Category: Creativity

Tired times are good for my brain

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Half asleep and still travelling. That usually describes me at the end of a day with a leadership team or a client group. And it is in those moments when I know I should force myself to think harder about some creative challenges or development I am doing. It is often when my brain is tired that it begins to make interesting and unexpected connections.

This is something I know about myself and I consciously choose to think harder and act during those tired times. They are typically moments we feel an aversion to more work. For me, it tends to suit developmental work or creating stuff. As a result, when I decide to pick up my notebook and scan through some half sketched ideas, a rough workshop flow or explore the way a new resource is looking, something typically falls into a different place.

Work when your brain is tired and see what new connections you might make.

How to Strike a Balance when Generating Ideas

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When you use an activity to generate ideas it typically comes with a standard pace setting. The way I see it, the pace dial is usually set between Incubate/Slow OR Force/Fast. This is also the intensity with which we are working or generating ideas.

Force

One idea generation activity is 100 Ideas in 10 Minutes. It is really effective at generating lots of potential ideas for a problem in a short space of time. From the name you can tell the pace is high. Another activity I have written about recently is the Crazy 8s, in which you draw 1 idea every 40 seconds for 5 minutes. This sets a similarly intense creative pace for those involved.

As much as the higher pace, higher intensity tasks tangibly increase the creative energy in the room, they also force the hand of that creative thinking. There are limits and constraints and higher pace. As a result, you create pressure, for some participants (and students) they love that edge. For others, it becomes harder and actually works counter to the general mindset we need for generating ideas: divergence. Too much pressure and pace can be a block to creativity. So we have to handle this carefully and create opportunities for a balance in speed settings if we can.

Incubate

When we incubate ideas we are taking our time to mull and ponder them over. We cogitate on them and allow ideas to be twisted and turned at a more leisurely pace. No time limits, no facilitator telling you, “Next one, move on!” When we incubate ideas we actively create conditions for our brain to slowly generate new connections and new ideas.

When you look through these brainstorming routines from Melanie Pinola, for example, you will see that the majority of them require the pace-setting to be quite low. Take a walk; in the shower; take a nap. The slower pace allows our brain to continue to work the connections. I have written before about Purposeful Napping, the deliberate use of sleep inertia to unlock our creativity. Take Edison’s lead on this one.

Suffice it to say that when we are engaged and motivated around a meaningful problem, we can guarantee our subconscious brain will continue to work hard. It has evolved to make connections from stimuli and will continue to work away at developing ideas or trying to break open a problem. We just need to give it deliberate time to work and create simple methods for capturing those ideas and connections if and when they are generated. Notebook in the shower type stuff.

Strike a Balance

A way to combine the power of these different pace settings is to seek out a balance, not only in the pace but the style of activity too. Here are a few ideas for you to takeaway:

  1. Combine activities so that they complement each other, go fast and slow.
  2. Provide time after an intense activity to go for a walk or work on something else, deliberately choosing to switch off.
  3. Arrange for these Force activities to happen at the end of the day so that the pace shifts overnight.
  4. You may even ask your students or participants to not think about the task anymore. Invariably new ideas are created and developed.
  5. Plan for downtime. Don’t overfill time with your students or colleagues that is for idea generation. Plan for deliberate Incubate style sessions.
  6. Talk explicitly with your team about the pace settings of the different tasks. Build up a picture of the pace settings for each tool in your creative toolset, share that understanding.
  7. Differentiate. This comes straight out of Teaching 101. Each team member or student will respond to the pace and intensity of an idea generation task differently. Talk about how they feel after different sessions and plan for the most appropriate combination of tasks for teams in the future.
  8. Increase your awareness of the pace-setting for tasks. When you debrief about different activities consider the intensity and pace. By staying aware of how others respond to them you are better equipped to choose suitable tasks. Understand the task design and the expected pace and observe how this impacts on those involved.

I find the Force Vs Incubate spectrum to be a really effective way to design idea generation tasks for any group. Just ask any group about when they generate their best ideas and it typically is not during a set-piece task. Strike the pace balance and we are much more likely to be utilising the best creative activities from our toolset.

As ever, let me know what resonates by sharing a comment below.

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Photo by Startup Stock Photos from Pexels

Challenge the borders of your thinking

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I know that a network map of the brain is a thing. I wonder if there is a way you could map your conceptual understanding beyond a simple mind map.

