Think Small. Weve recently started working with clients on a new kind of #brand and corporate culture workshop, dedicated to the art of thinking small. What do we mean by this? Weve talked about this in an earlier post, but for those who may have missed, just a quick refresher. Lets start at the polar opposite and work our way back. How do most companies brainstorm? They invite a select group of people -- the companys creative thinkers (we use quotes for a reason...wanna know why? Because EVERYONE is creative. EVERYONE has ideas. Why limit your brainstorming -- usually about something no less vital than the future of the company! -- to the managers choices? The CEOs list of favorites? Open it up! Storm the barricades! Break into song!) We digress. So, a group is invited to gather and is instructed to think big. Another term we hear bandied about is blue sky thinking, generally interpreted to mean thinking without any regard to budget or reality or any limitations at all. Thats the equivalent of saying that were going to invite George Clooney, Pope Francis I, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Bono to come to our next staff meeting. Nice idea but a bit crazy, isnt it? Creativity flourishes when reality is in the room. Not as a limitation but as a boundary that can be pushed and expanded. Think about it. So, under the traditional way of thinking, the group comes up with a big bulleted list of things that are VERY unlikely to ever happen. And six months later the CEO is heard to lament that his or her organization isnt innovative. A consultant is hired....a tree grows in Brooklyn...you get the drift. With Think Small, we ask people to come up with a list of actions that cost no more than X (we recommend $200 or EUR 150 as a threshold). We are serious here. And we put one other boundary on it: its an action that can be introduced without Board approval and within four weeks, if not sooner. Here is where things get mightily interesting. In a recent Think Small workshop, we gave every participant a small laminated card with the brand values, purpose, mission and vision. We asked them to come up with a minimum of two small ideas for each of the values, the purpose, etc. Working in teams, they had 45 minutes. Thats it. Then we asked them to share with the group. The list was incredible. It was really, really, really long. Lots of ideas. And, more important, it was really, really, really easy. And creative. And innovative. If every idea was implemented, it would end up costing less than about $900. Can you imagine? Heres an example. Take something like the Out of Office message. How about adding a free, downloadable PDF to the message with something relevant to the customer? Like, if youre a travel company, how about adding a really fun historical tip or restaurant recommendation for a city or destination served by your company? This would underscore the point that your brand has expertise and knows the in places to go. And it expresses your value of Insightful. Or maybe you organization is a mid-sized real estate company. How about giving some interior designers, carpenters, painters, etc., space on your website to give your buyers and sellers some very practical tips on decor and maintenance? Big ideas are great. Of course they are. But you know what we are discovering? That from acorns come great oaks. In other words, once an organization gets used to coming up with ideas and acting on them, the process of driving idea generation with innovation and creativity becomes part of the brand culture. And then you stand back and watch the big ideas come rollin in, baby!
Posted on: Fri, 21 Feb 2014 12:07:21 +0000
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