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It! GENERATE - How to Find Fresher more novel

© 2006 Aijaz Arain . ideas
Weeks.
Changing things You have been called to a meeting to look for ideas to improve
"if you always do what teamwork. There are six of you and the manager, Jane, stands with
you've always done you'll pen near the flipchart. "OK, let's have an idea then".
always get what you've
always got" "We need to do each others jobs" says Laura. "Good idea" says
Jane as she scrawls it up.

"Fill in team member profiles", says David. "That means extra work
for me", says Jane as she hesitates, but still writes it up.

"How about bowling", throws in Jo. "I've got a bad back "pipes up
Matthew. "OK let's skip that one" says Jane.

"I'd like to bring in my cat - she could be our team cat" adds Jo.
Everyone laughs and Jo blushes.

Stuart sits quietly. Last time he came up with ideas they got lost
somehow.

So the meeting goes on. Does it produce anything that we haven't

heard before? The idea generating element is interspersed with
evaluation - some obvious, some more subtle. The manager acts as
a bottle neck filtering and slowing the flow of ideas. Some team-
members hardly contribute while others like to take over.

Better Brainstorming Jane wants to make her idea meetings more effective. She starts
by asking everyone to write down the answers to a question she has
prepared on a flip.

Think in terms of what you

want not what you don't
want Imagine you were part of a fantastic team, where everyone really
pulled together. What do you think would be the major drivers
behind this team? Write down up to 6 top level ones. Then rank
them

Jane goes around the group collecting the drivers on a flip - things
like team spirit, internal communication and development. They chat
briefly to confirm that they know what the headings mean and
decide on the overall ranking.

Then Jane writes the first driver as a heading on a sheet of flip. She
gets another coloured pen and gets Stuart up. "OK", she says to the
group, "we want to be this fantastic team". We going to start with
this key factor. In the next four minutes I want you to give me
and Stuart 50 ideas". Let's go for it".

Mexican BrainWave Our brains consume 20 percent of our body's energy. How do we
get that energy? It comes through a highly oxygenated blood supply.

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 Standing Up gets more
oxygen to the brain Now, most idea generation is conducted sitting around a table. Our
blood tends to pool in the bottom half of our bodies away from the
brain. Simply by standing up, 15% more blood circulates through the
brain (Sousa,1998, p. 22). More blood in the brain means more
oxygen. More oxygen in the brain means more brain power. Getting
physical simply creates more ideas.

Reverse Brainstorm We are all experts in thinking negatively. In 1982 Jack Canfield, an
expert on self esteem reported the results of a study in which 100
children assigned to a researcher for 1 day. In terms of comments
made during the day: 460 were negative comments and only 75
Thinking Negatively comes were positive comments.
natural

Over several years we become expert negative thinkers and find it

much easier to find faults with something than positive things. We
can put this skill to good use by reverse brainstorming.

Start in a new place When we think, brain cells (neurons) communicate using
electrochemistry. They literally fire along neural pathways. If you
were miniaturised and injected into a brain you would see a
wonderful firework display as millions of neuron networks
communicated. Donald Olding Hebb (1904-1985) was, during his
lifetime, an extraordinarily influential figure in psychology. Hebb
showed that

When neurons fire together they wire together.

What Hebb meant was that we form valleys of thought that get
deeper. The same stimulus, creates a deeper and deeper thought
valley. In practise that means when we have a particular challenge
that is similar to past ones, we follow the same neural pathway. So
we try to solve it in the same way. But that leads us to the same old
solutions. How can we break out of the trap?

Create New Patterns Think of a number between 1 and 9

Multiply it by 9
Add the digits of the resulting
number
Spotting a sequence is Take away 5
great until you need to be Convert the number to a letter, A=1,
creative B=2 etc
Think of a Country starting with that
letter
Take the second letter in that
country's name
Think of an animal which begins
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 Name a sport starting with a 'T'. Golf of course.
Different World Views
And that describes where the ball goes when it
leaves the tee.

According to Willy Johnson, Britain’s most prolific

Dentistry and Golf inventor, every time you hit a ball using a
conventional golf tee, the tee flies off in a different
direction A flying tee causes random interference to the proper spin
of the golf ball, and therefore to its direction and flight. Willy wanted
the tee to stay in the ground and a visit to the dentist helped him
expand his mental box

Prompt Lists We use check lists to help us survive. They act as an aide
mnemoire prompting us to remember things. In the same way a set
of prompt questions can help generate ideas.

Come to Your Senses Do you say "that rings a bell" or "I see what you mean" or "He's a
pain in the neck" ? We all use sensory specific language and it
gives us a clue to our sense preference. BOS uses a simple
exercise to find your preference. Our sense preference determines
Visual how we tend to solve challenges. For example, if you prefer the
Auditory visual mode you will most likely prefer techniques which involve
Kinaesthetic pictures.

But, that preference can hinder your idea generation - "If you only
have a hammer, every problem seems like a nail" To expand your
mental box use as many senses as possible and be aware that it
may not seem comfortable:

Telling a story of your challenge - Auditory

Create a drama or play - Kinaethetic
Making a collage - Visual
Build a 3D - model
Environments Our thinking can get 'anchored' to particular environments, settings
and formats. We can go along to a 'brainstorming' session, in the
same magnolia painted room, with the same leader and know that
nothing new will come up and it'll be largely a waste of time. These
Create a place for idea anchors can trigger the same pessemistic reactions in us. So we
generation need to change something to break the cycle.

Doing something different in the process can reap dividends. Using

networked creative thinking software, a 4 hour workshop with 8
people generated 448 ideas made 1784 individual decisions and
the entire proceeding was captured at the end of the meeting?

It really murdered current practice.

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