Stick with me as I explore this idea of a “map of our thinking” out loud, it has been something I have long pondered and used in discussions with others. I would primarily refer to it when talking about how provocation changes our thinking.

  • Say we could create a spatial representation of what we know about a topic.
  • It might take up a certain area and have borders.
  • It might be something we can draw.
  • Perhaps there are neighbouring relevant topics.
  • Let’s say the size is relative to our understanding, the bigger the area the more we understand about that topic.
  • We might also be able to quantify the amount of knowledge there is for any given topic, leading to a point of reference of what potential understanding there still is to discover.
  • This map is not necessarily about the connections like a mind map, but more about the aggregate “space” the discovered or known concepts take up.
  • There would be an edge. A thinking border.
  • There would be unknown territory still to be discovered.

So what happens when the borders change.

I have always wondered about the power of using provocation to challenge our thinking. To challenge the borders of what we know. I imagine a provocation being something like a newly discovered perspective on an issue or a series of facts previously not seen. All manner of things can serve as a provocation. They would break that thinking border and create a new space on the map, forcing us to draw a new edge of our thinking. That newly identified space and albeit uncharted thinking would then need some exploring, some thinking and processing. But it would soon be subsumed within the wider map of what we know about that topic.

De Bono refers to how provocations can create movement in our thinking if they are used to challenge a set of ideas. Perhaps the borders of our conceptual understanding become equally fluid when we are faced with different provocations. Perhaps those borders shift and expand, contract and become redrawn as we continue to learn.

How To Generate More Ideas With The Deliberate Debate Technique

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Conflict, controversy and debate might improve your idea generation

According to research by Charlan Nemeth, and her team, a degree of conflict can increase the number of ideas we generate.

This research is fascinating as it runs counter to commonly held beliefs about the best conditions for generating ideas. These beliefs centre on withholding criticism and feedback.

In this post we explore why more criticism might lead to more ideas; when to explore this in your design process; the importance of your team relationships; practical strategies and protocols you can use to implement this approach.

Permission to Criticise

In my facilitation experience, I present the importance of not judging ideas too soon; I still think this is important. It is not a lack of critique, it is more about the timing of feedback.

Importantly this study explored the impact of providing permission to criticise and judge ideas. In this way, critique is explicitly playing a role in the process.

Here is a little detail about the studies taken from the abstract:

In this experimental study, traditional brainstorming instructions, including the advice of not criticizing, were compared with instructions encouraging people to debate—even criticize. A third condition served as a control. This study was conducted both in the United States and in France. Results show the value of both types of instruction, but, in general, debate instructions were superior to traditional brainstorming instructions. Further, these findings hold across both cultures.[1]

Nemeth, Charlan & Personnaz, Bernard & Personnaz, Marie & Goncalo, Jack. (2004). The liberating role of conflict in group creativity: A study in two countries. European Journal of Social Psychology – EUR J SOC PSYCHOL. 34. 365-374. 10.1002/ejsp.210.

I have often found that when criticism is not expected, it is counterproductive to the process. I suppose setting clear expectations such as: “critique is allowed” provides clear boundaries for everyone.

My effort to “Not judge ideas too soon” could be reframed around clear expectations, or “not judging ideas unexpectedly”. With clear boundaries, feedback and filtering are welcome and not a surprise.

Why does conflict, controversy and debate generate more ideas?

Nemeth et al describe a 25% increase in ideas generated from the debate and critique approach compared to straightforward brainstorming tasks.

Also, participants developed more ideas after the activity as those taking part in the debate mulled over potential solutions.

Even though they may have generated new ideas, I still think this task falls into the idea exploration category, the second in the three steps of creativity.

The authors posit that an environment where debate is normal creates freedom.

framing criticism in terms of its potential for group creativity would both liberate individuals to be relatively free of evaluation apprehension and stimulate them to express ideas more freely.

This connects with my understanding of self-critic and how we need to filter less when we are generating ideas. If criticism and feedback are normal we can say what we want, without fear or angst.

Nemeth et al go on to explain how this freedom improves the conditions for idea generation on two different levels.

One is at the level of permitting discourse that would otherwise be monitored. A second is at the level of stimulating additional thought via the expression of competing views. If what brainstorming attempts to achieve is quantity of ideas without regard for their quality (Osborn, 1957), the freedom to express thoughts without worrying whether they constitute a criticism of another’s ideas may be well suited to idea generation.

