Get Deeply In Touch With the Passion to Create!
If you want to CREATE something extraordinary, you're going to need some of the spirit that Dean Schambach exudes. When the true force of creativity is burning bright in every cell of your body, all the rest will follow. Hats off to David McDonald, Woodstock filmmaker, for this pearl of brilliance.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 09:48 AM | Comments (2)
January 28, 2010Want a Brainstorming Breakthrough? Get the Right Question!
There's a simple reason why so many brainstorm sessions are a waste of time. The problem statement being pitched to participants is the wrong one.
This is not surprising -- especially when you consider how little time most facilitators put into preparing for a session.
Here's what happens: The person who calls the session is usually scrambling -- overwhelmed, over-caffeinated, and running from one meeting to the next. Out of breath, they pitch the topic to the group, but the topic is either vague or secondary to a more essential challenge that remains unspoken.
G.K. Chesterton, one of the most influential English writers of the 20th century, distilled the phenomenon down to 13 words. "It's not that they can't see the solution," he said. "They can't see the problem."
Then, of course, there's also the phenomenon of perception bias.
Pitch a challenge to an IT person, and it will be seen as a technology problem. Pitch it to a CFO, and it will be seen as a financial problem. Pitch it to a marketing person and it will be seen as a branding problem.
Or as a wise man once said, "When a pickpocket meets a saint all he sees are pockets."
If you plan on running an ideation session any time soon, don't just stumble into the room and pitch a vague topic to the group. Do your homework. Make the effort to identify the REAL issue before asking for ideas. If it's the WRONG QUESTION you present, no amount of idea generation is going to make a difference.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 04:06 PM | Comments (0)
January 27, 2010Facilitating a Brainstorm Session Is Like Going to a Casino
Facilitating a brainstorm session is like going to a casino.
You show up, find your favorite game, place your bet, and pray for luck. Sometimes you win. Most of the times, you lose. And the odds are always stacked against you.
That's the way it is for most of us -- casual visitors to Vegas or Atlantic City or a neighborhood poker game.
Then, of course, there are the professionals -- people who gamble for a living. They have a different approach. They know how to find an edge.
They count cards. They calculate the odds. They read body language. They know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em. And they know how to trust their instincts -- developed over years of study, practice and experience.
Bottom line, they've learned the art and science of navigating their way through various games of chance to radically increase the odds of success.
And while they understand that luck is a big part of the equation, they also know, that "luck favors the prepared mind."
They prepare. They're ready to play.
If you want your brainstorm sessions to get results, you'll need to remember two things: 1) It's a game of chance and; 2) The tools, techniques, and skills you bring to the table will radically increase your odds of breaking the bank.
All in?
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 09:41 PM | Comments (0)
January 26, 2010If You Want to Spark Bold New Ideas, Facilitate (Don't Lead)
Here's one of the dirty little secrets of corporate brainstorm sessions:
When they are led by upper management, department heads, or project leaders, they usually get manipulated.
Because honchos and honchettes are heavily invested in the topic being brainstormed, it is quite common for them to bend the collective genius of the group to their own particular point of view.
Not a good idea.
Participants -- out of respect for the expertise (or position or parking space) of the facilitator -- will invariably moderate their input. And while this can sometimes lead to good results, the results are usually disappointing.
That's why brainstorm facilitators need to remain neutral.
Not neutral like vague. No. Neutral like free of any pre-determined concept or outcome.
An empty window, not an empty suit.
A facilitator's role is to facilitate (from the latin word meaning "to make easy") the process whereby brilliance manifests -- not use their platform to foist their ideas on others.
In the best of all worlds, brainstorm facilitators wouldn't be the people who care the most about the topic. They wouldn't be the content expert, team leader, department head, senior officer, or anyone whose job is described by a three-letter acronym.
There's a HUGE difference between facilitating and leading a brainstorming session. Leaders get people to follow them. Facilitators get people to follow the yellow brick road of the imagination.
Here are four classic ways that some brainstorm facilitators manipulate the ideation process. Any of them familiar to you?
1. They verbally judge ideas as they are being presented
2. They scribe only the ideas they approve of
3. They spend more time pitching their own ideas than listening to the ideas of others
4. They develop only ideas consistent with their own assumptions
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 11:18 PM | Comments (0)
January 24, 2010Everything Comes Full Circle
Out of work? Looking for a job? Enjoy a few chuckles before you pound the pavement today.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 08:59 AM | Comments (0)
January 23, 2010Go Beyond Your Pet Ideas
If your company runs brainstorming sessions, know this: too many of them have become veiled opportunities for people to trot out their pet ideas and show them off to others.
