by John Brooker | Sep 1, 2015 | Collaborate, Develop Opportunities, Facilitate meetings, Free Articles, Innovate, Overcome Challenges, Tools
“Using a metaphor in front of a man as unimaginative as Ridcully was like a red flag to a bu…was like putting something very annoying in front of someone annoyed by it.” Terry Pratchett. Author. Lords and Ladies. If you want to explore a problem or opportunity well, here are five tools. Imagine that you are sitting in an exam hall with an MBA examination paper in front of you; the subject is Creativity, Innovation and Change. The examiner asks you to turn over your paper, you look at the first question and your mind goes completely blank. You cannot think how to tackle the question. An examination question is a problem to solve or an opportunity to show what you know. It is comparable to exploring a problem or opportunity in work. What are some ways you might structure your exploration? Some of you will know that until recently, I ran an exam study day for students on the Open University, “Creativity, Innovation and Change” course with my friend and associate, Elvin Box. We ran the last ever one in October 2012 (sadly this brilliant course has finished after twenty years) and so that they did not fall victim to the blank mind syndrome, we encouraged the students to structure how they might answer the question. To do this we suggested a number of generic tools that are easy to recall and use. As I travelled home from the study day, I thought those tools might be useful for Creative Gorillas. As a bonus, you can use them for evaluation too. 5 Ws and H Who? What?...
by John Brooker | May 8, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
The Creative Gorilla #118 How to facilitate people to innovate… “The rules are simple, hit him, don’t let him hit you.” Jackie Chan in “The Karate Kid” How might you facilitate innovation? I drove to Dublin in Ireland with a colleague to start a new Innovation Programme. After a long drive and with the prospect of a full day ahead we retired to our rooms at 8.30 pm, my head hit the pillow at 10 pm and I was asleep. Three hours later I was awoken by a loud crash, like someone throwing a collapsible table out of the window. I dozed off, only to be startled by another loud crash. After the fourth time I realised it happened whenever a vehicle exited the hotel car park over a metal speed bump. This being a tourist hotel in Dublin I laid awake for most of the night as taxis came and went, drifting off around 4 a.m. On the bright side I was able to relate this story to the group next day, using it to define business innovation as: Find someone with a problem (crash!) Identify if they are wiling to pay for a solution (I would happily pay!) Develop a solution Market it Earn revenue True, this is highly simplistic, but it can be useful to cut through complexity to the basic concept. So Whilst the concept of innovation is simple, implementing it is a little more difficult, so, here are eight ways to facilitate innovation in an organisation, based on my experience and reading: Know what you want Understand why you want to innovate and describe...
by John Brooker | May 1, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
The Creative Gorilla #111 With the right factors in place you can make your workshops outstanding… “In the closing session, participants described it as the best away day they had ever experienced.” Manager, Government department Would you like to make your next team away day really creative? As you may know, I really love to see examples of people putting creativity in to action. This article describes an away day facilitated by a student (and fellow Gorilla) who attended the Open University Creativity and Innovation residential workshop and joined my group of Creative Gorillas. She based the day on what she learned from our group, from her course material and from her own experience and creativity. She wrote the article for her in-house intranet site and I asked her if we could share it with other Gorillas. This is a great example of how someone with limited experience of facilitation and creativity can produce a terrific outcome, using simple principles and relevant tools. Away days generate mixed expectations. Some people want to address the nuts and bolts of delivery; others are focused on team cohesion; a few just welcome a change of scene. When I undertook to plan the away day for our department, I felt it should be possible to address all of these, with some creativity and fun thrown in for good measure. With help from my Open University course on Creativity, Innovation and Change, and thanks to the energetic participation of my colleagues, we exceeded expectations. So how did we do it? Three simple rules stand out: 1) Build a Creative Climate Being creative involves taking...
by John Brooker | Apr 23, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate, Tools
Yes! And… Creative Gorilla # 103 Creative idea generation sessions will work better if people follow guidelines on behaviour… “People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first..” David H. Comins Do you want your idea generation sessions to work better? The other night, I helped out at my son’s Scout meeting. We gathered the children and got them to play a game. However, three of them thought that this game was not cool, so they did all they could to mess up the game for everybody else. Despite much enthusiasm from others, the game fizzled out. This reminded me of many meetings I attended in corporate life, in particular idea generation meetings, where it is quite simple for people to dampen enthusiasm. Recently, a client asked me to give a short talk to build some energy in a group before an idea generation session. I built the talk around four guidelines for making an idea generation session work more effectively. So Here are the four guidelines, which you might find useful when diverging, that is, when generating ideas. By the way, can you find an acronym for these guidelines? Build on Ideas A great way to obtain more creative ideas is to build on the ideas of others so: Say, “Yes! And…” not “Yes! But…” Accept “silly” or “ridiculous” ideas and use them as springboards to develop practical ideas Ask, “How might we look at this idea differently?” Appreciate Different Styles People have different styles and this might cause issues in your idea generation session. Be aware that: There are...
by John Brooker | Feb 29, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
YES! AND… Creative Gorilla # 60 With the right climate in place you can make your workshops outstanding. “Away from home our fans are fantastic, I’d call them the hardcore fans. But at home they have a few drinks and probably the prawn sandwiches and they don’t realise what’s going on out on the pitch. I don’t think some of the people who come to Old Trafford can spell ‘football’ never mind understand it.” Roy Keane, ex Captain of Manchester United. (Type “Prawn sandwich” and “Keane” in to Google for some more Keane rants, if you don’t mind bad language!) Are prawn sandwiches spoiling your workshops? Have you ever walked in to a workshop room and your heart has sunk? Mine hit the bottom of the Atlantic recently. The room I entered had no natural light, barely any space around the tables and a ceiling so low I have a picture of a delegate with his hand through the tiles during an exercise! The temperature fluctuated hot and cold and the artificial lighting was dim enough to make me stand under a bulb to read my notes. I put on my music, put some cheerful posters on the wall and made the best of it for the two days. The most constant complaint I see on feedback forms is about the environment. A bad one tends to make energy slump and demotivate people. The other side of the coin is to pay for a fantastic hotel and pack so much into the schedule that people can’t use the fancy Jacuzzi, spa pool and four poster bed. See the complaints...
