Design Thinking is a fresh way to look at innovation. It’s about creating the opportunity for something really new that meets the needs of the end user in a desirable way. Design Thinking involves analytical thinking AND intuitive thinking – it requires both logic and creativity. Are you looking for a way to delight your clients and customers? Are you interested in creating new and exciting products and services in your market? Cindy Stradling of Athena Training and Consulting interviewed me about Design Thinking on her BlogTalk radio show – check it out here: http://bit.ly/JmEWZ7
Why you should care about Design Thinking – Athena Alliance Radio Interview
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Building Buy-In Through Brainstorming
In January, Susan Cain wrote in the New York Times about the superior creativity that introverts can achieve alone, compared with the noisy, chaotic experience of brainstorming in groups.
Keith Sawyer, a professor of psychology and education at Washington University in St. Louis, replies: “Reviewing all of the studies of creativity and extroversion using the “five-factor” personality model, most studies don’t show any relation between creativity and either introversion or extraversion.”
I’m a big fan of brainstorming. It’s fast and energetic. As an extravert, I find it an enjoyable way to come up with creative ideas.
However, creativity is only ONE benefit of brainstorming. Brainstorming also promotes buy-in by getting the team involved in the process and having everyone in the room to make a decision.
Brainstorming is important or helpful when:
- It is necessary to share different perspectives on an issue
- There are many paths to success
- Consensus is essential
Brainstorming works when:
- Participants have the opportunity to express their doubts/concerns
- The session is designed so the group will hear from everyone
- Strong personalities are not allowed to dominate
As a professional facilitator, I design brainstorming sessions to ensure that everyone gets their say, that concerns are shared and real buy-in is achieved. Within a brainstorming event, different processes can be used to draw out ideas from a range of personality types. For example, giving participants a minute or two to silently write ideas on post-it notes before sharing will appeal to introverts, while calling out ideas spontaneously will appeal to extraverts. Why not use both?
Creativity and innovation require contribution from diverse personality types and a range of tools to draw out ideas. Let’s keep the conversation going about how we can all contribute our talents.
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Doing Less to Achieve More
Tony Schwartz writes on the NY Times website (“The Personal Energy Crisis”) that “demand has finally begun to exceed our capacity. We’re facing an energy crisis, and this one is personal.” He mentions, as an example, a busy executive who has 1,000 unread emails and can’t ever imagine going through them. Tony’s solution is to take breaks and naps to be more productive during your working time. I agree this is important (I personally take several breaks each day), but it misses a key productivity idea: making better choices about what we’ll do and what we won’t do. Anyone who feels their current workload is unsustainable is not going to fix things by going for a walk at lunchtime. What I believe is needed is re-negotiation of commitments. Consider Pareto’s principle and how it applies to work: 80% of our results come from 20% of our efforts. What are some of the tasks and projects that seem unlikely to yield results? What can we let go of, postpone or delegate that will give us time to focus on important projects AND allow us to do quality work by taking breaks?
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Mind Mapping for Employee Engagement
I love to hear about different applications for Mind Mapping. Mind Mapping can be used to brainstorm ideas, plan your day, take notes about something you are reading and much, much more.
Each time I run a Mind Mapping course I hear about different ways and situation that delegates plan to use what they’ve learned. Here are just three examples:
Mind Mapping for Employee Engagement
Last week I ran a public Mind Mapping course and a department director said that she could how Mind Mapping could be used to facilitate Employee Engagement. Mind Maps are ideal for capturing ideas quickly in a team brainstorming session. If the facilitator encourages everyone to share ideas and captures all suggestions using a Mind Map, staff will feel included and engaged in the thinking process.
Mind Mapping for Interviews
When creating a Mind Map, single key words are used on each branch. If you take notes using a Mind Map, you are writing fewer words and this means more time for eye contact. As only a small percentage of communication takes place via the words we use, it’s very important to be able to look at the person to pick up on body language and other cues.
Mind Mapping for Image Consultants
Anne Sowden of Here’s Looking at You forwarded me a newsletter from another Image Consultant. Juantia Ecker wrote “As image consultants, we tend to be visuals so a mind map is a great way to see all the topics that could be covered in the training” – see Juanita Ecker’s Blog
Your Latest Mind Map
I’d love to hear about your latest Mind Mapping application, so please comment here or drop me a line!
- Susan Percy
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Welcome to our new website
We’ve changed the design of our website and hope that you find it quick and easy to navigate and find what you’re looking for. Click on the tabs at the top and then the sub-menus appear on the right. Thanks for visiting!
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