Because everyone is so busy these days and real listening is in short supply, people use brainstorming sessions as a way to foist their pre-existing ideas on others. And while this sometimes leads to results, it doesn't make optimal use of the "two heads are better than one" chance a brainstorm session provides. The way around this phenomenon?
Give people a chance to express their pre-existing ideas at the beginning. Clear the decks. Then use the rest of the session to explore the unknown.
High Velocity Brainstorming
Conducting Genius
Photo
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 07:48 AM | Comments (2)
January 22, 2010Brainstorming Is More Than Ideation
Most people think brainstorming sessions are all about ideas -- much in the same way that Wall Street bankers think life is all about money.
While ideas are certainly a big part of brainstorming, they are only a part. People who rush into a brainstorming session starving for new ideas will miss the boat (and the train, car, and unicycle) completely unless they tune into the some other mighty important dynamics:
1. INVESTIGATION: If you want your brainstorming sessions to be effective, you'll need to do some investigating before hand. Get curious. Ask questions. Dig deeper. The more you find out what the real issues are, the greater your chances of framing powerful questions to brainstorm and choosing the best techniques to use.
2. IMMERSION: While good ideas can surface at any time, their chances radically increase the more that brainstorm participants are immersed (i.e. focused). Translation? No coming and going during a session. No distractions. No interruptions. And don't forget to put a "do not disturb" sign on the door.
3. INTERACTION: Ideas come to people at all times of day and under all kinds of circumstances. But in a brainstorming session, it's the quality of interaction that makes the difference -- how people connect with each other, how they listen, and build on ideas. Your job, as facilitator, is to increase the quality of interaction.
4. INSPIRATION: Creative output is often a function of mindset. Bored, disengaged people rarely originate good ideas. Inspired people do. This is one of your main tasks, as a brainstorm facilitator -- to do everything in your power to keep participants inspired. The more you do, the less techniques you will need.
5. IDEATION: Look around. Everything you see began as an idea in someone's mind. Simply put, ideas are the seeds of innovation -- the first shape a new possibility takes. As a facilitator of the creative process, your job is to foster the conditions that amplify the odds of new ideas being conceived, developed, and articulated.
6. ILLUMINATION: Ideas are great. Ideas are cool. But they are also a dime a dozen unless they lead to an insight or aha. Until then, ideas are only two dimensional. But when the light goes on inside the minds of the people in your session, the ideas are activated and the odds radically increase of them manifesting.
7. INTEGRATION: Well-run brainstorming sessions have a way of intoxicating people. Doors open. Energy soars. Possibilities emerge. But unless participants have a chance to make sense of what they've conceived, the ideas are less likely to manifest. Opening the doors of the imagination is a good thing, but so is closure.
8. IMPLEMENTATION: Perhaps the biggest reason why most brainstorming sessions fail is what happens after -- or, shall I say, what doesn't happen after. Implementation is the name of the game. Before you let people go, clarify next steps, who's doing what (and by when), and what outside support is needed.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 01:17 AM | Comments (0)
January 17, 2010The Back End of Innovation
Here's a very lucid and well-written article by Rowan Gibson on the importance of getting your company's back end of innovation together.
Rowan's rant is consistent with my own experience. It also provokes you to consider one of the ultimate paradoxes of organizational innovation. On one hand, forward thinking companies need to take care of the unglorious back end of innovation -- all that behind-the-scene stuff that increases the odds of good ideas actually manifesting. On the other hand, most organizations' attempts to establish a robust back end usually devolves to stultifying, over-engineered, inhumane "processes."
What's needed is balance -- the artful blend of ideation, integration, and implementation.
Anyway, read Rowan's article. It's worth the five minutes it will take.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 03:29 PM | Comments (0)
January 08, 2010The Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun
One reason why "innovation initiatives" don't work all that well is because their well-meaning architects usually take them too seriously. If people aren't having any fun in the workplace, chances are slim they will ever innovate. There is a huge relationship between AHA! and HAHA!
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 07:45 AM | Comments (0)
January 02, 2010Create a Garden of Innovation!
"Companies are actually living organisms, not machines. We keep bringing in mechanics, when what we need are gardeners." ~ Peter Senge
Sustainable innovation, the endless effort to find a better way, cannot be achieved by robotically lining up best practices and imitating them. The real catalyzing agent for renewable innovation is the ground from which these best practices spring -- the confluence of purpose, people, and processes better known as culture.
From where will the next wave of groundbreaking innovation come?
