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Thunderbolt Thinking:
The Shift From "What" To "How"
by Grace McGartland
As seen in Words of Mouth!
When you give
your people a process for HOW to think, the answers to the specific WHAT (the issue,
topic, or problem) emerge. So if you want answers, stop spending time focusing directly on
the issue itself and start thinking about ways to enhance HOW your people think about your
service delivery system, your new phase of product development, or your next five years.
For ideas on how to charge up your people to change the way they think, try creating a
"Change Laboratory" in your next meeting.
Turning Meetings into Think-Tanks
Meetings burn up time and people, but they’re still
resourceful communication and management tools which organizations will continue to use as
connecting links. Your challenge is to make those interactions effective. What if you
could create "communities for thinking" rather than time slots where people sit
robotically ticking off agenda items? A meeting transformed into a think tank presents the
perfect petri dish within which to experiment with change.
Jump Start Your Next Staff Meeting By:
- Prior to the meeting, finding a unique way to let all participants
know their contributions are welcomed and wanted (example: have the agenda delivered to
their desks via singing telegram).
- Breaking typical staff meeting patterns. For example, if the
meeting’s purpose was to generate ideas for making the most unpopular area in the
office more workable, you could hold the meeting in that space instead of at a conference
table.
- Having everyone decide at the beginning what the results must be for
success.
- Giving yourself and others permission to be silly. Use humor
strategically to energize the thinking in your organization and get meaningful results.
Start off the think tank with clip from a comic video (e.g. The Three Amigos). Our Tools for Thinking can help!
- Defining what additional resources you need, without getting hooked
into focusing on why you can’t get them. Instead, generate ideas on how you might be
able to attract those resources or their equivalents.
- If a follow-up meeting is planned, appointing someone else as
chairperson. Work with that person until he or she feels comfortable and prepared. A new
and insightful set of perspectives may emerge.
Finally, expose yourself (figuratively!): Forget your fears
about being too dominant or vulnerable and share your passion. If you show sincere support
for your group’s purpose, others will respond. Talk openly about the group’s
commitment to the project, then discuss how to expand that passion to the rest of the
organization. Serve "purple passion punch" to keep them filled up.
The opportunity to create a think tank is limited only by
your imagination and the universe of possibilities that come from it. The power is in the
moment.
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