focused metaphor to have your client focus on the damaged pieces as a resource (what they can build on), not on the damage (the problem), have them visualise how they might make it better and progress towards that better future. Is Kintsukuroi not a better metaphor than “fighting fires”? It is certainly more elegant. Have an elegant week. John Brooker I Yes! And. Think Innovatively. To receive regular articles, register at our website: www.yesand.eu and receive Section 1 of John’s book, “Innovate to Learn, Don’t Learn to Innovate”, with our compliments. We guarantee not to share your details. Or you might buy John’s book at Amazon now: “Innovate to Learn, Don’t Learn to Innovate.”  Read: www.yesand.eu and Facebook Talk: +44 20 8869 9990...

How to Enhance Your Creative Thinking [Yes! And. Blog # 140]

If you want to enhance your creativity you need to interrupt your trains of thought …    “I have coined the term “bisociation” to make a distinction between the routine skills of thinking on a single plane, and the creative act which always operates on more than one plane.   Arthur Koestler, Philosopher How might you enhance creative thinking? I was on holiday in Spain last week and with glorious weather and time to think I began playing with a concept that I last wrote about in Yes! And Blog 80.  This was the idea of using a railway metaphor for how people think and create ideas, leading to how you can stimulate your creative thinking. As I pondered on it, the whole concept became a lot clearer for me so I thought I would build on that last article. In this telling of the metaphor, the track is your life path. All of your learning, skills and experience sit in carriages (or coaches). The carriages at the back contain all of the information from your childhood, one each for pre-school, primary school and secondary school, perhaps one for childhood outside school (chunk the carriages how you like). This is your own “train of thought” (sorry for the pun!). Information was poured in to the carriage(s) from the world outside, either actively introduced through interaction with people, by personal experience or passively absorbed. These carriages now contain memories. You can access the carriages and the memories but logically cannot add anything as you move on to a new piece of track (another period of your life). The memories are your...

Listen to Create [Yes! And. Blog 3]

““When people talk listen completely. Don’t be thinking what you’re going to say. Most people never listen.” Ernest Hemingway in Across the River and Into the Trees Do you listen well? Really listen? Or do you spend the time whilst others are talking, thinking of what you will say next? How much more creative might you be if you listened well and built on the ideas of others? I was in a café in a garden centre on a recent Monday, waiting at the counter for my coffee. Two ladies walked up beside me, chattering away to each other very animatedly. As I waited, my ears attuned to their conversation and I realised they were not talking to each other but at each other. One was talking about her garden and the other was talking about her mother. It was surreal and a bit sad, like a Woody Allen movie. By chance I had just attended an Improvisation Comedy course that weekend. Improvisation puts great emphasis on listening to the other performers. That’s “listening” not “hearing”. Taking the time to consider what is said and so perhaps finding a deeper meaning to the words. If we listen in Improvisation, we can build more on the creative ideas of others and we can prevent our own preconceived ideas ruining a scene with an insensible response. It also provides the other players with the confidence to develop the scene further, as Menninger says, “it makes us unfold and expand”. In short, by listening we can make the work more creative and humorous. When you speak in innovation workshops, you only hear one idea. When...