Not from organizations mechanically mimicking each other's best practices, but from organizations with the authentic commitment to take their stand on ground that has been cultivated for breakthrough.
If you check the contents of the most popular books on innovation, the same topics show up again and again: strategy, systems, process, leadership, customer focus, risk, speed to market, prototyping, metrics, mass collaboration, market intelligence, technology, and creative thinking.
Clearly, all of these topics are important. But none of them can take root in an organization without one fundamental element being in place -- a consciously created culture of innovation.
Is such a culture simple to create? Yes. Is it easy? No. And the reason why it is not easy is because the ground of most organizations is hard, untilled, and in major need of clearing.
The metaphor that most clearly conveys the effort required is creating a garden.
To experienced gardeners, the steps needed to create a garden are simple. To the inexperienced gardener, it is a tangle of complexity.
Yes, gardening demands sustained and methodical effort. And yes, sweating comes with the territory. But getting a yield -- something to harvest -- is a fundamentally straightforward task.
If your company is clear about the effort required, creating a culture of innovation (lets just call it a garden of innovation) is simply a matter of taking the time to execute each step thoroughly -- in the time honored way gardeners have always practiced their craft.
1. WHET THE APPETITE
If you are serious about being a gardener of innovation, the first thing you will need is hunger -- a real appetite for results.
Growing a garden takes sustained effort. It is hard work -- most of it unglamorous and unappreciated. Hunger for a yield is the serious gardener's real motivator. Yes, the serious gardener likes being outdoors and, yes, the serious gardener likes getting exercise, but the ultimate product of his/her labors -- the harvest -- is what it is all about.
Without this level of commitment, the gardening effort remains only a hobby and does not have the roll up your sleeves and get dirty quality so essential to reaping a result.
If your workforce has no appetite for innovation, you will need to find a way to whet it. If you choose not to, people will sit idly by, waiting for R&D, senior leadership, or the tooth fairy to lead the charge. And while they may talk about growth, shovels, and the need for bulk purchase of mulch, talk will not put food on the table.
Fortunately, somewhere, deep inside everyone in your organization is the impulse to create. This impulse is innate. Your task is to awaken this impulse and help people own the effort to innovate. If they do not own the effort, the only thing you will be eating at harvest time will be your own words. (P.S.: Winter is on the way.)
2. STAKE and PREPARE THE GROUND
Amateur gardeners, fueled by visions of ripe tomatoes, have a tendency to plant before they are really ready. Unclear about how large a garden they can sustain, unsure about what is needed to prepare the ground, unable to resist the impulse for a quick yield, they rush in willy nilly.
The result? Lots of wasted effort and the kind of sweating that signifies almost nothing. The same holds true for organizations who claim they want a culture of innovation.
The antidote is a simple, two step process (though the description of the process is much simpler than the execution).
First, an organization needs to get clear about the scope of the effort they want to make. It needs to stake its territory or, more precisely, define the fields in which it wants to innovate. (If it tries to innovate everywhere, all the time, it will only deplete its resources and exhaust its workforce.)
Secondly, it needs to prepare the ground for planting.
This task includes removing obstacles that will interfere with growth, as well as enriching the fertility of the soil. Weekend gardeners cringe at this kind of preparatory effort. It does not feel like fun and there is nothing immediately to show for it. But without this effort there will be no foundation -- no ground -- for future success.
3. FIND THE SEEDS
You can have ample space to plant a garden. You can know exactly where that ample space is. And you can have lots of fertile soil in this ample space. But unless you have healthy seeds to plant, space is all you will ever have.
If you want a garden of innovation, you need seeds. Not just one kind of seed, but many. Indeed, the more varied seeds you have, the greater your chances for an interesting yield.
In the realm of innovation, ideas are the seeds. All innovation begins with an idea. Ideas are the fuzzy front end of the innovation process -- the alpha and omega of new growth. No ideas, no innovation. Its that simple.
The big question, then, is this: Where will your company get its new ideas? Is there an existing process? And if so, is this process working? Can you count on your workforce to deliver high quality, game changing ideas? Or is there something else you need to be doing in order to tap their brilliance?
4. PLANT THE SEEDS
While it is true that some seeds, spontaneously carried by the wind and landing on fertile soil, find a way to plant themselves, most gardens require that seeds be planted in a more dependable way.
If your company is sincere about its intention to create a culture of innovation, it will need to refine its seed planting process. More specifically, it will need to establish a more effective way for the carriers of seeds to increase the odds of those seeds taking root.
