by John Brooker | Mar 19, 2018 | Develop Opportunities, Innovate, Lead creatively, Overcome Challenges
YES! AND…blog # 8 “You have the capability to lead. Even if others are not yet ready to follow you can still lead yourself. You can be a leader of one.” John Brooker inspired by the words of Tony Robbins Do you want to be a creative leader? I once attended an Anthony Robbins weekend “seminar”. It was an awesome event. I can best describe it as a self development rock concert, so may I suggest before you read on, you put on the music that most makes you want to dance round the room screaming “Yes”. Tony is a motivational coach. He has a lot of thoughtful information to impart, delivering it with an enthusiasm that fires up 12000 people (and that’s before the fire walk). One point he made that resonated with me I have written as the quotation above. Read it again. Does this ring true with those of you trying to enhance creativity and innovation in your organisation but finding it a challenge? At times, that challenge can daunt you, especially if others are not yet ready to follow. If others are unwilling, there is still something you can do. You can focus on you leading you to be consistently creative, to build your own creative climate and to lead by example. Here are six ideas to be your own creative leader. You might like to develop this list to suit you. Develop a vision for what your work place or home life will be like when YOU are being truly creative and innovative. What will it look, feel, sound, taste and...
by John Brooker | Aug 16, 2015 | Develop Opportunities, Innovate
“Do not to bring living hens into mountainous people’s houses.” Vietminh Recommendation How can you use guerrilla tactics to inject creativity in your organisation? A few years ago, I tutored one of my regular MBA residential courses on Creativity and Innovation. A student was convinced that she would not be able to use creative tools in her work place; she was a solicitor in a firm of solicitors and she thought that her rather conservative colleagues would not accept such tools and that rules and procedures would inhibit them. Some of you might be in a similar situation and might need to adopt “creative guerrilla” tactics (a term I first saw used in the Open University course on Creativity and Innovation) to introduce creativity into your organisation. Rather than launch into a list of tactics, I thought it would be interesting to use analogical idea generation, considering some tactics of military guerrillas and relating them to the organisation. Just as a “health warning”, I am not making any political comment about guerrillas or the Vietminh here! Analogy is a proven way to generate ideas, especially if you are stuck and it is useful to find interesting analogies. SO Here are some guerrilla tactics, not in order of importance and some ways you might adapt them. I don’t pretend it is exhaustive; as you read, think of other ways. Recruit like minded people and operate in small groups Find others in your organisation that think like you and create a network Help each other to build your skills and knowledge of tools Confront small groups, not the full force Expand...
by John Brooker | Aug 13, 2015 | Collaborate, Develop Opportunities, Free Articles, Innovate
“They bartered, they smuggled and some sneakily stole from the opposite side to get a taster of the forbidden food.” Rachel Khoo TV Chef What might the benefits of innovative thinking be in your organisation? Recently, I came back from a walk one Saturday morning and the TV was on. The show was “The Little Paris Kitchen” hosted by Rachel Khoo. Rachel is primarily a culinary events organiser, many of which you can see on her site (of interest if you are looking for something different for your next corporate event!). In the show, chef Rachel used her 21 square metres Parisian flat as a restaurant with one table and a kitchen so tiny you can’t fit a full size chicken in the oven. It was innovative. It set me thinking about innovation and how, if it can be done in a tiny kitchen, it can be done anywhere, with often minimal resources. When you mention innovation there’s always a tendency for people to think of Apple and its products, or Amazon and its business model; innovation does not have to be that large scale or confined to products and delivery channels. Neither does it have to be the domain of the “expert”. Rachel Khoo was working in London as a PR for a fashion brand before she picked up her case and moved to Paris. She signed up to learn French and patisserie making when she got there. SO People can apply innovative thinking anywhere across an organisation. Why would your organisation want people to do that? Here are three reasons: Financial Organisations tend to introduce new...
by John Brooker | Sep 11, 2014 | Develop Opportunities, Innovate
“Miracles, you do not have to look for them. They are there, 24/7, beaming like radio waves around you. Put up the antenna, turn up the volume – snap… crackle… this just in… every person you talk to is a chance to change the world…” Hugh Elliott, American blogger How can you sense more opportunities; more novel opportunities? Recently, I went to the Design Museum in London with my son. For him, it was a way to fulfil his Design and Technology homework requirements. For me, it was a chance to tweak my creative antennae. The “Design of the Year” exhibition is running and from a sizeable list I made a tough choice for my top three: a. the “Lego Toy” bottle top; b. a roll up bicycle mudguard and c. a medical syringe that turns red when it has been used. Along with an excellent exhibition on the work of designer Daniel Weil, this is a great opportunity to stimulate your people to sense opportunities. SO Many of you do not live in London or nearby, so here are six ways to enhance how you sense opportunities: Free time to sense opportunities People become so focussed on the day job, they fill their waking minutes with it. When this happens, weak signals of opportunity become lost in a storm of “noise” and your competitors are likely to hear louder signals too. You have to free up time to give your mind quiet and space. It is worthwhile to record potential opportunities so that a list is always at hand. Use the notes app on your phone. Create a regular...
by John Brooker | Jun 5, 2012 | Develop Opportunities, Facilitate meetings, Free Articles, Innovate, Tools
How to avoid common mistakes when you innovate to maximise opportunities. “Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it.” A. A. Milne. Do you have any obscure rituals you carry out in secret? I confess I perform one every week, the ceremonial “wheelie bin stomp”. This is not a dark practice overlooked in Harry Potter novels, but a practical solution to the problem that there is too much bulky waste packaging and too little dustbin. So I step on the garden wall, climb in the bin and begin stomping so we can push another week’s worth in the bin. Too much waste and too little bin – when someone has a problem, it means there is an opportunity to exploit with a sound proposition. Having admitted my secret and defined an opportunity, let’s move on to the core of this article. All leaders in organisations have opportunities. They may be in areas requiring new policy, meeting a need in a new market, or dealing with waste packaging, etc. Some people exploit them well and some do not. SO Here are my thoughts on how you can maximise opportunities more effectively at lower cost and with less effort. Use a structured approach to think it through This will ensure that you create a proposition that is acceptable to a wider range of people, meets...