By opening up unmonitored discourse we encourage more criticism, as well as, more sharing of ideas. We circumvent the filters and the second-guessing that limit our contributions.

How to generate more ideas through the debate and critique approach

A couple of things spring to mind about how this research and the deliberate debate and critique approach, runs counter to commonly held beliefs.

Team Trust Improves Idea Generation

The first is about the necessary team environment for this type of approach to thrive. In a friendly team, where co-construction is high, and competition is relatively low, I would imagine it would work well.

A team with lots of shared creative experiences and plenty of successful reference points can explore higher levels of conflict with more confidence.

The levels of trust are high between the team. They can enter into the deliberate debate space trusting in the relationships around the table. Relationships are crucial to team idea generation.

We can summarise these elements as follows:

  • Co-construction – we make stuff together (HIGH)
  • Shared experiences – we have been through a lot together (HIGH)
  • Trust – I have got your back (HIGH)
  • Competition – we are not trying to beat each other (LOW)
  • Successful creative reference points – we have developed ideas together before (HIGH)

When the opposite is true, criticism can often be a downward spiral of assumed personal attacks.

Mindset Matters

That leads me to my second thought about the makeup of the idea generation experience. If the critique is commonplace the disposition and mindset of participants become even more critical.

By sharing expectations, you signal that a specific type of thinking is needed. By debating ideas and testing them through dialogue, you are exploring them.

A deliberate debate and critique approach to idea generation require an emergent or exploratory thinking mindset. We explore possibilities and potential. We respond to critique and debate the options.

In the team environment, we want everyone to be on board with this approach and to tune into this disposition and expectation. Any misalignment or misinterpretation can slide into the downward spiral of assumed personal attacks.

In the next section, we look at how to set expectations for this type of work.

How to Use Protocols to Generate More Ideas With The Deliberate Debate Technique

I use protocols for thinking and critique all of the time with my clients. These are simple rules of engagement in a meeting or workshop. Protocols are the most direct way to share expectations.

Talk about the Talking

Rather than launching straight into the workshop outcomes, or the first thing on the agenda, I spend up to 10 minutes talking about how we are going to work together.

The sort of language I use to describe this phase is to talk about the talking. We establish some agreed expectations about how we will engage with the dialogue and the session’s work. The 10 minutes invariably pays off.

Hard on Content; Soft on People

For the debate and critique approach to idea generation, or Deliberate Idea Debate (DID)[2], the “Hard on content; Soft on people” protocol would be critical to any success.

A team should be debating the ideas or content, not the people who share them. The distinction needs to be facilitated watchfully.

This protocol is broken in the way we least expect. It is often because we are too soft on content, and not hard enough. You may recall times when your team didn’t quite get below the surface of the issue; identified the root cause; shied away from asking the hard questions, or were simply too nice.

The debate and critique approach to idea generation offer an invitation to change this dynamic.

“Hard on content; Soft on people” is an effective protocol to create clear expectations, which become the foundations for better debate.

Ringfenced Debate

Another useful facilitation technique is to ringfence the deliberate debate and critique time. Setup the activity to have time limits.

Time-limited activities enable the team to introduce new expectations or reinforce the protocols for collaboration.

When I am running new routines, like this debate approach, I set a limit on the time we spend in this mode. By using this approach I can make a clear distinction between workshop behaviours before and afterwards.

You might ringfence the activity like this:

  • 5 minutes to establish the protocols and expectations for the activity.
  • 30 minutes of debate and critique to generate more ideas.
  • 10 minutes capturing insights and reflections.
  • 5 minutes reflecting on the experience.

Use a timer to structure each part.

With more experience, you can extend the time for different elements of the process.

When to Generate More Ideas With The Deliberate Debate Technique?

Overall I was reflecting on:

  • When would I potentially use the D.I.D (Deliberate Idea Debate) activity in a longer design process?
  • When is it most helpful to slow down and explore a set of ideas through discussion and debate?

I think it would work well in the idea exploration phase, as mentioned earlier. Once you have generated a stack of ideas, the more, the merrier, the exploration and debate could help with both broadening and maturing those potential ideas.

You might start by producing the first filter, a shortlist from your collective top picks and then allow each team member the chance to present and defend a potential idea.

