for PROF washington watson only ***

Organizations today are getting more and more interested in innovation and creativity. But how do you actually foster innovation, how do you encourage creativity? Well, I'm going to get answers to some of these questions from Yvonne Adele who helps people in all sorts of organizations access their untapped creative thinking skills. Yvonne, welcome. Why the buzz about ideas today?

Well, I think there's been a bit of a buzz over the last five to seven years about innovation. And there's this big word, innovation, and it's just such a big, huge chunk. And so, I believe in the last few years we've chunked it down a little bit further, so it's a bit easier to digest, I suppose. So the way that I describe it is that, in order to reach this Holy Grail of Innovation, you have got to think creatively as a business.

So if you think-- if you take it right back, you can say that if you start with the business challenge, and you use creative thinking skills to come up with ideas, do a big idea generation brainstorm, and then evaluate those ideas to find the top one or two or three. Once you implement those you have innovation.

OK. Who does innovation in organizations? I mean, is it just the research and development department? Who should be doing it?

Well, when it doesn't work so well it's just the research and development department. Not to say anything bad about them, but it should be everybody. It really should be. And in the companies that I work with I find that when ideas are encouraged, and in fact celebrated and rewarded, from every single level of the organization, from the security guard, to receptionist, to account managers, to general managers, all the way through the organization, then it works much better because fresh ideas come from random connections and alternative outlets.

So if your job is to be someone who gets ideas, then that's a certain level of ideas you're going to get. In fact, sometimes I find it scary working with creative organizations, like advertising agencies or media outlets, because I think, what am I going to teach them. But they need fresh ways of thinking just as anyone does.

What stops people being creative, and more importantly, I guess, how can we get around this, how can we encourage it?

Well, I think there's probably two main things that stop people. One is that as we-- have you heard the saying, you go into school as a question mark, and you come out as a full stop. So, we've been taught through school to find the right answer and move on to the next question. And that's fine if you're talking about finite sciences, maths and science and that sort of thing.

But in business, it's not necessarily one right answer is going to be the big thing. And if you stop at the first right answer, you'll get the same answer as anyone else could have got. So stopping at the first right answer is really the first thing that stops people being creative.

The second thing is I hear so often people saying, oh, but I'm just not creative, and they say it like that. And I just say, look, OK, sit still, close your eyes, let's go on a daydream. I just get them to close their eyes, and I say, go to a place that you've never been before. After about 20 seconds I say, now open your eyes. They don't want to because they've gone on holiday to a place that they've never been before. I just really quickly do that to remind people that they have a fantastic imagination.

To prove it to them, to show it to them.

And then they go, OK, what else?

I guess another thing would be also people feeling comfortable making mistakes, because I remember once reading-- listening to an interview by the head of the research lab, and he was saying that his job is to actually encourage his people to make mistakes.

Yes, fail faster, I think is the best way to put it. In fact, I'm a student of improv theater, and one of the games that we play at the beginning of every improv class is a game where they get you to walk left right, left right, and you've got to tell a story. But for every right step you've got to say the same word. So you'll say, shopping, angrily, I, angrily, went, angrily. And if you muck up, you are supposed to punch the air and say, I stuffed up, and celebrate the stuffing up. So I try to do this with corporates.

That should be interesting. I want to go through the process that you have for actually encouraging people to think creatively. I know you very much anchor it around a real business challenge, because at the end of the day, you're not doing this just to have fun. You're doing it to solve the problem.

So I wonder whether we can go through the steps of your process, and you could describe it to us in terms of a real life practical business issue that you've helped work through. Let's start off with step one, which is really to define the challenge, to find the problem that you're trying to solve.

Yeah, and that actually is another mistake that can be made, that people will say, they put out an email and say, we're going to run a brainstorm meeting at 10:00 tomorrow, and we need ideas for how can we help a big car company sell more cars, or something like that. Or how could we be smarter about staff retention.

So they might send out this email and it will say, too many staff are leaving, what can we do about it. We're going to run a brainstorm. Now that day the sentence that they're using is not really defined in the best possible way for the next step where we'll generate ideas.

So how would you define that? Let's take the retention issue, because that's a huge one.

So all the challenges should be defined with the words, how can we, or how might we, and then you'll go into the actual issue that you want to solve. So, how might we be smarter about staff retention. The way that that's structured invites lots of different ideas around that, rather than being a negative thing, we've got lots of staff leaving, we've got high turn over.

