113 Build a Creative Climate…

The Creative Gorilla #113 It is important to build the appropriate climate for your innovation needs… “Companies must have capacity for radical change to survive long term, whilst having the ability to innovate in day to day operations.” Summarised from Goran Ekvall, in Creativity and Innovation Management How good is the climate in your organisation?   Imagine you are driving a right hand drive car along a busy German autobahn. There are roadworks and the road has only two narrow lanes. To your left is a low concrete barrier to protect the road workers. You cannot see it well and if you drive in the left lane you worry you will hit it. In the right lane are many huge lorries (trucks) that drive close together. Driving between two of them feels very uncomfortable. I experienced this recently, en route to Wolfsburg, Germany, for a football match with my family. It was stressful and I think it fair to say if you had asked me for a creative idea at that time, you were unlikely to get more than a grunt. We returned on the Friday and the next day I was reminded of this experience whilst facilitating a study day for MBA students, with my friend, Elvin Box. We touched on the theme of creative climate in organisations and I thought what a great metaphor the autobahn situation was for a poor creative climate. Compare that to a brisk walk along a sunny beach, having a lively discussion with a friend whilst a cool breeze fans your face; or choose your own metaphor for a creative climate. So...

98 Facilitate Teams to Understand the Challenge

YES! AND… Creative Gorilla # 98 Sometimes it is difficult to judge if a group understand the challenge you have, this technique will help you do that… “Yes! And…Explore World With…Suppose that…Associate…Next idea…Do it now” Cyriel Kortleven, Crew – New Shoes Today How might you confirm that everyone in a group has understood a challenge? Have you ever been to a really entertaining evening where you learned something (and the beer was cheap)? Last week, I attended my first workshop of the London group of the Applied Improvisation Network (AIN).  The facilitator was Cyriel Kortlevel, who hails from Belgium and works with a creativity company in the Netherlands. Cyriel treated us to a really enjoyable evening, taking us through an improvised creativity session i.e. using impro to create some ideas for making the AIN successful. I knew most of the impro exercises, but Cyriel has a neat way of turning them in to creative techniques, especially through using random connections and provocations. One technique I had not used before was “The Problem Walk” (I don’t much like using the word “problem” due to its negative associations, hence my title). So How does the technique work? After the challenge has been explored, the group stand at one end of an imaginary line. The facilitator stands at the other end of the line and summarises the challenge. He / she asks people to stand somewhere on the line, depending on their understanding of the challenge (you might do a scale where the facilitator stands at ten and the group members stand at a number on the line). If the group steps up...