Your Talking Points and Next Steps

  • Evaluate the idea generation methods you have used.
  • Identify future opportunities to use the debate and critique approach.
  • Reflect on the trust and relationships in your team.
  • Outline the protocols to support this approach.

If you get a chance to use deliberate debate or dialogue, it would be great to hear how you get on.

  1. Nemeth, C. J., Personnaz, B., Personnaz, M. and Goncalo, J. A. (2004), The liberating role of conflict in group creativity: A study in two countries. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol., 34: 365–374. doi: 10.1002/ejsp.210  ↩
  2. Maybe that could be the name of the tool or activity Deliberate Idea Debate or D.I.D!  ↩

The Three Pillars of Powerful Team Collaboration

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One of the perennial challenges I come across in my work in schools and other organisations is the ability of a team to collaborate well. Put simply: to create something together.

This piece from Harvard Business Review highlights a number of issues related to the success of a group working together. They drew upon a range of research meta-analysis and raise some good questions about group creativity.

I thought I would spend a short while exploring my take on those most related to learning.

A Compelling Vision

Teams are more innovative when members have a common understanding of team objectives and are also committed to them.

Most schools have the trifecta of a Vision, Mission and Values. They may also have the Whole School Pedagogy statement thrown in there too. But admittedly I have rarely come across a vision that is Compelling.

They shouldn’t be trophy statements that only provide us with useful brochure-ware. A vision statement is a chance to compel a group of people forwards in terms of innovation. An opportunity to challenge and create excitement about what the future might hold.

When we are excited about that future direction and we share it with others innovation and creativity is more likely to flourish. I suppose it helps us all understand ‘the why’.

Support for Innovation

Teams are more innovative when managers expect and approve of innovation, support members when their attempts to innovate are not successful, and recognize and reward new ideas and their implementation. This means encouraging risk and expecting failures.

The interesting part here is the support team members receive when things go wrong and when ideas are not successful. At first, I thought this might just relate to the work of teachers as they develop new ideas for their work, but it is also an issue for students too.

Generating a bunch of ideas is one step but trying them out is another. When leaders and managers give us agency and license to mess stuff up we are much more likely to create and implement more ideas. This is linked to how high or low stakes the learning environment is. You might ponder on that for a second and try to settle on an aggregate sense of what the wider school or organisation environment is.

When a school has a generally high stakes environment students and staff don’t feel safe enough to try things out. Failing is not seen as part of the learning process and it is likely that there is an emphasis on the end product or outcome and not the path a student takes.

As you probably can tell when we start talking about “stakes” we quickly bump up against the assessment system, process and environment in a school. If you really want to have a creative, innovative school start by looking closely at your assessment culture.

A Cohesive Team

Cohesion represents commitment to the team and a desire to be part of the team. Researchers see cohesion as creating a psychologically safe environment that enables members to challenge each other and the status quo.

Related to my previous point about creating a safe enough culture for taking a risk is this interesting definition of “cohesion”. When we are united together behind a common goal there is a degree of comfort, that comfort stems from the acceptance of others around us. It is this acceptance that creates a desire to be together in a team and commitment to work successfully together.

When we have this sort of team baseline in effect we are much more likely to challenge the world around us. This includes our propensity, within that team, to provide critique or feedback to each other. We know that feedback is a key element of the process of learning that has a significant impact. But the success of any feedback interaction relies on the cohesion of the people who create that interaction.

No surprise that cohesion is synonymous with relationships. This is especially true in the classroom and in terms of learning. A useful reminder for us all that building stronger relationships with our colleagues and students will help feedback to be more successful.

The other element referenced here by HBR is the ability of a team to challenge the status quo. I often say that “assumptions lead to mediocrity”. I have worked with teams where challenging long-held beliefs within an industry is a bridge too far. It loops back to the relationships we have with those working around us and of course vertically throughout an organisation. When there is little cohesion or support for change the well-worn path is a safe and predictable choice.

If we want to develop the creative capacity of our teams, our students or those we are leading we must challenge the status quo. We all did this well as 6-year-olds. It would help if we enabled those around us to ask more questions and challenge the long-held practices of our industries.

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Re-build our individual capacity to challenge assumptions, within a culture of “yeah let’s try it!”, under a compelling banner for what might lie ahead, and we all may be on to something.