by John Brooker | May 19, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Tools
Yes! And… Creative Gorilla # 129 Need to make a demotivated team more positive…? “I rant, therefore I am.” Dennis Miller, Comedian Do you need to elicit issues safely? When you hold a meeting it can be important to let people discuss their work problems and frustrations. However, if a lot of people state their concerns to the whole group it can consume time and create a negative mood in the meeting. How can you effectively let people vent their frustrations and create a positive mood in the meeting, quickly? Here is a technique I have adapted from one called “Moan, Moan, Moan”. I call it the “Constructive Rant. “ I use it a great deal when I facilitate because it is enjoyable for participants and it works. Typically, I use it at the start of a meeting to create a “platform”, a starting point from which the group can move on. I have used it with group sizes from 5 to 90 and results have ranged from good to excellent. Without tempting fate, there is no down side that I have found, unless it rains. Instructions (This example is based on a team building session) 1. Pair people up (If you have an odd three people left over, it is still possible for them to do Constructive Rant, but you will need to allow extra time) and brief them as follows [I recommend you write a summary of this on a flipchart to make it easier to follow]: You are going to go for a walk Whilst you are walking, one of you will speak for three minutes...
by John Brooker | May 18, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate, Tools
Yes! And… Creative Gorilla # 128 Need to take account of different points of view…? “Here, for once, was a product of man’s brain that was entirely beneficial to those who used it, and of no harm or irritation to others. Progress should have stopped when man invented the bicycle.” Elizabeth West, Author Need to hear different views? I was out riding my bike in the local woods early this morning and had to use a footpath because horses have churned up the bridle paths and made them impassable for wheels. This made me smile wryly as recently, a reader of the environmental policy on my web site wrote to complain that I was inciting cyclists to ride on footpaths in his local woods. Being a lovely day, there were a few walkers on the footpath. As I approached one couple I sensed they were a little frustrated at having to put their dog on the lead to avoid it colliding with my bike. However, I apologised for being on the footpath, explained the difficulty with the bridle paths and they seemed happy enough. Riding on I thought about the different “stakeholders” in this situation; the woodland rangers, the walkers, horse riders, cyclists, even the dog. They all have their own views, whether that’s “ban cyclists from the woods”, “establish separate paths for horses, walkers and cyclists,” or “Grow Winalot on trees”. “What would be a way to hear the different views?”, I mused, which led me to think about how creative leaders might do it in organisations. I generated the following ideas from an individual and team perspective....
by John Brooker | May 17, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Tools
Yes! And… Creative Gorilla # 127 Need to influence transformation? Look for what’s working… “If some stupid fans don’t understand and appreciate such a gift they can go to hell.” Mohammed Al Fayed, ex -Fulham FC Owner on erecting the Michael Jackson statue What would you do next in this situation? You are facilitating a meeting with a team that is transforming how it provides its services. You ask the people to describe their preferred future when everything is working well. What will be happening? What will people be doing, saying, thinking, feeling etc? How will the processes and systems be operating? They do it. What happens next? Typically, the next step in organisations is to describe what is stopping the team from achieving the preferred future. They list what is wrong, things they have been discussing for ever that never seem to get resolved. People become dispirited and defensive as they sense people are blaming them or their department for what is wrong. The positive energy drains away and resistance to change develops. Friction occurs, or worse, apathy. Actions aren’t followed up. Is this recognisable to you? It’s noticeable in transformation programmes, especially when the initial euphoria has ebbed away. An alternative approach for creative leaders is to identify what is working. Where can we see clues that the preferred future is happening already, examples of good practice? The purpose is to encourage people to sense that much is going well and they can build on it. In the book, “Solutions Focus”, by Mark McKergow and Paul Z Jackson they refer to these clues / examples as “Counters”....
by John Brooker | May 16, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate, Tools
Yes! And… Creative Gorilla # 126 How can you sell your proposition if people don’t understand it…? “ Sometimes we can’t see the wood for the trees” Proverb Need to sell an idea? Define your proposition? This month, the British public has been in uproar over a government plan to sell off the forests in England. At its heart, there were some good ideas in this proposal that people didn’t understand. Often, a good idea fails because people do not understand it properly, as the idea owner does not explain it effectively, e.g. they do not clarify the benefits or they have not considered all the risks. So One way to overcome this issue is to develop a proposition statement. How do you do this? Here is a structured approach that you should find useful. 1. Develop an Initial Proposition Statement (IPS) for your idea. Use “Who? What? Why? Where? When? and How?” questions to build it. As a rule of thumb, your IPS should include the following points: The problem the proposition solves Whom it will impact / who wants or needs it A description of the solution, explaining how it solves the problem (benefits) and how much of the problem it solves How it differs from competing products As an example, let’s take a real situation from the payments’ business (I will steer clear of the trees!) in which I have much experience. This idea arose a few years ago and has now been implemented, however, as I do not know the original proposition statement, I have created one: “Acquirers of card transactions currently earn no revenue from...
by John Brooker | May 2, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate, Tools
The Creative Gorilla #112 Use Mind Mapping to help you find solutions… “Creativity is the development of original ideas, concepts and solutions using imagination and association – this is the premise of the mind map.” Tony Buzan, with Chris Griffiths, in Mind Maps for Business Would you like to enhance your solution finding? Next week, we are taking our children to Germany, to see our football team Fulham play Wolfsburg in the quarterfinals of the Europa League. This is our first ever match abroad and yesterday we went on line to a route planning web site to find out how to drive there. I looked at the detailed list of instructions, which didn’t help much to get an overview. Next I viewed the interactive map but after a minute or so of fiddling, I confess I borrowed my son’s atlas and in a few seconds was able to use my imagination to visualise the route and association to work out the rough distance to three nearby towns for potential hotels. Having obtained a sense of relief at confirming our travel details, I was delighted too that this atlas, with its very clear visualisation and structure, gave me a useful introduction to this article, imagination and association being at the core of how Mind Maps work. I recently attended a course led by Tony Buzan and others, to become a licensed Buzan Mind Mapping instructor and thought I would share how we can use Mind Maps for, amongst many other things, creativity. Many of you will know the concept of left and right brain, the left side of...
by John Brooker | Apr 28, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate, Tools
YES! AND… Collaborate. Innovate. Transform # 108 How to use Creative Solution Finding in virtual meetings? “I think they should consider giving Oscars for meetings: Best Meeting of the Year, Best Supporting Meeting, Best Meeting Based on Material from Another Meeting.” William Goldman, Novelist How can you facilitate a virtual “creative solution finding” session? One of the toughest meetings in which I was involved was a teleconference. I was in Lagos on a mobile telephone at 4.00 a.m. People were calling in from Asia, Europe and the US. It was difficult to understand who was speaking or what they were saying and I swear after ten minutes I heard a gentle snoring. It might have been me. I was reminded of this when I received a note from a fellow Gorilla this week, with background and a question as follows: “I have a new team of 5, situated in 3 locations (2 locations in Sweden, 1 in the UK). We get on really well. We regularly use audio with netmeeting / webex conferences and we can do 3 way video conferences. What ideas do you have for creative problem solving in a less than ideal physical set-up? I like a challenge and this article is my response. It is longer than the norm, please forgive me, I trust you will find it worthwhile. My first thought was that there are companies that specialise in web meetings and they have some great new technology. However, I set the scope of the challenge as a team working with little budget; they cannot use an external resource and must use the available technology as...
