by John Brooker | Jan 12, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
YES! AND… Facilitate, Innovate, Transform – Creative Gorilla # 12 If you seek a way to challenge conventional thinking, try this technique… “Not even the fastest, most modern jet can come close to matching Santa’s speed.” Petty Officer Bev Allen, NORAD If you are looking for a way to challenge conventional thinking, might Santa give you food for thought? On Christmas Eve my children had great fun (me too!) tracking Santa’s progress towards London on the web site www.noradsanta.org (NORAD is a US / Canadian military radar defence organisation. If you have young kids, do check out their Santa site next year). As we watched videos of Santa crossing many different cities in the world the children marvelled at the speed at which he progressed and the idea for this article sprang to mind. Thanks for the unexpected present Santa (and the people at NORAD). A technique you can use to challenge convention is to ask the “What If” question. What if we had to deliver these goods to millions of customers in the world in one night? (Wonder where that idea came from?). What if we could reduce the lead-time for this process from sixty days to one? What if we had a policy of NO redundancies? If you examine these questions, you should see that they are challenging accepted norms, the “rules” and the assumptions (which may be implicit) about a situation. “It takes sixty days to process this form”. “If business slows down, we make people redundant”. You can use the question as a stand-alone technique to aid your creative thinking but I find a...
by John Brooker | Jan 7, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
How might you use naive thinking to aid creativity and innovation? “I know. It’s called a flatulator!” Andrew Brooker aged 6 ½ years. Do you consider it necessary to be an expert to generate creative ideas? The family and I were going through Waterloo station, travelling on a moving walkway. Eleanor, my daughter, asked, “If the moving steps going up are called an escalator, what do you call these flat ones?” I mumbled something about “moving walkways” when Andrew, my son, shouted, “I know, they’re called flatulators!” With visions of wind assisted pedestrians in my head I roared with laughter. What a great idea! Andrew had no idea of the potential alternative meaning when suggesting the name “Flatulator”, but he made a good guess. Often, naive people like him can offer us good insights and new trains of thought when we are struggling to create an original idea. They know little or nothing about the subject so are not limited by the conventional thinking that exists and can provide radically different input. As a Creative Leader you can use this device of naive thinking in three ways: 1. Bring in someone with no knowledge of your topic, give them a basic understanding of the issue / situation and then ask them for other ways to look at your situation or ideas (perhaps alone but more likely in a group of more knowledgeable people) 2. You can use a variation on the “What If” technique alone or in a group. Essentially this means asking yourself and / or others to imagine what a five year old would think of a...
by John Brooker | Jan 5, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
Yes! And… Creative Gorilla # 5 How can you clear your mind of all those problems whirling round it? “I sometimes find, and I am sure you know the feeling, that I simply have too many thoughts and memories crammed in to my mind,” said Dumbledore…”at these times… I use the Pensieve.” From Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (J.K. Rowling). Do you ever have the feeling Dumbledore has? You have some kind of significant, complex challenge, something you are concerned about and all these pieces of information run around in your brain. Facts, questions, half formed answers, things people have said, ideas, things you said or wished you said, the emotions, endlessly running around in your brain like an iPod on shuffle. Dumbledore’s “Pensieve” is a stone basin in to which he places his excess thoughts and then views them from a distance, to help him analyse them. When I was reading the book it struck me that here was a magical version of the “Essay” technique, a well known creative technique that helps you to explore a nagging problem or opportunity very quickly. The technique is one to which I have added a few “rules” and it seems to help most people, so let me share with you what I am now calling the “Pensieve Technique”. Take a paper pad and a pen (tear yourself away from the keyboard) and write down everything you can about your situation as possible. The rules I have added are: Don’t worry about your spelling (imagine the paper has automatic spell checking), your grammar or the legibility of your writing...
