I’m betting you’ve had the same experience I have in most organizational brainstorming sessions.

You are in a room with beige (or otherwise boring) walls and a conference table. Sometime during the meeting, there is a problem or challenge identified. Someone standing near a flipchart or whiteboard picks up a pen and the brainstorming begins. After a momentary silence, a few ideas are suggested - at first they come almost faster than the person can write them down. Then after a short pause a couple of more ideas are added. Then comes a longer pause.

This pause seems like forever (though it has probably been 15 seconds at the most), and the group decides the brainstorming is over - and the problem will be solved using one of the 5-10 items on the list.

There are likely good ideas on the list. But the brainstorming began with the intent of coming up with as many ideas as possible - alternate ways to solve the problem or overcome the obstacle. Heck, someone may have even said, “We need to find a solution that is out-of-the-box.”

My guess is that there are no out-of-the-box ideas in those 5-10 on your typical list. And I know that smart people can always come up with more than this small number of possibilities.

The dynamics of brainstorming and causes of the challenges I am outlining are more complex that this article can address. So I will simply stick with what to do after the long pause . . . what to do to spur more ideas than those initially placed on the flipchart. In practical terms, the way to do that is with questions.

Seven Spurring Questions

How would X do it (or solve this problem)? In the place of “X” you can place another department, another company, your Mother, a 10 year old, Benjamin Franklin, a character from a book or movie, anybody.

What would we do if the problem were twice as big (or half as big)? Looking at extremes is another way to spur new ideas.

How would we solve the opposite problem? By reversing the problem and making that list, we are often able then to turn those answers back around into new alternatives.

What does this problem remind us of? If we can find other situations in our experience to connect to this situation, new ideas will come out.

How is this problem like X? In this case the “X” is any word or phrase. By forcing the connections to the random word, new ideas will burst forth. To get your word you can open a dictionary to a random page and find a random word or you can use a random word list that you have previously prepared. Email us at wordlist@KevinEikenberry.com to get our random word list that you can use immediately.

How can we do A and B? Perhaps the best alternative isn’t with one idea, but a by doing more than one thing.

How can we combine some of the ideas we have to find new and different ideas?

Of course there are more than seven questions and there are many fine books that talk about creativity enhancement. You can learn more techniques and approaches, but if you start with these seven questions, you’ll be amazed at how many more (and useful) ideas you will find, that otherwise would have never overcome “the pause.”

These questions can be asked by the meeting facilitator or leader, or by anyone in the group. They can also be asked internally, to help you personally spur new thoughts.

However you use them, these questions will work. Each of them creates a new perspective and generates new connections in our minds. It is with these new perspectives and connections that more, and potentially better, ideas will be generated.

Kevin is the Chief Potential Officer of The Kevin Eikenberry Group (http://KevinEikenberry.com), a learning consulting company that helps Clients reach their potential through a variety of training, consulting and speaking services. To receive your free special report on Unleashing Your Potential go to http://www.kevineikenberry.com/uypw/index.asp or call us at (317) 387-1424 or 888.LEARNER.

Share This

Do you ever find yourself asking, “What can I do or say to fix this situation now?”

In the movie ‘The Godfather,’ there’s a scene in it where Robert Duvall (Tom) is given some news that Marlon Brando (Godfather) isn’t going to like at all. So as soon as he can walk out the door, he does… to go break the bad news. The guy who told Tom the bad news wants to know what the hurry was. Tom says that Godfather likes to hear bad news right away. Well, because Godfather got the information quickly, he was able to take immediate action and get his creative plan under way… And as a result, he got his way.

Oftentimes, mistakes and bad outcomes can be fixed, but only if we act FAST. In my business career, when there is a problem with an important issue, I want to know about it as fast as possible. So I could worry longer? No, so I could jump in my car and visit or pick up the phone within seconds. Not minutes. Seconds.

One time I did the craziest stunt to keep a client who said they never wanted to work with my book company again. See, one of my employees didn’t program the newest cash register with all our titles before it was packed for an event. So when the customers were lining up to pay for their books, none of their purchases were scanning properly. So now each title had to be manually entered into the register… a painfully slow process when dozens of people are waiting and waiting, many not very quietly. Well, my contact person wasn’t pleased.

