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Why Share Ideas?

Lesson 11 from: Jumpstart Innovation with Adventurous Thinking

Sally Dominguez

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Lesson Info

11. Why Share Ideas?

Next Lesson: The Feedback Tool

Lesson Info

Why Share Ideas?

Now sharing ideas, we sort of touched on on that. Sharing is an essential part of a growth mindset. If you're continually growing you can't do it on your own. I mean, look, maybe you can maybe you're an extraordinary person you can just teach yourself everything. But true growth is about sharing ideas and intersecting with people. And I think what people forget is the power of sharing ideas and I don't mean power like do what I say. But the amazing power that comes from you and that you feel when you just give ideas to other people. And often when I'm working particularly with branding and product developments groups in companies, is I have them come up with something really cool for like, 15 minutes, each person, 15 minutes, come on up, come on up. And then they just have to hand it to the person next to them. That whole, awesome, cool idea, and let someone else run with it, and they've gotta run with someone else's. You know we're not a culture that is about sharing ideas. Which is i...

nteresting, there's a great book I read, called Geography of Thought, which talks about Confucian thinking versus Aristotelian thinking. We in the States and in Australia and in most Western countries, are of the Aristotle point of view which is all about the individual. And if we're thinking with ourselves in the center, then generally we're thinking our ideas are our own. We're not thinking our idea belongs to our society and we should all share it, generally. And so our whole system of patenting and protecting and like, nurturing your idea and then presenting it to the world as a whole thing, that not everybody in the world does. You know, more socially-minded organizations, more socially-minded countries have different ways of sharing ideas but we generally don't, as a normal thing, go: hey I've got this great idea and you can have it. You know, I've had two of my projects ripped off very very blatantly and I remember, I remember somebody giving me a Dr. Seuss quote. Saying, "Don't cry because it's over, "laugh because it happened". Which is so true, right? Because, the idea is if you start sharing ideas, you realize how prolific it can be. If you hang on and hoard one thing, one thing forever, you'll probably see it turn up somewhere else 'cause that's just how it happens. But also, you don't grow. But if you start sharing ideas and giving away some of your best ideas you quickly learn that from one idea 10 more sprout. And the more you start talking to other people about this stuff, the more you start thinking. It's sort of addictive and catching, it's great. So a huge part of adventurous thinking is finding the opportunity to regularly throw out ideas, even if it's precious to you. It's rare that someone will take it, run with it, and claim it as their own. Happens, it's happened to me. Happened to many of us I guess. But if you don't care, if you don't sweat the small stuff, you don't fear that type of failure because that's not failure, that's actually a massive compliment, then we are great and you have that growth mindset. Really important. Another really important idea of idea sharing comes to the classic brainstorm. Two parts to the brainstorm that I'd like to comment on. So who here has in their process of whatever they do daily done brainstorms? Where you have post-its and you jam 'em up, brainstorms, yep? OK. So the first thing about a brainstorm is, I wanna put the analogy of a party, you go to a party, right? The party is fantastic, the music is going, the lights are going, you're having a fantastic time. When do you leave the party? You're happy, you're raising the roof, the party, the party, when do you leave? Do you leave when the lights come on and you have to pack the dishes up and you clean up? Or, do you leave at the key part, you have your favorite song, you go: I'm leaving after one more song! And then you go, I'm out! Mic drop, low. I like to leave with a mic drop in the middle of the action. So too should you leave a brainstorming session. The worst thing is when someone holds a brainstorming session, and you're all brainstorming away and then somebody goes: has anyone got any other ideas? And you go around the room and everyone goes: I mean, no, I don't. Like, could you kill creativity any faster, than asking if anyone has anymore ideas and the entire room going: I mean, no, I guess I don't. So you know the optimum time for a mind, a brainstorm proven time, for actual great ideas is five minutes. And five minutes is why I've said, spend five minutes under each lens. Because beyond that, you're starting to clean up the dishes at the party. You don't want that. But, there's another aspect to the brainstorm that is really really important. And that is the individual brainstorm versus the group. So if you have a five minute period, or even three 'cause let's face it our attention span is getting really really short now. Three to five. If you start with individual brainstorming, you use post-its, say, it's classic design thinking. And you write down an option, a solution, you write down everything you can think of without talking to anybody. That means you don't have that whole Amygdala fear of rejection thing happening, you're not influenced by the crowd. You're just thinking in your own head. Write everything down. Then you go to the group. Then it's really a reinvigorating the group. In fact, what you could do, is go to the group with your little booklet of solutions and not table them straight away. Go group for two minutes and then go: oh and I had all of these, bloomp. So to stage that brainstorm, so that it's constantly getting fresh input. It's like an event in the middle of the party, your party can just go on like that in which case you have to leave at the good song, or there could be a little event halfway through that reinvigorates the whole thing and then you can stay longer. So it's really important if you're gonna brainstorm to understand, we are not built to brainstorm for half an hour or more. But, if we break it down into little events, individual, group, or maybe we go group for three, and then we mix it up and change out our group, so that people are refreshed, they're never gonna get to that point where they feel like the lights just went on. Which is a bad thing at a party. Right. And this is what I refer to, the Amygdala, the pain of rejection, the pain of independence is how we feel when we're working in a group, we wanna make other people happy. It's what taints an empathy interview, to an extent. Is when you're interviewing people and asking what they want, they're generally trying to tell you what they think you wanna hear. That's what we people do, we try and keep people happy. You know, we try our best. It's a beautiful thing but it does get in the way of straight up direct brainstorming so it's good to be aware. And this one, I love this. This idea that, you know, a disagreement can be talked out and in fact the Danish do it in, kinda, for me as a little ADHD extrovert it's a little painstaking but this idea of the fishbowl comes from the Danish. And the fishbowl is everybody watching a conversation around the outside, and three key people speaking in the middle about something. But everybody from the outside has a turn in the middle. So, when someone from the outside puts up their hand to add something, someone from the middle has to leave, and these guys go in, from round the outside, round the outside, into the middle and start the conversation again. So this is the idea that everybody gets heard. So in ideas sharing, and we're gonna address this very directly in the Myer Briggs inversion. In ideas sharing it is crucial that you hear from everybody. So whether that's easier done on post-its or easier done by making sure everyone in the room has a turn, or easier done by briefing people before it, so that they can think of things in their own time, 'cause not everyone is a quick thinker. That's a really important part.

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Creativity Quiz Worksheet
Rebound Worksheet
Core Value Worksheet
Innovation Quadrant Worksheet
Which Lens Worksheet
Backcasting Worksheet

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Ratings and Reviews

Ivana Vucinic
 

This class is truly AMAZING! It is really unique and it got me thinking in new and innovative ways. Very much out of the box thinking! Makes you become courageous, Well done, Sally!!!

Sukey Dominguez
 

Jumpstart Innovation with Adventurous Thinking exceeded my expectations! Sally brought practical tools that, "lenses" to flip every situation inside out and find the possibilities in every situation. As one who works to lead teams, healthcare providers facing incredible demands to achieve results in population health / ultimately global health and the wellness of business operations, I'm thrilled to have found this course. Design is one thing, taking risk is another. I'm inspired by Sally because she drives energy to see what CAN be in the future. This is a unique class and I look forward to her next offering.

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