So rather than a problem, it's let's try and find a solution.

That's right, in a positive way, and a challenge statement.

So let's say we've got that-- that's step one. How many people-- what sort of people do we need to get together to try and come up with the solution?

Well, it can be done from anything from one person, right through to often a brainstorm with 200 people in the room.

Gosh.

So you can do that, but really the ideal number for a brainstorming in your average everyday office is between 6 and 12 people.

Why is that?

Well, because if you have less than 6 you don't have enough people to bounce ideas off. The classic rules of brainstorming everybody knows about, that we're trying to go for quantity and not quality, and every idea is good, because we go for quality later, but every idea is allowed.

The mistake that people make with brainstorming when they get into the room is that someone stands up at the white board and says, I'll be the scribe, and they've got the texter, and there's this mad scramble for who that's going to be, and then they say, has anyone got any ideas? And they sit back and wait.

And nothing usually comes because they're not doing anything to get ideas. And you find in a group environment there's always an issue feeling comfortable to be the first one to speak out, or you'll have one person who speaks out all the time and never shares it around.

All right, let's look at what the suggested process is that you have. You suggest a warm up.

Yes.

So what might a good warm up be, and why do it?

Warming up as a group first is really important, because you've got to just get people out of thinking about that last email that we're all working on, or where they are, so get them into a different sort of state of mind. So a quick warm up would be if you're working with-- I encourage you in a brainstorm to bring in at least one or two people who don't work with your team, so people from a different team, or even from a different organization that are in the same building as you.

Fresh blood.

So everyone would hold up 10 fingers, and as you go around the room one at a time, one person will make a statement. For example, I have children. Then you put your finger down, and anyone else who has children will put their finger down. And you try and go quicker and quicker and quicker. So each person takes a turn, and the last person standing is the most unique. So that's quite funny.

Do they become the scribe?

Oh, yes, that's a good idea and I haven't done that yet. That's a good one. No, with the scribe-- I didn't have a scribe in my brainstorms, because the next step-- after you've done the group warm up I'll get people to break into groups of two. And there's a great two person warm up activity that encourages spontaneity.

What's that

Spontaneity being really, really important for a quick decision making and quick idea generation, so they'll sit together and on the count of three they're going to say a word together at the same time. We'll try it, if you want.

OK, try it.

OK, so we're going to say a word at the same time, a random word together. Then after that we're going to count to three again and say a different word, but it's got to be associated with the last thing the other person said.

The last thing that the other person said.

One, two, three, dog.

Light.

One, two, three, bright.

Cat.

One, two, three, fur.

Dark.

Very good. OK. So you see how it's kind of like circular thinking.

Right.

You don't get a chance to stop and think about a really clever answer. You have to spit it out, so it's good practice for idea generation.

So you've done your warm up in the group, and you've got people into pairs and they've done a warm up, then what?

Then you announce the challenge. The challenge should have been defined properly earlier, because people have been taught how to do that. And you'll say, today we're working on this particular challenge, how can we be smarter about staff retention? Now--

And you're back in the large group at this stage.

Yes, back in the large group. Then you say we're going to introduce the first creative thinking technique, and that might be something as simple as a word association technique. So, you put the challenge aside for the moment, and you get people to look around the room and just pick a random noun, any thing, a word, a thing, and write it down on the top of a page.

Everyone thinks, that's pretty easy, I can do that, yes. Wall, or light, or tree.

And they're writing on their own piece of paper.

Yes, they write on their own piece of paper. Then I explain that solo brainstorming and solo idea generation will generate 80% more ideas. So it's a much more productive way of brainstorming. At least first. And that's the thing that nobody's been doing.

Right, because usually you generate it all on the white board as a group. So you're talking about doing it solo.

Solo. There is no white board in my brainstorms.

Wow.

Yes, it's revolutionary. So you brainstorm solo, then I say, I'm going to give you 30 seconds to do a word association with that first word, and any other word that comes out, just spit it out. You've practiced being spontaneous, you've practiced not having to think too much, so go. And everyone would just madly write down maybe 10, 20 words associated with that first one or anyone that came after it.

So we say, stop, and then again, solo, I'll bring back the challenge, and I'll say, now how can we be smarter about staff retention? Say the word was tree that you wrote down in the first instance. I explain, go to your list of words and pick the first word at the top of the list. Do not look down the list and find a word that you would like to work with. I put it to people that an idea is the connection of two seemingly unrelated bits of information.

