| Hi Simon, Welcome to this weeks Get COACHd on Friday. One of the things that really ‘gets my goat’ is the concept of brainstorming. This, potentially, highly effective method of generating ideas is often doomed from the moment that the leader of a group, or main extrovert grabs the pen and controls what is being written on the flipchart, whiteboard or online system. Listen, getting creative doesn’t involve power. Osborn (in his book Applied Imagination published in 1955), suggested and encouraged that a creative process will work best when they are encouraged to be totally spontaneous, offering immediate thoughts to a group. He even went one step further and suggested 5 basic brainstorming techniques for us to follow. - No one should negatively criticise anothers idea.
- The crazier or more unusual the idea the better.
- The main objective is one of quantity (not quality….). The concept here was the more thoughts that cam forth, the better an outcome could be.
- Ideas can be extrapolated, reworked, and recombined with other ideas to improve them.
- The group must engage with each other endulging their fantasy, and imagination. The members of the group should encourage further thought on the subjects and explore deeper levels of their thinking.
Why do I talk about this activity? At present, we are just starting to see norms, norming back in the workplace. Whilst this method may seem a little obvious to some, and too far fetched or silly to others, the method contains a strong reminder. This reminder is that to gain creative breakthrough, we need to challenge our conventional thinking, which at the moment may be entrenched further in conventional. Enjoy playing with this model and watch out for a webinar shortly where we can practice this. Some of you that know me quite well are aware that I am working with a good friend, Kevin Watson, to build a marketing business. We are focusing on the coach, trainer, and therapist professions – because we understand this. If you are interested in having a chat / more information – please check out Acema Marketing – and download our first short ebook below. Now to todays’ collection of news and writings from all world coaching! |
