Advice, tips and inspiration to help you perform at your best
New ideas emerge by making random connections. You observe something over here, you observe something completely unrelated over there. You then bring the two together to produce something new and different. It’s this unique combination that forms the basis of something fresh. It’s why it’s called lateral thinking.
3 is the Magic Number. Yes it is. Del a Soul knew it. Everyone knows it. In numerology, religion, sport, literature and indeed all walks of life, the number 3 has mythical status. Wikipedia explains this in great detail.
So how can we use the power of 3 to our advantage in the world of business?
Here’s (of course) 3 suggestions.
One of my favourite Einstein quotes is
‘If I only had 60 minutes to save the world, I would spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 mins thinking about solutions’
We rarely do this. Often, we’re guilty of seeing a problem and immediately jumping to solutions.. Hans Rosling in his book ‘Factfulness’ calls this ‘The Urgency Instinct’. It’s our need to act quickly in the face of an imminent danger. As a consequence we often make bad decisions or follow the wrong course of action. In his experience, decisions are rarely ‘now or never’ and rarely ‘either / or’.
In a previous post, I outlined how to facilitate idea generation session. However, what about strategy workshops?
Just to clarify what strategy workshops are all about:
Essentially the focus will be on planning and decision making. For example an annual brand plan or 3 year business strategy. It will usually involve team alignment. For example around an organisation’s vision, values or brand positioning.
In the marketing world, there are 2 types of workshop we’re asked to facilitate - the creative and the strategic. Creative workshops are all about idea generation - new products, services, names, communications. Strategic sessions are about planning and making decisions. Sometimes you can combine a bit of both, eg creating brand positioning, but they do tend to focus on one or the other.
Cognitive bias is the enemy of critical thinking. It restricts our ability to think rationally and make balanced judgements. Unfortunately, we’re all biased. Our points of view are shaped by our upbringing, our experiences, our ethnicity, where we live, what we choose to read, the people we hang out with, the organisation we work for. Wikipedia lists over 180 cognitive biases we all suffer from. Here’s a few of the most common ones.
Fresh insight is the foundation of any successful organisation. However, if you’re a fledging or small business how do you get real consumer understanding when you don’t have deep pockets or dedicated experts? Well, all you need is curiosity, a nose for commercial opportunity and a good dose of empathy. Here’s how.
In a previous post I discussed different ways to read more critically. Part of this is becoming a great notetaker. Note taking whilst listening or reading has enormous benefits. The act of writing stuff down makes it much easier to retain information. There’s much greater engagement with the content or subject matter. It encourages you to reflect as you read. It helps make the subject matter your own. It keeps you focused.
When researching a topic, one of the challenges we face is information overload. Often, we’re so overwhelmed with the volume of reports / links / websites that we don’t know where to begin and can quickly get lost. We dive into each source and can get frustrated by the lack of relevance or lack of progress.
Whilst I was training to become an Executive Coach, one of my big ‘a-ha’ moments was to discover that asking ‘why’ when trying to get deeper into a discussion was completely the wrong thing to do. It was a real revelation to me. I always ask ‘why?’ whenever I’m trying to find out more. Whilst my intention is positive, I learnt that simply asking why can have a negative effect.
People need stimulus to generate ideas. Simply thinking of ideas spontaneously can only get you so far. In workshops we need inputs and techniques to force us to make lateral connections. There are many to choose from, but if you’re not sure where to begin, here’s three tried and trusted exercises I always turn to.
So, you’ve written a fabulous speech, with a powerful start and a strong ending. Your slides look great and you’ve practiced endlessly. Now, it’s the day of the big presentation and there’s a lot at stake. No matter how experienced you are, you'll go through a range of emotions. You could be nervous, anxious or super-excited. Adrenalin and cortisol will kick in. Your heartbeat will go up and your palms will get sweaty. So how you do prepare on the day of the presentation? How do you make sure you’re ready to give it your best shot?
We’ve all wasted hours sitting through mediocre Powerpoint presentations. Everyone complains about them. You all know the expression – Death by Powerpoint.
I’m not a designer, but I spend a lot of time writing Powerpoint slides. And, if I’m being honest with myself, some of my presentations could have been a lot better. So, I set myself the goal of raising my game. To make my presentations easier to present from and easier for the audience to listen to. I never want to be accused of delivering dull presentations.
Susan Cain’s book ‘Quiet’ has had a big influence on me. It’s a manifesto in support of the world’s introverts and how to make the most of their talents. You get a sense of the book from her inspiring TED talk – here. I spend much of my working life facilitating workshops, standing in front of people and telling them what to do. Despite this, I’m an introvert. (really, it’s true!) I have a lot of sympathy for introverts who attend workshops.
A great piece of advice TED’s Chris Anderson gives in his excellent ‘Official Guide to Public Speaking’ is to ‘Start Strong’ and ‘End with Power’. When we deliver presentations we often forget this.
When I facilitate, I have one golden rule. Always give time back, never take it away. I never, ever over-run. Time is such a precious commodity. People have chosen to give this up to take part in your workshop, so you need to treat it with respect. In my view, there’s nothing worse than a facilitator who over-runs. It shows you haven’t planned or you’re losing control of the session. The only time I ever go over the allotted time is when the session owner or the attendees request it.
One of my favourite Ted talks is by Elizabeth Gilbert entitled ‘Your elusive creative genius'. She discusses her creative journey and how she goes about producing her work. She describes the ‘utterly maddening capriciousness of the creative process'. Will she ever produce a piece of work as successful as ‘Eat, Pray Love?', she asks herself. Probably not, she admits.