When the phone call came in a month later, telling us we were out, my office immediately called me on my cell phone, I went to the office, picked up all my sales awards, packed them into a large duffle bag and proceeded to this client’s office… a two and a half hour drive away. When I walked in the door, you should’ve seen her face. Total shock. She told me that the board made the decision, and that there was no sense in discussing it.

I made the case that if there were anyone in the world she could trust to fix this situation, never to allow this to happen again, it was me. That’s when I began pulling the awards out, explaining what they were for. Not to impress her, but to show her it wasn’t just talk. These awards, I explained were the results of total commitment to her and others in positions similar to hers. I was recognized as the best, and that’s what I promised her… the best from the best. I kept the account. They were worth over $25,000 in sales per year.

By immediate action, creativity, and by not accepting defeat, a lot of people won. She won. I won. And all those book lovers she was responsible for won big. And more importantly, I learned, again, that “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.”

So please, please… when all seems lost, and I know sometimes the situations we often find ourselves in seem hopeless, 90+% of the time it is not hopeless. But 90% of the people quit. I feel your frustration. No one is immune from life’s crashing waves of defeat and torment. No one. But the only time we can truly lose is when we quit. Breakthroughs usually come when it looks the darkest.

And when you find yourself in no-win situations and consistently keep plugging away, you’ll succeed so many times that you will learn this, too. “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.” So pick up the phone, get in your car, write that email, make that apology, do whatever you have to do to fix whatever isn’t working. Now. Yeah, right now. You’ll be so happy you did.

Even if things don’t work out this time, you’ll have put yourself in a position to win. Do that enough times and you’ll be… A winner in life.

WINNING BELIEFS:

– I always look for ways to come out on top

– Victory is always close by

– I always believe I will succeed no matter what

– I am a winner

– I create other winners

– I am surrounding myself with winners

EMPOWERING QUOTE:
“The most rewarding things you do in life are often the ones that look like they cannot be done.”
-Arnold Palmer

What if you had the same minute-by-minute thoughts as the super successful? Mike Brescia has developed the ultimate mental conditioning programs that can help anyone wipe out intense fears and enjoy huge successes in all areas of life.

Mike Brescia is the creator of the world-renowned Think Right Now! Accelerated Success Conditioning Programs. Mike becomes your own personal success coach - guiding, motivating, inspiring, teaching and moving you in a way that only a best friend would. Mike will inspire you to take a hard look at yourself and be accountable for what you are in life, to be dissatisfied with the “old you” and the bad habits, to take action, ready to happily do whatever it takes to win the game of life.

Find descriptions of all his products at www.thinkrightnow.net

Share This

Well there certainly are some creative people in the world that’s for sure and everywhere we go we see creativeness. For instance if you pick up a paper and you read the articles many of them were written with a little creativity and the people they interview are in business, sports, politics, nonprofit organizations or just enjoying life and in their own world creativity, this is evident by their quotes in the paper. When we look in the newspaper we see cartoons made by creative people as they use cartoons in humor so we can laugh at ourselves and think.

When we watch television we see creativity on every TV show, movie and often even on the nightly news. As we look around the home we see various consumer items that were designed by people who are highly creative. Without this creativity life would be pretty boring and dull. Luckily for us in the United States of America creativity has gone ballistic and it has been able to do so because of the entrepreneurial spirit and the innovative mindset, which is allowed in free societies.

Freedom and liberty have a lot to do with creativity and we must thank our founding fathers for being so creative to come up with such a great country. In fact the United States of America is the greatest single nation ever created in the history of mankind and it has in it the most creative people. That is to say people who have gone creatively ballistic.

In fact there is no telling what the creative people in this country will come up with next or what discovery they may make or what products they might build. Creativity makes the world worth living and it makes it fun and we should celebrate the creativity in our nation as much as we celebrate our national unity. Without creativity this would be one Boring Place. I hope you will consider this creative thought and think on this in 2006.

Lance Winslow, a retired entrepreneur, adventurer, modern day philosopher and perpetual tourist.

Share This