Playing with ideas is good for you and your business
This lens summarises my experience and thinking on how to generate ideas and have fun playing with them at work. Ideas are fun and crucial to business innovation. Without ideas, nothing new is possible. Tapping into our innate creativity means learning to have fun with ideas, to learn to play again.
We have forgotten how to play
Ideas can be had from practically anyone, anywhere and in any situation. Lots of ideas cross our minds everyday, even when we are asleep. But we have been trained to quickly judge and dismiss them. So much so that even when we do want the ideas to come, they don't appear easily in our conscious mind.
Time for retraining. To raise our awareness of the myriad of ideas that we generate as we move through the world around us. All it takes is for you to be open to them.
Playing is a way of being open to new thoughts, new insights and new possibilities. It means engaging with the world in a different way.
Make like a tourist and see everything around you as something new. Ask "why" and "why not", even of the most mundane of things. See the world again with the innocence of a child.
Play
You can leave me a comment on this video here.
Club Med commercial - City
On a train, a man pulls a face at the girl opposite him, she smiles but then looks away. Along the street, the man bumps into somebody who barges past, but the man keeps smiling. In the park, the man stands next to a little boy, all of a sudden he walks into the lake. He returns with the little boy's boat; the boy's mother pulls her child away. 'Is he mad? Or is everyone else?' Club Med. Start Living.
Obstacles to Generating Good Ideas
These are:
- Evaluation and judgement
- Fear
- Negative states of mind
- Ego and power games
- Other agendas and politics
Have you experienced any of these?
Obstacle 1: Evaluation and judgement
When brainstorming, it is important to keep the flow going. To keep an open mind to all possibilities, no matter how off-the-wall. To build upon each idea with a spirit of "why not?"; without judgement. Premature evaluation is the fastest killer of the creative flow.
Ideas cannot happen if we are constantly judging everything as right or wrong, good or bad, acceptable or silly. Evaluation and judgement only come into play at the completely separate decision-making stage.
Obstacle 2: Fear
On an organisational level - fear of risks, fear of failure, fear of being too different from competitors, fear of shareholder reprisals, fear of doing something momentous.
Obstacle 3: Negative states of mind
If your business is chaotic and constantly in fire-fighting mode, it will be hard to be creative. Use a neutral location away from the office.
Obstacle 4: Ego and power games
People who need to be right all the time, who are rigidly inflexible, who have completely lost their ability to play, who need to impose their will and way on everyone else; these people are best excluded from brainstorming sessions. If this is not possible, they will require a high level of direct management by the facilitator.
Obstacle 5: Other agendas and politics
It is worth clearly identifying out-of-scope political agendas at the start of the session so everyone knows when they stray off course. In come cases, it may be worth isolating warring groups into different sessions.
Creativity Practice
Random words can be a great way to trigger new thoughts and ideas.
Look at the word below.
Write down all the thoughts, images, and feelings this word triggers.
Think about how these ideas could apply to a challenge facing your business right now.
No judgements. Just have fun the with possibilities!
- fop: Dictionary.com Word of the Day
- fop: a man who is vain about his dress and appearance.
Creativity underlies Business innovation
See my lens on Business Innovation:-
Business Innovation
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This lens summarises my experience and thinking in business innovation. Any business, large or small, can learn to tap into our individuality, passions and creativity to build authentic, real differentiation and long term sustainability.
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