YES! AND… Collaborate. Innovate. Transform - Creative Gorilla #164
How might you develop a micro and macroclimate to innovate?
Operate to Innovate
“The challenge for the leader is to run the operational world and to allow people to move into the innovation world.” Jonne Cesarani, Creativity Facilitator
How might you develop a climate for innovation?
This week, I ran a workshop at the University of Bedfordshire for a variety of people in academic and business life. I chose the topic “Create an Innovative Climate.”
To innovate in an organisation requires people to collaborate and think, logically and creatively. To achieve this, you need to develop an innovative climate. I consider that there are two types of innovative climate. One is the microclimate that you create in a workshop situation. The other is the macroclimate that you develop in the organisation.
To get my message across I chose to have the group of 17 people experience what it feels like to create a microclimate and from this deduce how they might create a macroclimate. I had an hour to achieve it and whilst I was a little nervous of the risk it worked well, so I thought it might interest fellow Gorillas for use in organisations.
So
Here is how the workshop unfolded.
Experience building a microclimate
To develop the microclimate I put inspiring quotes on the table, played music, shook everyone’s hand and used a set of well-tried tools that I use in workshops.
They:
- Had a paired one minute monologue about the most positive thing to happen to them in the past two years. [To have them focus on a positive topic, encourage listening and get to know a new person]
- Reviewed the purpose and outcomes of the session [To let them know what they should achieve]
- Discussed with another partner their best hopes for what they would gain from the workshop. [To ensure they focused on what they wanted to achieve]
- Wrote four bullet points for what I had to do and what they had to do to make the workshop outstanding [So they set the behavioural guidelines for the workshop, not me]
- Next, they did the “5 Minute Product” exercise. In this the group creates a “product with a quirky feature”, i.e. a flip chart marker that improves your English. In teams of four they had 5 minutes to develop a product name, a strap line and a jingle, which they had to present and sing to the group. [To have them collaborate, create quickly and take some risk].
Relate observations from the microclimate exercise to actions that help create a macroclimate in organisations
Following the active session, in pairs, they reflected on what had been done to build the microclimate for the workshop.
After this they reviewed an adapted version of the Table of Action Dimensions shown overleaf (or below) and identified where they had experienced these dimensions during the workshop. For example, “Accept Constructive Failure” might be experienced during the product exercise.
Action Dimensions |
Guidelines |
|
Create “Flow” |
Create roles that balance the skill of the individual and the challenges of the task. |
|
Provide Autonomy |
Set up the conditions that enable people to make decisions, find information and show initiative. You might call this “empowerment”. |
|
Encourage Creative Thinking |
Encourage people to put forward ideas and suggestions. Nurture fledgling ideas. Say, “Yes, and…” NOT “Yes, but…” Encourage the use of a structured approach and creative tools to facilitate people to innovate. |
|
Allow Time for Creative Thinking |
Ensure people have time to follow an innovation approach and to involve others. Allow time to iterate over the problem and avoid premature closure. Encourage people to be receptive to new influences. |
|
Build Trust & Openness |
Create an environment in which people are happy to say what they think and offer conflicting ideas. Advise people to be open minded and suspend their beliefs, values and assumptions when facing a new opportunity. |
|
Promote Playfulness and Humour |
Make the workplace a relaxed and fun place to be and play with ideas. |
|
Foster Open Debate |
Have people engage in lively debates about issues, informally and formally. A “conflict of ideas” is a healthy sign. |
|
Accept Constructive Failure |
Accept failure when people try new things and use the right approach. This is about your attitude to risk. |
|
Make the Workplace Dynamic |
Develop an exciting and dynamic atmosphere. Accept that confusion, ambiguity and uncertainty exist and embrace them. Commit resources to being more innovative. |
|
Reduce Interpersonal Conflict |
Encourage people to understand different styles of working and to flex their own style when necessary to reduce conflict. |
|
Enable Open Communication |
Enable junior people to communicate easily with higher levels of management in the organisation and ensure different functions network together. |
|
Reduce Negative Stress |
Taking the above actions helps to reduce stress. |
Figure 1: Action Dimensions to Facilitate an Innovative Climate
[I developed this table based on the work primarily of Goran Ekvall and James L. Adams. You can find out more about the table and the exercises in my book “The Creative Gorilla”.]
To finish, I explained the three key points:
- If we want people to innovate we must build the climate to have them collaborate
- What we have done is to create a microclimate and from it identify dimensions of a macro climate
- If you use the Action Dimensions as a guide you can begin to build the climate
Action
If your creative workshops are not so successful, try the exercises explained here to build the microclimate (they take about 30 minutes). If you are seeking to innovate in your team, consider the Action Dimensions above. How might you implement them?
To Close
To start the workshop last night, I used an analogy of a crowded autobahn as an example of a bad macroclimate (see Creative Gorilla 113). On the way up though, I wondered how to end the talk with a story. I pulled in to a burger restaurant on the motorway, went in and asked for a burger. “Sorry sir, we don’t have any burgers…”
I had my story to end the workshop. As I have said before, creating the climate to innovate is important. First though, we must get the operation right!
John Brooker I Collaborate, Innovate, Transform.