by John Brooker | Mar 17, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
YES! AND… Creative Gorilla # 77 You need to check your facts if you want to overcome challenges… “You can’t make progress in a bear hunt if you follow the tracks of a deer.” Dean Koontz – Author in “The Good Guy” “You can’t make progress in a beer hunt if you follow a bad steer.” John Brooker – Author in “The Cross Keys” Have you checked the facts…? Sometimes, I have to do something stupid to remember the basics of Creative Thinking. Recently, I co-hosted an informal gathering in a pub in London for students who had recently passed their Open University MBA exams. It was a “drop in evening” when we would meet anyone who turned up at 6.00 p.m. in “The Counting House” pub in London. Regrettably, Elvin Box, my co-host, was stuck on a train at that time. I followed my map and found myself outside “The Cross Keys” pub where a man directed me to turn left down an alleyway, walk some distance and then I would find “The Counting House”. Following his instructions, I arrived at the end of the alley where a number of people stood outside a pub door. As there was no pub sign, I inquired if it were “The Counting House” and a lady assured me it was. Finding a seat in the very crowded bar, I put up a “Beer Mat Night” sign (to the amusement of fellow drinkers) and proceeded to wait… and wait. Elvin called at 7.00 p.m. to say he was half an hour away. Still...
by John Brooker | Feb 22, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
YES! AND… Creative Gorilla # 53 Using principles of creative thinking can help you to avoid simple mistakes and tackle challenges effectively… “The harder you fight to hold on to specific assumptions, the more likely there’s gold in letting go of them.” John Seely Brown, Chief of Confusion Could your mind set or your assumptions be leading you to arrive at the wrong problem definition? On a recent weekend away I and some other parents and Scout Leaders took 35 Cub Scouts on a camping trip. I learned a lot about the noise 33 boys and a couple of girls can make and a great deal about washing up, being awarded with a silver scourer for my efforts (“I want to thank my wife for this award…”). At the end of the camp, one of the fathers came over to us and explained that he had locked his car keys in the boot (trunk) of his car. As we were a hundred miles from home and stuck in the middle of a wood, this was not an ideal situation. “No worries,” I said, “we’ll just call the AA or RAC (our car break down organisations in the UK) and they’ll get your keys fairly quickly or take your car home.” There was silence. “I don’t have break down insurance,” he replied, “the car never breaks down.” With a bit of flexible thinking, we managed to get the AA to rescue him and three hours later, we left for home. On the way home later, I pondered on his words and thought to myself that if he had adhered to...
by John Brooker | Feb 6, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
YES! AND… Facilitate. Innovate. Transform – Creative Gorilla # 37 Check your assumptions if you want to avoid mistakes… “If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true, there would be little hope of advance.” Orville Wright Are you checking your assumptions sufficiently? It’s likely you make assumptions all the time, consciously or unconsciously. After all, you have to assume when you leave the house a meteorite won’t hit you on the head – otherwise you wouldn’t leave. I was reminded of assumptions at lunch the other day. Chatting to a German student who grew up in Berlin, I mentioned that I had been back there a couple of times since the wall came down, but the city no longer had the frisson of excitement present when I lived there in the seventies – when people imagined that Russian tanks might rumble down the Kurfustendamm tomorrow. There was a momentary pause in the conversation, which puzzled me until I realised later that he had grown up in the Russian zone of Berlin. I made the wrong assumption and once again my foot had an unexpected visit to my mouth. The positive result was that it made me think about the assumptions we make all the time. It appears to me that when tackling challenges there are two types of assumption: The “liberating assumption” – that which frees us to move forward, e.g. “people will read this article” The “blocking assumption” – that which stops us moving forward e.g. “we will never get the resources for this”. So When exploring situations, the creative leader should...
