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Lessons for MBAs from Little People about Collaboration and Creativity

There are some significant lessons we can learn from little people about the nature of collaboration by teams as shown in this TED video by Tom Wujec. If you are a bit cocky because you have an MBA, then it is time for you to reach for a Kleenex especially if you are competitive.

Imagine a challenge where different types of teams collaborate. Each team is given rudimentary materials including 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow. The goal is to build the highest free-standing structure with the marshmallow on top in eighteen minutes.

Which team do you think collaborates most effectively and wins? Would you be surprised to learn that recent graduates of business school performed the worst?

Who performs the best? It seems that recent graduates of kindergarten produce the most interesting and the tallest structures. I found this incredibly amusing and a bit distressing since I have an (MBA) Master of Business Administration.

Do you remember the program, “Are you smarter than a fifth grader?” I knew for certain that this was a challenge I should avoid. However, now the bar has been lowered and it appears that kindergarteners are better equipped to handle creative challenges than I am with my MBA.

Unlike business students, kids do not spend their precious and limited time jockeying for power.
Business students are trained to find the one correct answer. They implement their plan and build a single structure within the eighteen minute time limit. A crisis ensues when the marshmallow collapses.

Kindergarteners build successive prototypes always keeping the marshmallow on top using an iterative process. They immediately start building a prototype and then when it does not work, they make changes and build another prototype and keep repeating this process. The kids use instant feedback to learn what works and what does not work.

I believe in careful planning before implementing, so I can see where the children would definitely have an advantage over me. I am also quite guilty of often assuming a leadership role, also known as being power hungry!

Mr. Tom Wujec, says, “Capacity to play in prototype is essential.” He concludes, “Design demands the very best of our thinking, our feeling, and our doing to the challenge at task.”

What happens when teams are offered a $10,000 prize if they build the highest marshmallow structure? High stakes negatively impacted team performance and none of the teams were able to complete a successful prototype.

When teams are taught the value of prototyping and a trained facilitator is introduced, performance increased significantly.

Tom Wujec concludes, “This marshmallow challenge helps teams that are collaborating to identify the hidden assumptions. Teams have a shared experience, a common language, a common stance to build the right prototype.”

I found it fascinating that kindergarten kids significantly outperformed the business school graduates. However, there were several other surprises too that involved the performance of CEOs on the marshmallow challenge. Here is a hint; it seems that executive administrators are essential to team collaboration.

Remember, whenever it is time for your team to collaborate, use an iterative process and build multiple prototypes. If you do not know how to do this, then go find a kindergartener and watch them at play.

Do you agree with these findings of the marshmallow challenge? What other thoughts do you have about this process?

Huge ROI When Your Organization Invests in Creative Thinking

Bringing creative thinking to your organization provides you with a focused thinking framework to generate solutions. An investment in creative thinking allows your company to reduce costs, increase your team’s productivity, and increase revenue.

Creative thinking requires a mind shift on your part. First, you must understand the nature of creativity. Creativity means maximizing the potential of your brain. By deliberately using structured creative thinking systems, processes, and techniques, you can learn to generate many, many ideas in just a few minutes and hundreds of ideas in a few hours.

Our focus is on business creativity for the corporation. You must come up with a new idea before you can innovate. Innovation then is the implementation of a good idea that is successfully brought to the market and creates economic value.

Reverse Your Thinking – Reduce Costs by Spending More

How can you reduce costs and still justify your investment in creativity development for your organization? Perhaps we should listen to a creating thinking champion who has real world corporate experience.

David Tanner, former Director of the DuPont Center for Creativity and Innovation, gives examples in his book, Igniting Innovation, Through the Power of Creative Thinking, of how to reduce costs through the use of creative thinking techniques.

An information technology team posed the question, “How can we reduce costs in the information systems function?” They used a lateral creativity thinking technique and specifically applied “reversal.” This required thinking differently with a resulting provocation. “Reduce costs by spending more money.” Spending more money on fewer vendors allowed them to obtain larger discounts with each supplier. They were also able to negotiate better prices on their high volume orders.