Yes, aspiring innovators will need to become more adept at pitching/planting their ideas. But at the same time, the people to whom new ideas are being pitched will need to become more receptive to the possibility that something new is worthy of taking root.
Having a silo of healthy seeds is a good start, but ultimately those seeds need to be planted -- and they need to be planted in a way that will radically increase the odds of them growing into seedlings.
5. FENCE THE GARDEN
If you have ever planted a garden, you have experienced the phenomenon of uninvited predators showing up at all hours to devour your tender, young seedlings. Deer, raccoons, moles, rabbits, and a host of other unidentifiable varmints seem to have no other mission in life but to downsize your dreams of winning the state fair or, at the very least, eliminate all possibility of you having fresh lettuce for dinner. It comes with the territory. And it will continue to come with the territory unless you fence your garden.
Organizations of all shapes and sizes experience the same phenomenon.
Promising new business growth ideas -- the tasty indicators of breakthrough innovation -- are routinely devoured by ravenous corporate naysayers. That is, unless the organization finds a way to protect their aspiring innovators.
Your role, as a gardener of innovation, is to fence your garden and protect your people from the overly acidic scrutiny, doubt, and premature evaluation of predominantly left brained, metric driven, analytical inhibitors of innovation. It can be done. It must be done. And you are the one to champion the process.
6. TEND NEW GROWTH
Conceiving a garden is relatively easy. It requires no special skills, discipline, or education. Anyone can do it. Indeed, anyone does do it every single Spring and Summer. Getting a harvest, however, is an entirely different matter. It is not so easy -- and unlike conception, requires skill, discipline, resources, and the ability to learn on the job.
In the same way, conceiving new ideas is relatively easy. It happens every day of the year to millions of people. Bringing them to fruition is not so easy. Along the way, they get neglected, mishandled, and trampled on. What starts out as a brilliant new possibility, often shrivels on the vine. Most organizations have no conscious process for nurturing the growth of new ideas.
As a result, many powerful, new ideas never mature.
They may break new ground, but they do not necessarily flower and bear fruit. The good news? It does not have to be this way. With the right kind of sustained effort, gardeners of innovation can dramatically increase the odds of exciting new ideas becoming part of the harvest and making it to market.
7. THIN and TRANSPLANT
Inexperienced gardeners, intoxicated by their need for a big harvest and overcompensating for their fear of having nothing to show for their efforts, tend to plant too many seeds too close together. Their fear usually dissipates in a few weeks when the first sprouts emerge, but then another challenge surfaces -- what to do with the apparent bounty of new growth?
While the profusion of greenery certainly looks good to the untrained eye, the reality is different. New seedlings start competing with each other for water and nutrients. Roots entangle. Left unaddressed, the results are disappointing -- row after row of stunted, scraggly plants.
Savvy gardeners respond quickly, thinning out new growth to make room for a select number of the healthiest plants to flourish.
Really savvy gardeners go one step further -- transplanting the healthiest of the thinned out plants to new, roomier locations.
Organizations trying to raise the bar for innovation face the same challenge. Intoxicated by their need for impressive growth (and wanting to involve as many employees as possible in the process), they get overwhelmed by a profusion of ideas and initiate too many projects -- ideas and projects that end up competing for the same, finite resources.
The result? Scraggly, stunted, and undeveloped ventures.
The antidote? A clear strategy for how their organization will evaluate, select, and fund new initiatives -- along with a process for identifying promising new growth to be transplanted for future development.
8. CELEBRATE THE HARVEST
All cultures around the world have a holiday, ritual, or ceremony dedicated to expressing gratitude for the bounty of the harvest. In their bones, they understand the purpose, power, and privilege of giving thanks. Their recent harvest may have fed the body, but the collective acknowledgment of the harvest feeds the soul, strengthening everyones resolve to begin the growing process again the next season.
Corporate cultures could learn a lesson or two from this age old practice.
Historically, organizations have been severely lacking when the time comes to acknowledge the harvest and the people whose efforts were essential to manifesting that harvest. The endless demand for output drives most business leaders to conclude that acknowledging successes is a waste of time -- a luxury no bottom line watching organization could afford. Somehow, deep within the collective psyche of senior leaders, lurks the fear that celebrating successes will invariably lead to a fat and lazy workforce.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
People flourish when their efforts are acknowledged -- not only individually, but as an entire workforce. If you are serious about establishing a sustainable culture of innovation, remember to take the time to acknowledge your gardeners. For their effort. For their resilience. For their collaboration. And for whatever harvest they are able to manifest.
Food for thought?
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Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 03:10 PM | Comments (8)
