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...
by John Brooker | Jan 3, 2015 | Collaborate, Develop Opportunities, Facilitate meetings, Free Articles, Innovate, Overcome Challenges, Solution Focus
““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...
by John Brooker | May 6, 2012 | Facilitate meetings
The Creative Gorilla #116 How might a creative leader retain mental resolve when under pressure…? “Robert Green is confident he has the mental resolve to bounce back from the World Cup howler that helped the United States draw 1-1 with England.” BBC Sport website 13 June 2010 Do you have mental resolve? Driving home the day after England’s World Cup match with the USA, I listened to BBC radio. They were interviewing a sport psychologist who explained how people react after making the kind of mistake that England’s goalkeeper Robert Green made in the match, fumbling the ball and enabling the USA to equalise. He went on to discuss how sport psychologists toughen athletes’ mental resolve in four areas: Concentration is the mental quality to focus on the task in hand. There are two areas of focus: 1. The Broad – Narrow continuum; the athlete focuses on a large or small number of stimuli. 2. Internal – External continuum; the athlete focuses on internal stimuli (feelings) or external stimuli (ball). Common distractions are anxiety, stress and fatigue Confidence is driven by the belief an athlete can achieve their goals, leading to more enthusiasm, perseverance and positive thinking Control of emotions (e.g. anger and anxiety) is essential for successful performance in adversity. Lack of control causes mental and physical affects which reduce performance Full Commitment to the goals they wish to achieve (or save in Robert Green’s case), is essential So Listening to the discussion, it struck me how we might relate the 4Cs to creative leadership. After all, it can be tough challenging the status quo. Here are...