They saved over $300,000 annually. This concept saved a similar amount when it was applied to maintenance. Now think about this accomplishment. They spent money but at the same time they reduced their corporate costs significantly. By their investment in a two-hour lateral creative thinking session, they positioned themselves to save more than $5,000,000 over a ten-year period.

For most corporations the entire focus seems to be on cost cutting. We have already demonstrated you can cut costs and still make money by investing in creativity development for your organization.

Increase Revenue Stimulation by Increasing Team Productivity

However, imagine shifting your focus to revenue stimulation. How does creativity development support increasing your revenue?

One way to increase revenue is to increase your team’s productivity by identifying your employee’s thinking styles. By a better understanding of how our brain works, you can align teams to enhance their collaboration and therefore increase their productivity. By taking specific and deliberate steps to increase productivity through the diversity of thinking preferences, it has been scientifically proven that a team’s productivity can increase from 20% to 80%. (Source: The Whole Brain Business Book, Unlocking the Power of Whole Brain Thinking in Organizations and Individuals by Ned Hermann)

You can also increase revenue by developing a focused thinking framework for your sales department. As your sale’s team draws up their strategic account plans and strategies for the coming year, do they wait and hope a good idea will come to them on how they will reach their sales objectives? If you use deliberate creative thinking techniques to generate ideas, you will discover that the ideas come quickly and much more easily. You now have a creative process to generate ideas when you need them.

Creating New Markets and Business Models

Perhaps you want to develop new markets for existing products. Have you considered developing new markets where there is currently no competition? How about new processes or new applications? Creativity development can help your company discover these new markets and new sources of revenue.

Invest in Developing Your Organization’s Creative Thinking

It is now time to bring creative thinking into the corporation to maximize your organization’s ability to thrive. It is a time to design new business models, to develop new markets, and enhance your competitive advantage.

You are currently faced with important business and functional problems with no easy or obvious solutions. The solution is to invest in creativity development. Creative thinking generates the ideas for strategic corporate success by developing the thinking infrastructure needed to spark bottom-line innovations for thriving in today’s new environment.

Are you planning on investing in developing your organization’s creative competence this year?

Creativity Begins in the Bedroom

If you think this blog post is going to be about activities you can conduct in the bedroom, you are exactly correct.  Creativity begins when you are lying down with your eyes closed just before you drift off to sleep, while you are dreaming, and when you begin to awaken.

 1.)    Keep blue slips and colored pens on the night stand next to your bed.  You can then capture your random thoughts as soon as they occur even while half asleep.  Otherwise your insight may be lost forever.  I like the color blue because it reminds me of the blue sky and unimagined possibilities.

2.)    Create a loving mindset and assume the best in others.  You will then attract ideas and people into your universe who inspire you with new possibilities.  Lie in bed and think about those you love and their gifts that make them truly unique.

 3.)    Breathe deeply and relax.  Let go of your fears and anxieties.  This will allow creativity to flow through you.  As your thoughts float use the language of what is possible.  Think “I will ……….…….” you fill in the blank, smile, and then drift off to sleep.

4.)    With your eyes closed reflex about whatever it is that makes you feel gratitude.  When you feel gratitude, you create an inner life that attracts even more abundance into your life.  More gratitude leads to more creativity.  Breathe deeply and slowly.  Think and feel gratitude about what is going well in your life.   It can be about people or small events and things.  If you have difficulty thinking of something, then express gratitude because you are lying in a warm clean bed.

5.)    If something is troubling you, then think about something totally unrelated, it is helpful if you think of someone or something that makes you smile.  Now go to sleep, when you wake up in the morning you may find that you have some insight into that nagging problem because you distanced yourself from it.

6.)    When you awaken in the morning, stretch and express gratitude because you have another glorious day to be creative and to innovate as you move forward to face the challenges of this new and special day.

Creativity does begin in the bedroom.  Sleep makes you more creative.  What are you going to do when you get into bed tonight to become more creative?