So, tree and staff retention.

Exactly. So let's see if we can get an idea around tree and staff retention. Well, the first thing I think of is making sure that at all levels, all branches of the organization, right from the trunk, which is the foundation, I would call the trunk being HR, because they're sort of where it all starts. And then the big branch would be the managing director, and hanging off that-- sort of like an organizational tree.

So are we losing people in certain branches, in certain areas of the organization, and not others. So you let you let your thinking go in that direction, and write down as many ideas as you can.

And this is solo.

Solo, yes. And it has to be silence, or I will smack people with a ruler.

No creative music in the background?

No. In fact sometimes I do have music and I will ask in the first session, in the first idea generation challenge, is the music OK. And in fact I've probably only had one out of the last 50 people I've worked with who said, I can't write when there's music. Just turn it off.

OK, so they're now generating ideas in relation to the business challenge. What then?

Then I'll start to realize that the room's slowing down a bit, and at some point I'll say, two more ideas, you've got 30 seconds. And that is really quite good because you'll get some really great ideas then, when people are given a time frame. So then I'll say, now just quickly scan your list. Pick your top 2 ideas, the 2 that you think are fantastic, and then grab a partner, a different partner than last time. If it's a really large group I'll get them to go into a group of 3 or 4. And now share your top two ideas with the group.

What's really important there is that nobody uses the word, but, and nobody uses the word, no. You're allowed to use the word, and. So you're allowed to build on someone else's idea. What will happen is, as crazy as the ideas might be, that silly, crazy, ridiculous, way-out-there, impossible idea, might be the idea that someone else uses to get an idea. So, all of the ideas are valid, and they share them and work out which one as a group are the top 2 that we share with the room.

So there's a real kind of screening process at this stage. So then each group-- well, either pair or group-- comes up with how many?

About 2.

About 2 or 3 ideas. Then what happens?

Then they will choose who's going to speak first, who is going to present to the rest of the room. And we'll go around, one at a time, and the same as we did in that time-- we're basically coming into one group, but we're sharing the ideas and allowing any ideas to be built on or new ideas to come up. So it's sort of like a group discussion. Then as a group we will-- I've got a thing called the shakedown, which I like to do.

The shakedown.

When we're in this big group environment an idea is voiced, and then everyone gets a chance to give it a thumbs up for a yes, a thumbs down for a no, or a needs work. So the thumbs up ideas get a big smiley face, thumbs down, sad face, and a question mark for the maybe's.

OK. It sounds like a terrific process, and I can see how it really would be fun, and it would help people to generate ideas. From that sort of list that you got at the end, does that thing get reported back to the person who originally started the particular business challenge, and from your experience to what extent do those ideas then need further work and further refinement?

Well, there's two levels. The first level is where a company just wants a bunch of ideas that then they can farm out to people to scope out for costings and all that sort of stuff. Or, for example, I've been working with a big bank recently, and they had 3 specific challenges that they wanted ideas for. But they wanted to be able to leave the workshop with the top 6 ideas from the day, and those 6 ideas are going straight into research and development.

I've got a thing called an idea evaluation matrix, and it's just a spreadsheet basically, where what we do is for each challenge we state 6 criteria that we will use to judge the ideas that are going to be generated. And the criteria get a weighting out of five. Then for every idea that's generated you can score them against the criteria, multiply it by the weighting, and get a top score. So the top 6 ideas just pop up out of the spreadsheet and off they go.

Beautiful. It sounds like a great process. I guess my final question is does this always need to be done off site in some sort of funky space, or can you do this basically at the workplace, and really integrated it more in to day to day work?

I really do prefer it if it's in the workplace, because I have found if we take people off site, they feel like they have to be off site to be creative. So I want to prove to people that they can do it at their desk. In fact, what I like to do is, as part of the whole process after the workshop, I will pop up unannounced with a juggler, or a magician, or something like that in the workplace. So the orders, I said, turn your seats around, and we have to do something fun, and we'll do a quick challenge. Just a couple of weeks later, I will just pop up and do that.

What I love about this is not only you solving real business problems, but you're having fun as well. Great combination.

Yeah, it's a left brained way of being right brained.

Terrific. We'll leave it there. Yvonne Adele, thank you very, very much for joining me, and thank you as well, and we'll see you next time.