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Avoid being one of the 90% who run with the first idea – Thoughts from Thinking Engineer Ken Hudson |
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Now don't get me wrong – the first idea may be a very good one, and might be an idea that has served you very well in the past. However, if it's an idea that becomes translated into 'the way we do things round here' or 'we've always done it this way' then now is definitely the time to shake things up.
Situations change, technology changes, people change and what was right at one time will most probably not be right in the future. This quote printed on a WH Smith bag a few months ago struck a chord: "My interest is in the future because I'm going to spend the rest of my life there." By Charles F Kettering, who was an American Engineer/Inventor (1876-1958). So what if there might just be a better way of doing things? What if a new idea could possibly save much more money? What if a new idea could possibly generate many more sales leads? What if a new idea could possible achieve the job twice as quickly? Isn't it worth just spending a few minutes exploring more possibilities?
Many people, when they start to think of new ideas, stick with generating possible ways to solve a problem or possible tasks to do. What was interesting from the original Go MAD research into successful people is the fact that they think of much more besides. We found generic questions that were consistently asked by top performers to produce ideas and suggestions that would help them.
In addition to tasks these include, amongst other things, what resources might be needed, what reason there might be for involving other people, who they might possibly involve and, crucially, what obstacles they might possible come up against and how they might overcome them.
Thinking about possible obstacles, reminds me of a talk I heard by Helen Sharman, the first Briton in space. She trained for months in Russia before eventually flying. Helen said that most of the training that they did was not on how to fly the spacecraft under normal conditions but having ideas about how to combat every single thing that they thought could possibly go wrong and practicing. Handling an emergency was something their brains should be able to do on 'automatic pilot', rather than panicking. How many of us, on a much smaller scale, think through the possible obstacles that may arise, possible ways of dealing with them and then work out or practice how we might overcome them in advance?
Generating lots of ideas does not have to be a time-consuming affair. By asking high quality questions, such as:
- What tasks might possible be useful?
- What resources might I possibly use?
- Who might I possibly involve?
- What obstacles might possibly arise?
- How might I overcome these obstacles?
and spending a concentrated ten minutes answering those questions with possibilities (however wild and wacky) will produce a multitude of options that might never have been discussed. With a group of 8-10 people, we would regularly expect to generate around 250-300 ideas within 6 minutes. If you are working on an individual goal, aim to generate at least 30 ideas answering these questions before even considering your priorities. When I am helping someone else with their thinking I often find that it is idea number 40 or 50 on the list that becomes the top priority as they move forward.
Go MAD helped a team at Mowlem plc to apply possibility thinking to a project to reduce the area the area of plant rooms in a number of schools, and they made savings in excess of £327,000. As John Fox, PFI Manager at Mowlem said "The key to our success definitely stemmed from a 'there are no rules' approach to generating ideas; the team has been very receptive to an 'anything is possible' approach!"
A question to ask yourself: What goals might I want to do some possibility thinking about?
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Ten Top Tips on generating possibilities |
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Ask high quality questions of yourself starting with 'What', 'How' or 'Who'. |
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Ask yourself 'How might I possibly do it?' rather than 'Can I do it?' |
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Question your children or people new to the company as to what they would do with your problem or issue. Their straightforward and direct answers may surprise you! |
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Develop your rebel side. If someone tells you how something is meant to be done, challenge yourself with the question 'How else might it be done?' |
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With your colleagues, take a proposed solution to a problem and create outrageous ideas. |
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Use reverse logic e.g. ask yourself the question 'What are the possible things that would not contribute to success?" And then either reverse those or explore further possibilities by suspending logic and asking "What if?" |
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Imagine if the world's greatest expert was with you right now. What advice might he or she give you? |
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Choose a problem or opportunity that you have and come up with 10 ideas. Then come up with 10 more. Keep asking yourself 'What else?' and don't give up until you have the full 20. |
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Invite your friends/colleagues out to somewhere where you can have a laugh and come up with off-the-wall thoughts – the more outrageous the better. |
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Encourage the team to think about the inclusion of 'things we have tried before, but didn't work', 'things we believe won't work', and 'things that were invented elsewhere'. Use these as positive inputs and look at them through different eyes as possibilities.
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Successful Big Breakthrough Workshop
Go MAD recently facilitated a Big Breakthrough Workshop for a large retail company to help them with their thinking about the restructuring of the supply chain function following a recent merger. This change project will impact on approximately 4,000 people, require an investment of £60-£90 million and will be the largest change project to have taken place in the organisations history.
The workshop followed 2 days consultation, and the design of 100 High
Quality Questions related to 5 key areas which formed the project
goals. The thinking day involved the 7 person project team in
focusing on 3 of the 5 goal areas. A series of breakthrough
thinking exercises generated 1267
possible actions and a prioritised action plan to move the project
forward. The workshop was filmed to allow Go MAD to demonstrate to
others how Solution Focused Thinking can create break through's in
thinking.
A workshop participant said "I never would have believed it was possible to come up with so many ideas in such a short space of time."
A question to ask yourself : When did you last invest the time to
identify and consider over 1000 possible ideas in one day?
If you have a project which would benefit from some solution focused
breakthrough thinking contact a Go MAD Thinking Engineer on 01509 891313.
Latest Go MAD Audio CD
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