Image: Danilo Rizzuti / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Developing Creative Competency

Creativity Expert, Alan Black, Ph.D. posed some provocative questions to me, “What are you doing to increase your creative skills, traits, and abilities?  What are the tools you use (mental, physical, emotional, social) to increase your creative thinking?  How do you increase your creative skills?”

After some reflection I developed these responses and realized that this is how I develop my creative competency.  It is my hope that this will spark some ideas for you to develop your own creative competency.  After all, creativity is a skill that can be learned, just like riding a bicycle.

Traits – I am daring and I am unafraid to reach out to people who are so out of my league it is laughable to think they would have anything to do with me.  However, sometimes they respond back to me and it is great fun.  I am passionate about learning as much as I can about creativity and how it can be applied to business, science, and technology.  Traits I possess are, I am daring, unafraid of failure, passionate, and I have the philosophy that if I am not having fun then I need to go do something different.

Abilities – I am always thinking about ways to promote creativity through the use of technology.  I have a Master in Business Administration; therefore, I am always on the lookout for how to justify creativity with (ROI) return on investment because that is the language business people understand.  I am always looking for examples of language to use that will make creativity theory understandable to “rational” people such as those in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).  I am often told that I am not rational (by my husband); I take this as a high compliment.

Tools – I read books about creativity and then I contact the authors and invite them to engage with me.  Oftentimes they ignore me but I have had some phenomenal successes.  Sometimes the authors find me and initiate the contact.  Michael Michalko did this and he invited me to write an endorsement for his new book, “Creative Thinkering” so I did. 

I use the public relations tools provided by (WITI) Women in Technology International to announce my latest creativity adventures.  They have a market reach of two million.  I am on their leadership team.  I also do webinars on creativity for WITI.  I am the Chief Creative Advisor to the President of Sedaa’s Global Brain Trust, which is a community of over three hundred in the field of (OD) organizational development.  I write blog posts about creativity on their site and how it relates to OD.  I also do webinars for them on social media and creativity.

I am an avid fan of Tony Buzan’s iMindMapping computer software and I use it for all my presentations.  I met him at the American Creativity Association conference in Singapore that I helped to organize.

I learn as much as I can about social media and then I implement what I have learned to promote creativity and connect with others who are interested in creativity.  I go where I have never gone before, for example, I am now a radio talk host on live radio for a program called Women\Men.  It is a new adventure and I am learning as I go along.  I plan to use this as a platform to apply creativity to everyday living and to make others aware of the field of creativity.

I am also constantly promoting RobotLab’s process developed by Lars Ringe that provides training in creativity to build high performance teams.  Our most recent success was his presentation in Copenhagen, Denmark of our white paper, “Mastering Creative Problem Solving within Teams” at the International Association of Science Parks conference.  We will soon begin our new book incorporating the ideas of tomorrow and the management solutions that create and maximize high performance teams by using creative problem solving.

I write blog posts about creativity.  I became a guest blogger for the Front End of Innovation, IIR USA and travelled to Amsterdam and wrote 19 blog posts about design thinking.  I continue to read and study design thinking to gain a better understanding of what it really means.  I recently connected with Roger Martin on facebook, the author of “The Design of Business, Why Design Thinking is the next competitive advantage.” 

Mental – I exercise five times a week.  I sleep eight hours every night.  When I am on the treadmill I zone out and often think about creativity.  I watch the news and think about how creativity might impact some of our world issues.  I am an insatiable reader of books, e-books and periodicals.  My reading ranges from the latest on Harvard Business Review to the latest historical romance novel.  I connect and hang out with international people; they are fascinating because they see the world differently than many of us.

I travel internationally at every opportunity.  Last year I went to Amsterdam; this year I am going to Ireland.  I will be going to China; therefore, I am educating myself about China.  I attend lectures and read about China.

Physical – I play with my two year old grandson on the floor and pay close attention to the way he perceives the world.  He reminds me of how fresh things once were to me and how innocent he is now.  I love to play with him and it leaves me filled with joy and new energy.  He loves to look at plants and animals and wonders about them.  My six year old grandson is just so brilliant; I love to have conversations with him about how he sees the world.  His perspective is so fresh and insightful.   They both make me start to think again about life with a fresh perspective.  When I am with them I take the time to look carefully at a plant, a flower, or to watch and think about the ducks. 

