I just love it when I learn something from participants on my workshops, something that I can use to help others learn and just last week was one of those occasions.
Often organisations or teams struggle with change, how to communicate it, how to get people to be interested and engaged in it. The challenge can be how to undertake the change and ensure the workforce are skilled and competent to do what is required, in the short, medium and of course long term, if you want to ensure the change is lasting.
We were having some fun with creative, broad thinking. Challenging the norms, aspiring to be more innovative, a little bit out there even! It was apparent that this type of thinking was not usual style for them and was certainly not encouraged. The group were used to talking about ideas, but at the same time dismissing them if they didn’t seem right or they couldn’t see a practical way of moving forward with it.
Many people said how they had stopped inputting new ideas as others would just throw water on their creative bonfire. At River we have a range of fun activities, stories, strategies and models that help and develop creative thinking and go a long way towards supporting change in organisations.
This day, I learnt something new. It was a great story about Pacific Light and Power inviting employees from across the workforce to think creatively and come up with suggestions as to how they could clear snow from their overhead power lines. During a break someone was telling a story about recently having a run in with a brown bear, not unusual for them in that area of the world. Someone joked that they could get the bears to help with their snow problem, being there were so many of them. Perhaps they could get them to knock the snow off the lines by banging into the wooden poles.
Whilst still amusing themselves with this line of thinking, another person said they would need to entice the bears by putting honey on top of the poles. So how to get the honey on the poles, well this line of thinking raised the suggestion of a helicopter flying low and someone dropping honey pots on the top of the poles.
All a little crazy and out there, however, this suggestion then prompted the idea that a low flying helicopter might well be the solution. With the downdraft dispersing the ice and snow from the lines by force, no bears required.
This solution becoming the one that was used, successfully to maintain power lines. So, Brown Bear thinking.
How often do you, your team, your organisation engage in truly creative thinking that really allows for innovative, different and sparky ideas to be raised?
We love working with teams to facilitate this and translate ideas into practical, workable plans that will support success. It is just one of my favourite stories, added to my ever-growing mental bank of trainer tales.
