Sayer International is a traditional management environment where rules are firmly cast in concrete, even as the company urges its employees to embrace change and shift paradigms. Campbell Putnam, Product Manager for New Business Development, is exhausted by this environment. As the team leader for "Project Paradigm," he’s been charged with reengineering a comprehensive database management system for the telecommuting application. The pressure from above to create a "transformational shift" is wearing thin on Campbell. The company says it wants a breakthrough product, but the executives are constantly looking over his shoulder and micro-managing how he is leading his team and developing the project. They want answers, and they want them now. Campbell has been pressed to provide fully-expressed plans for implementing a project that he feels is not yet wholly defined. As a result, the team has not developed any innovative ideas, and Campbell can feel their disappointment.

Sound familiar? This is a situation with which many people in business can identify. Companies are often scared by the creative process, because of its chaotic nature. As raw ideas are generated, we are trained to find their flaws immediately. This allows them little or not time for the incubation that leads to true creativity.

Effective thinking requires that we allow ourselves to live in chaos—if only for awhile—even if it makes us very uncomfortable. If we allow raw ideas breathing room and incubation time, the chances are great that they will grow into meaningful concepts. Allowing chaos to exist is the first step in integrating effective thinking into an organization.

Let’s look at an alternative scenario. Suppose you are Campbell Putnam. The higher-ups have provided the same mandate—a reengineered product for a new market—but suppose they allow you to determine how the project will be implemented and when you will report progress to your supervisors. Here’s what you might do:

1. Plan a product development phase that brings people together periodically, in a relaxed environment, to generate ideas over a finite time period—say, three months. This is called the conversation of possibilities.
2. Plan these periodic meetings strategically to pull large quantities of raw ideas from participants. In these early stages, it’s normal to feel uncomfortable—even a little anxious. The disorganized fodder can be overwhelming, and our instinct is to try and impose order so that we can feel in control of the project. That’s when "Attack Thoughts" are most likely to rise up and squelch the possibilities.

Some typical Attack Thoughts:

• "Management won’t buy it."
• "It will cost too much"
• "We tried it before, and it didn’t work"

If you or your team experiences thoughts like these in the early stages of a creative planning, development, or design process, it’s a sign that you’re pushing too hard for the "right answer," trying to impose order too soon.

True success with the conversation of possibilities requires that you give it ample time, and that you circle back as often as you move forward, revisiting ideas in order to add to them, or to merge them together.

Of course, any development project requires analysis and research. When the conversation of possibilities comes to a close, it’s time for the "conversation of realities." That’s when budgets and models and research can help you to refine and select ideas. If you remember that you will eventually have the conversation of realities, it may help you feel more at ease during the chaotic, freewheeling conversation of possibilities.

Key Points About Chaos

• Chaos is part of the natural process by which living systems renew and revitalize themselves. As a creative force, chaos helps to create new levels of order, new environments, and new outcomes.
• Mastering our play skills and using humor strategically can help us to recharge our thinking process, and increase retention and rapport.
• Creating many possibilities enhances our creativity, much in the way that physical exercise increases our strength and endurance. The more we create, the stronger our creativity, and the more innovative our results, actions, and outcomes.

Key Points About Synchronicity

• All creation springs from unconscious connections; it takes courage to walk into this space and make up the answers.
• Creative thinking and analytical thinking are not mutually exclusive. To be an effective thinker, you must use both.
• Effective thinking involves making up the answers—leveraging the connections that we know exist, even if we can’t prove it with data.

What to Do About Those Pesky Attack Thoughts
If you’ve worked to create a safe environment for sharing ideas, you’ve taken a big first step. Here’s a specific technique that can help stem the flow of Attack Thoughts in order to increase the flow of ideas:

• At the beginning of a meeting, have team members generate a list of "Attack Thoughts." Write them down and post them on the wall.
• Pull out a toy fish (any lightweight plastic fish will do) and lay it on the meeting table. Explain that The F.I.S.H.™ eats "Fatally Inappropriate Slimy Hits."
• As the discussion proceeds, pass The F.I.S.H.™ to any participant who utters an Attack Thought. The F.I.S.H.™ is a humorous and positive reminder that the purpose of the meeting is a conversation of possibilities, and that all thoughts and ideas are welcome.
• Beware of "over-F.I.S.H.-ing." Sometimes people forget the real purpose of The F.I.S.H.™ , and they use it as an excuse to be negative. If The F.I.S.H.™ is passed more than three times per hour, you may want to take a step back and gauge the atmosphere. On the other hand, if people volunteer to take The F.I.S.H.™ because they earnestly want to make a productive, but critical, comment, remember that it's better for such issues to be raised in the meeting room than to be suppressed and then discussed at the water cooler!

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