Emotional – I have been married for over 40 years and I am fortunate to be surrounded by a stable and loving family.  I do not take this for granted because some of our friends and extended family have the opposite situation.  I think about the creative skills required to stay married and to raise well adjusted children in such a turbulent society.  I am writing a book about my life’s journey entitled, “Mind Shift, Migrant to Main” and a second book entitled “Unconventional Corporate Mom.”

Social – I seek out creative people on social media networks and engage with them.  I became the President of the American Creativity Association – Austin Global.  It is a virtual community.  I seek out other leaders in creativity.  It is my intent to build a collaborative community using the latest technologies to promote creativity.  I envision scientists, software developers, engineers and other “rational” professionals meeting with creatives in one easy to use friendly collaborative virtual space.  I invite everyone to connect with me on LinkedIn, facebook, and Twitter and I engage with them.

What ideas do you plan on implementing to develop your own creative competency?

Best Place to listen to the Drifters, Motown, and eat Cuban food is at Mojitos Cuban Cafe in Greenville, SC

I love listening to music and sitting with friends over a great meal and drinks. 

However, the economic meltdown has made me much more conscious of finding a place with great value that also serves excellent home cooked food, and is loaded with a relaxed, friendly and warm ambience.

Much to my delight I found such a place at Mojitos Cuban Cafe.  You will not be surprised to learn they serve authentic Cuban food.  However, you will be surprised to learn that the original drummer for the Drifters provides entertainment as a DJ and as a singer every Saturday evening beginning at 8:00 p.m.

Six Creative Ways to Persuade Your Team to Implement Your Innovation

Have you ever wondered why it is that some people are persuasive and are able to move their innovation projects forward?  Why is it that some of us are able to persuade others to understand and accept new concepts?  Some innovators are able to inspire and influence a team to accomplish a common goal. 

Some of us have had the benefit of a significant investment in training to learn how to be persuasive.  However, even though we were taught the techniques, we never understood why some of these techniques worked.

I recently read the book, Influence, by Robert B. Cialdini.  As I read, I finally understood why these persuasive techniques are so influential on others.   Why does our brain instinctually react to certain situations?  Why are we then persuaded to do things we ordinarily would not do?

You will find some practical tips here on how you can immediately create influence and become more persuasive in your efforts to move your innovation projects forward. 

1.)    Ask for a ten minute appointment instead of a longer appointment with executives.  It is far more likely they will grant you a small request for time.  Ten minutes is sufficient time to convey your concept at a strategic level.

 2.)    Quantify and present your idea or initiative in terms of how much money the company “will lose” if it is not adopted instead of how much it will save.

 3.)    To successfully implement your innovation be aware that others need social proof from their respected peers before so they will know how to react to your innovation.  The best way to accomplish acceptance is to identify the most respected individuals within your peer group and persuade them first.  Acceptance of innovation comes from the side not from the top.

 4.)    Explain the benefits of your innovation to team members.  Ask them if they support your initiative.  When they respond in the affirmative, ask them to describe to you why they support your innovation.  You must gain a voluntary commitment, they must be actively engaged, and they must declare their support.  Now you have significantly increased the likelihood they will support your innovation within the organization. 

 5.)    Customize your presentation to each unique receiver.  Use the first letter of that executive’s name or a phrase that sounds similar in the title.  For example:  If their last name is Smith, then begin with an “S.”  To increase the likelihood you will gain their mind share, you might name your presentation, “Sailing into the Future or “Smile on your way to the Bank.”

 6.)    Name your innovation or initiative with a word that is simple and easy to pronounce.  Think of Apple or Google.  If it is hard to pronounce, you have immediately lost your audience before you even began your presentation.  Keep your language simple and straightforward during the rest of your presentation.  Many of us use polysyllabic words in an effort to impress.  The end result is confusion and a loss of persuasiveness.  Remember to keep it simple.

