Buzz: the food processor for problems at work
We’ve found that a lot of our clients at Idea Space want a handy tool they can reach for whenever they want to get a group together to solve a problem, without having to worry about how it works, but confident that it will!
In a way, we offer a kind of food processor for problems at work. Drop ‘stuff’ in the top, add the right people and a good recipe, and with the right chef (us!) then voila: a tasty dish.
So, we’ve packaged this up as ‘Buzz’, an intensive, creative, problem-solving session, typically lasting one day, involving anything from 5 – 100 people.
I’m amazed – and pleased, obviously! – at how varied recent Buzz sessions have been. For example:
- Gathering a cross-section of people in a new organization, from directors to administrators, from sites across the UK, to explore what values they want to define them
- An executive team meeting to ‘blue sky’ their business (“how would we organize ourselves if we were starting over?”), identify specific ways to reengineer business processes and prepare an action plan.
To find out more or use Buzz, just contact me via Idea Space.
The road to hell is decorated with bad ideas
However good the intention, some ideas should never see the light of day.
It may seem strange that I say that. After all, my business (and personal buzz) is finding creative solutions to problems. And all ideas are good ideas, right?
No. Finding great ideas does involve coming up with some pretty wild ones. And, with the right care, some of the wildest ones become fantastic solutions.
But as well as exploring and generating new ideas you also need to sift and screen them to find the best ones. And that is often the trickiest bit. What criteria do we use to evaluate whether to adopt an idea? Typically, groups use feasibility and impact.
You might want to try testing ideas by considering the consequences. If we did this, what would happen? What would then be possible - or more difficult? Imagine you’re looking back 2 years from now: what has happened as a result of your decisions back then?
“Necessity is the mother of taking chances.”
Mark Twain.
Problem is, it’s just when we need to be at our most creative, decisive and adventurous that we may feel least confident and secure - in the wrong state of mind - and least able to listen to and work with each other.
Hence “idea space”. The most valuable thing we can do is give people time and space to think and act.
Much needed reminder to stop moping about the recession!
Don’t keep calm and carry on. (via moleitau)
Good return to work
Enjoying the UK’s September summer weather. Just done a day with MBA students telling them about life and work as a consultant. Great questions from them. Nice to reflect on things and get down to the pieces that really make a difference.
Not sure about my billing as “Guest Lecturer” though. Lecturing isn’t really my style:)
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Don’t ask yourself what the world needs.
Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go and do that.
Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
”Do you buy this idea?
I was recently asked what I thought of NLP. On reflection, my perspective on NLP is the same as on most ideas, tools, techniques and so on. You might find this perspective useful yourself.
In my experience, ANY idea tends to attract 3 groups of people:
- The ‘high priests’ (“It changed my life. Let me change yours”;
- The salesmen (“How can I use this to get more sales/money”, and
- The users (“It’s just useful. I can use this sometimes, maybe mixed in with other ideas”).
Regarding NLP or practically anything else, I fall into the third group.
As a client, I find myself besieged by the first 2 and I guess that must be true for many of us. Why? Well, 4 main reasons, I think.
Firstly, its a lot easier to make a coherent, cogent pitch for something simple, preferably branded. I often feel that a true answer to clients who ask ‘what do you do’ is “It depends what you need. We aren’t wedded to any one idea or method. We mix and match according to need’. And that’s true, and experienced leaders know that life and work are complex, recognise our honesty and we go on to build a relationship. But it’s much simpler, and maybe attractive, to lay out a 3 point plan, roll out a 15 second “elevator pitch” and throw in lost of comments about new technologies.
Second, the “high priests’ can sound very passionate, very compelling - because they are true believers. Indeed, many marketing gurus stress the need to believe in your product and to let that belief infuse all your marketing. And there is a truth in that - it would be simply dishonest to push something you didn’t believe in. Problem is, the test has become, not ‘does it work’ or ‘is it true’ but ‘do you believe in it?’. Which reminds me of Mr Blair’s 2004 Labour conference speech (“I only know what I believe”).
Thirdly, branding and differentiation have become essential, if simplistic. If I can name my service I can distinguish it from competitors (Just don’t scratch the surface of our methodology. Above all, don’t ask if it works!).
Finally, a name, brand or whatever is essentially impersonal. As a client you buy the brand, image and ‘lifestyle’. The problem here is that, in reality, you don’t. You buy people.
So we’re back to something like this: “Here is a bunch of people who have a lot of ideas, know a lot of tools and techniques, have real-world experience, intuition and, above all, the positive intention to help their clients make meaningful, lasting changes. We care.”
Well, not quite an elevator pitch. But true.
“The chief cause of problems is solutions.”
Getting new ideas is the easy bit
Few of the groups we work with need new ideas. Most are, if anything, overwhelmed by ideas – part of the magic that happens when people get together.
But what they do need is focus, and a process to work their way through the issues towards action, to listen to each other and to harvest the ideas that come up.
