The Hindu Business Line : How to get really new ideas

OVER the last several weeks I have been working with one of India's largest businesses. It has several strategic business units that operate independently. Some of them are very old businesses strongly entrenched in their line of business, holding a dominant position. Some of them are quite new.

The entire group is looking at the future and attempting to define the kind of businesses it should be running five years from now.

It had already done a lot of groundwork and looked at several new businesses in their internal brainstorming sessions. Not satisfied, it sought external facilitation.

The challenge: To take a big leap and help the managers to look at new businesses they had not thought of before!

I started speaking to them about the work they had already done through internal brainstorming. I was keen to understand how they went about this work.

In most cases a group of about 10-12 managers (veterans who had been with the company for more than 10 years) met together. These were cross-functional groups.

Very often, the meetings were held in the office conference rooms.

The senior-most persons ran the meetings, which were quite democratic.

All ideas were discussed and evaluated openly as they came up.

Some members were more prolific than others in generating ideas.

Some managers tended to dominate the meetings either because of their seniority, eloquence or ability to forcefully make themselves heard.

There were a few who did not participate fully because they were shy or felt intimidated and threatened by how ideas were handled.

In spite of a request to keep cellphones off, managers continued to receive calls. This meant two or three of them were missing at any given time.

As they were in the office they also popped in and out to attend urgent meetings.

Meetings were long and went beyond office hours.

After about three rounds of work they realised that most of the ideas were recycled in different forms. It was becoming increasingly difficult to get fresh ideas.

Because of the strictly confidential nature of the work they could not involve some of the bright young minds which were new to the company.

Here is an insight into what we would face as we prepared for the new sessions: We had to have the same managers. We could not get fresh minds. They had to operate under very strict criteria on what businesses they could consider or not consider.

The group believed that it was not possible to think beyond what they had already done. Some of the managers were beginning to be cynical and were also getting to be vocal about it. There was a fear that only traditional ideas would be finally accepted.

Here are a few things my client and I did while planning for these sessions: We accepted the conditions under which we would need to run the sessions rather than resist them.

We looked at what we could do differently in spite of the list of dos and don'ts.

This helped us enormously in designing the sessions.

We positioned these sessions as `Creative Block Busting' workshops and not as brainstorming sessions for `new business ideas.'

We organised these workshops in outside venues and not in office conference rooms.

We organised the venue to look very informal. There were toys, game stations and Mr Bean on the screen as participants walked in. They could play whenever they wanted during the course of the workshop.

We requested that they keep their cellphones in silent mode. If they had to take urgent calls they could go out and do it.

We designed the agenda with lots of things for them to do. There were no Powerpoint presentations or theory about creativity. They exercised their imagination from the beginning. We used film clips, sound tracks and other stimulus material that they normally do not use.

We listened to everybody's views and opinions and valued them. We captured all ideas on Post-its. There were no dissipating debates that derailed discussions or hurt egos.

We used provocative questions to stretch their thinking. For example: What are the businesses your company will never have the guts to look at? If you had complete authority to decide on the choice of businesses, which businesses would you recommend? What are the businesses that the media will never expect your company to enter? If you are absolutely, positively certain that you will succeed, which businesses will you consider? If failure will not be held against you which businesses would you take the risk on? Which businesses might some of your most admired competitors consider?

Did all this work?

Here is what happened.

While everyone participated well, it took some time for them to really unwind. I found the managers relaxing, laughing and playing the various games only after the first break.

Participants kept asking questions even when there was no need. `Class participation' had become a habit. I had to deal with it gently and steer them back to what they were doing.

Doing individual work with concentration was very difficult for most of them. Discussions, debates and expressing views were more in line with their day-to-day habit. I had to coax them to stay away from such distractions.

Everyone was keen to look at everyone else's ideas. So we encouraged them to do that and build on other people's ideas. We did not allow any criticism, snide remarks or sarcastic comments.

Managing censorship was the most difficult part. Participants tended to censor their own ideas often. It took a while for them to get out of this habit.

There was constant concern about `feasibility' and `do-ability' of ideas. You had to coach them to suspend such thinking and generate ideas without inhibition.

They found comfort in numbers. A couple of hundred Post-its on the walls meant that a lot of work is done. They were not just having fun. They were working too.

Managing convergence was more difficult than generating ideas. People tend to rush into making judgments or dismiss something as `me too.' It was tough to get them to approach selection, development, articulation and evaluation of ideas in a systematic and disciplined manner.

There was a sense of surprise and accomplishment when they saw that they had generated several new ideas (something that they had never even thought of).

Finally there was disbelief when they saw how they developed this completely new idea into a possible solution!

Here is how one of them summed up the workshop: "This is not rocket science. All of this is in our mind. Creating the right climate is within us. All the ideas are within us. We just need a little bit of nudging to get out of our own mental blocks. The difficulty is in having the will power and commitment to practice what we have learnt!"

(The author is a creative consultant and Partner, IDEAS-RS)

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