I know these persuasive techniques are effective in moving projects forward.  I have used them many times with superb results.  Try them and let me know if they work for you. 

What other ideas have you used to be persuasive and influential?

Connie Harryman is President of the American Creativity Association-Austin Global.  She is the CEO of Applied Concepts Creativity and identifies herself as a Creativity Developer.  You are invited to connect with Creative Connie on LinkedIn, facebook, and Twitter.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mema!

My mom is an angel now. She left us about four years ago. As I reflect upon how she prepared me for life, I am filled with gratitude. I wish you had known her. She was filled with joy and sunshine. She was incredibly feisty and laughed easily.

She taught me to face life and the many challenges you encounter along the way. Although she believed that she should submit to her husband, she often whispered to me as we washed dishes together, “Connie, you go get your education. This way you can make your own decisions about the kind of life you will live. You do not need to always be at the beck and call of a man.”

My mother was a Mexican-American migrant farm worker. She often cleaned offices and the homes for the parents of my classmates. I was quite embarrassed at our lowly station in life. She taught me how to clean toilets properly. As we cleaned the toilets, she taught me the value of how to excel at whatever you do. To just do a good job cleaning the toilets was not enough.

My mother taught me that we must exceed expectations and leave these toilets so sparkling clean that they would be the envy of anyone who saw and used them. She taught me I must always do any job that I took on with the utmost care and diligence. To not leave the toilet sparkling was simply unthinkable.

I remembered this value as I cared for my multimillion dollar clients in the corporate world many years later. I always took care of them in such a manner that their company using our services would be the envy of all of their competitors.

My mom was very social. She drove me nuts. I could not walk downstairs in our modest home, without encountering a multitude of her friends. It did not matter what time of day it was. My mom had an open door policy, the door was never locked, and our friends and neighbors would walk in and make themselves at home. They knew they would be welcomed and would benefit from my mother’s love of cooking.

Sometimes, we do the opposite of our parents. I do not cook and I tend to be a very private person at home. It is rare that I invite anyone inside. However, I did observe my mom and learned how she made others feel welcome. I always put this skill to work when I go to business networking events. I am often told people gravitate toward me and that I light up a room with my presence. I smile inside because I am applying the lessons I learned from my mother.

To my mother, who is now an angel in heaven, I simply want to say, “Thank you and Happy Mother’s Day, Mema!”

How do you test the power of social media? Vote today for my friend, Paul Lawrence Vann!

I have often wondered, just as you have, whether my time is well invested whenever I develop content for my various social media platforms. Today we are going to put social media and social networking to the test.

My friend, Paul Lawrence Vann, is in a contest to win the opportunity to be a professional blogger for a famous speaker. They came up with an incredibly creative and innovative way to accomplish this.

When you watch and listen to Paul Lawrence Vann on his YouTube video, he shares all the details about the contest. Then they set up a special page where you can vote. Now Paul is contacting all his friends and colleagues on all of his networks. He contacted me and I agreed to let my colleagues and followers know about this endeavor.

Now here is a chance for you to participate. Even if you do not know him, you know me. Therefore, I can reassure you that he is an exceptional person grounded in strong personal values. He is the author of Living on Higher Ground – How to live with passion, motivation, and joy. This is a salute to the military life. This is a story for friends, family, and the military.

I need your help. Vote for my friend, Paul Lawrence Vann. This will be a test of the power of using social networking to vote for someone within our network. I just voted and left a comment.

It only takes two minutes to vote. Be sure to leave a brief comment as well. Tell him I sent you. Click here to vote for Paul Lawrence Vann to win the Big Money Speaker Blog Contest!

How do you find and connect to the most creative and innovative women in the world?

Listen to internet radio with Kalon Women on Blog Talk Radio

This coming week I will have the honor of being interviewed on blogtalkradio by an incredible woman who won the President’s Call to Service Award.  The host of the Kalon Women in Business Blog Talk Radio Show is Sandra Levitin. 

