Last week our bootcamp spirit got a boost way beyond the inbox.
We gathered a brilliant bunch of friends, colleagues, clients and comms people aboard HMS Belfast for Stir Creativity.
Lizzy Yarnold took us inside the extraordinary highs, lows and tiny margins of elite sport and the world of executive coaching.
Dave Buonaguidi (Real Hackney Dave) took us through advertising, art, reinvention and doing more of the things you love.
Zoe Hanson got us fired back up after lunch.
They were all incredible.
We shared music. Explored a warship. Talked. Listened. Laughed. Met new people and caught up with old friends. It was good fun.
We bought together…
Different people in a different place for a different experience.
And all of it created a little more room for different thinking.
What really struck us was how we all listen and hear things from our own perspective.
Something in Lizzy’s story landed deeply with one person.
Something Dave said was exactly what somebody else needed to hear.
Others discovered something new, had a conversation they wouldn’t normally have or enjoyed being somewhere completely different for a day.
Same room. Same stories. Different takeaways.
This week’s activity may feel familiar, but it’s an important one and something that we feel passionately about.
You don’t always need to try harder to think differently. You need to change the conditions you’re thinking in.
CREATIVE WORKOUT:
Change the conditions
Give yourself 10 minutes or longer if you can.
You don’t need a warship or a double Olympic champion, although those things are nice. Just change one thing.
Step 1: Pick the thing
Choose something that could use some fresh thinking. A project, message, problem, presentation or idea that’s starting to go round in circles.
STEP 2: Change one condition
Change the place by taking it somewhere you wouldn’t normally work on it. What does this stimulate?
Change the people by showing it to someone who wouldn’t normally be involved and asking, “What do you see that I might be missing?”
Or change the input by introducing something unrelated…
- a song
- photograph
- object
- article
- film
- conversation
or whatever happens to be around you and asking yourself, “What does this make me think about differently?”
Step 3: Notice what moved
Don’t force a finished answer.
Just capture what changed.
- What did you notice?
- What new question or approach appeared?
- What might you try next?
That’s it. Change one aspect. See what it unlocks.
CREATIVE COOLDOWN:
Get out of your world
IDEO has a great idea called analogous research.
Instead of looking harder at your own industry or problem, you deliberately go somewhere else for inspiration.
In one example, a hospital team studying the surgical experience took a field trip to an airport. The airport is a different world of pressure, coordination, people and complex journeys.
Seeing a familiar type of challenge in an unfamiliar setting helped them come back with fresh ideas.
A nice reminder that sometimes the answer isn’t buried deeper inside your problem.
It might be waiting somewhere that looks nothing like it.
Read IDEO: To Transform Your Industry, Look at Someone Else’s
