Many business owners face the situation that colleagues and teams just follow the routine in their works. When they are asked to get some new ideas, they will just make some minor adjustments on the existing operations and it’s difficult to breakthrough. Then I asked the business owners what kind of methods they use to stimulate the team to think out of the box. The most common answer is “just ask them to think by themselves, or host a meeting to discuss”.
If you’re part of the team, or an outsider like me, you may probably think it’s not inspiring at all.
To create an innovative team, business owners are suggested to get started from the following aspects:
1) People
With the fact that each person has his / her own thinking patterns, which is shaped by decades of education, life experience, and information received. Those can’t be changed overnight. All we can change is the mix of people on the team. If a team has been formed for a long time, they are likely to have similar thinking and ways of doing things. That’s team power in the positive perspective, however, that’s also how innovative thinking is hindered in most cases.
Business owners can consider stimulating innovation by different team combinations. This doesn’t mean that the existing operating model needs to be changed, but a new team combination is used in the process of “innovation”. The new team combination covers different aspects: age, educational background, job scope, gender and so on. Such a new team is named as an “innovation team” and is dedicated to come up with innovative new projects. After a few new projects are completed and people have become accustomed to each other’s work and thinking mode, then it’s time to form another “innovation team”.
2) Location
Let’s move on to talking about the location. When a person is hiking in the suburbs, watching TV, or taking shower, some new ideas just jump out unexpectedly. Such miraculous changes happen when a person’s senses are subjected to stimulations, and be reached to the brain.
If the newly formed “innovation team” just meets in the company’s conference room, in addition to the new team combination, there is a lack of new sensory experience, which greatly limits brain activity. It’s suggested that the new “innovation team” meet outside the company to spark unexpected creativity.
In fact, many of the Fortune 500 companies organise annual “Off-site Strategy Meeting” for executives to discuss next year’s planning in suburban areas. For it’s simply not easy to change the personnel mix at the top leadership, it’s only possible to make changes in locations and activities in order to provide the greatest extent of new stimulation to the same group of people.
3) Method
The meetings or discussions of the “innovation team” have to be innovative. We usually use brainstorming to generate innovative ideas.
One of the methods is to write down the ideas on post-it and post on the wall. Participants then classify and discuss those ideas and select the best ones.
Another way is to use a large whiteboard and let participants to write down their ideas. Participants can observe others’ ideas and add on the extended ideas.
Or to divide the participants into two groups and brainstorm, then switch teams and observe others’ ideas. Riding on others’ ideas to stimulate another round of brainstorming.
For those who are not good at expressing via verbal communications, idea brainwriting may be a good way. Each participant writes down their thoughts and pass to the next one. The next one can further extend the ideas or get another new ideas from scratch.
Specific circumstances can be set up to force the team to think beyond their usual practice. De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats is one of the examples of such technique.
No matter which method is using, business owners have to take note of the following principles:
- An experienced facilitator is required to facilitate the discussion
- The process has to encourage creativity
- There is no right or wrong answer
- Must not criticise others
- The more the better
Summary:
Business owners are suggested to get started with people, locations, and methods, so that the team can generate some brand new ideas. After getting some innovative ideas, it’s required to go through the next round of feasibility studies.