Sandra is the Founder, CEO, and Publisher of Kalön Women an online magazine for women who simply get better with the passing years just like fine wine.  She and I have several things in common.  We both left the corporate world.  We both enjoyed stellar success in the area of sales and marketing.  We are both from Texas.  We both recognize the power of technology and social media to promote and empower women.  We have found and are pursuing our own passion!

She asked me to share my story about how I found my passion in the field of creativity and innovation.  I am filled with gratitude not only for the journey I have taken, but also because of the choices I have made that allow me to live my passion.

Sandra has provided a vehicle where all of our voices can be heard within the community of Kalon Women.  Sandra created her unique blogtalkradio program featuring Kalon Women in Business.

Life is a journey filled with ups and downs.  When we connect with other women and share our stories, we are able to empower each other and smoothen out the road.

I am grateful to Sandra Levitin for creating this community for Kalon women and making it possible for all of us to connect to the most creative and innovative women in the world.  This is an online community where we can share the challenges we face and the victories we experience.    You are invited to join us.  Please come.

You are now invited to grab a cup of coffee, sit down and listen.  You will be pleased you invested the time to hear my story about how gratitude and passion leads to creative thinking.  Since I was able to overcome some rather incredible challenges, then I know you can do the same.  This is a story meant to inspire you.

Take a few minutes and listen to my interview hosted by Sandra Levitin on the Kalon Women in Business Blog Talk Radio Show.  It will take place this coming Wednesday, November 10^th.     Click here to listen.  The topic is Gratitude and Passion Leads to Creative Thinking.

If this time does not suit you, then please be assured that it will be recorded and you can listen to my interview at a time when it is convenient for you. 

Now it is your time to share.  What are you doing to express gratitude?  Do you keep a gratitude journal?  What steps are you taking to find your passion?

Trend Watch: The Feminization of Leadership Creates Higher ROI.

How do you retain your most valuable employees?  How do you recruit top talent?  How do you increase (ROI) return on investment when there is a talent shortage?   What impact is gender diversity having on the bottom line?

I just finished reading, Womenomics, Write You Own Rules for Success by Claire Shipman and Katty Kay.  They had some fascinating insights into the value of female leaders and their contributions to ROI.

If you want your organization to increase its ROI, then you might want to know about recent research done in France. The findings show that companies with more women in management positions did better during 2008 than those with fewer women.  For example, the share price of Hermes rose by 16.8%.  Keep in mind that 55% of the firm’s executives are women.

At Pepperdine University, a nineteen year survey of 215 Fortune 500 companies and took three different measures of profitability:  equity, revenue, and assets.   The companies that had the best records for promoting women outperformed the competition.  These companies beat the industry average by 116% in terms of equity, 46% in terms of revenue, and 41% in terms of assets.  It concludes women are good for profits.

What is the link between gender diversity in the top leadership and U.S. corporate financial performance?  In the late 1990s, Catalyst, an independent research organization, completed a study of 353 of the Fortune 500.  A higher number of women in senior management results in a higher return on equity and a higher total return to shareholders by more than one third. 

In an effort to make their firms more competitive in the global economy, the minister of trade in Norway demanded that 40% of women be on the board of each company.  

If your company wants to make more money, then one solution is to employ more women in senior leadership positions.  It seems women are now the hot commodity in today’s workplace.

What can you do to attract and retain top female talent?   Women place a high value on flexibility because it allows them to more effectively live their dual lives as professional women and as mothers.  To retain these employees, companies are offering alternative work schedules, furloughs, unpaid vacation time, and reduced schedules. 

Flexibility is viewed as a way to keep up morale and avoid mass layoffs.  During harsh economic times, this is a way to cut labor costs.  Yet at the same time, companies are able to accommodate the wishes for flexibility desired by many women.

What will the future bring?  Women earn 57% of bachelor’s degrees in the United States and 58% of all graduate degrees.  In business, women comprise over one third of all graduates.  From 1996 to 2002, the senior ranks of women in Fortune 500 companies grew from 10% to 16%.  This is more than a 50% increase in just six years.  The feminization of leadership is a trend worth watching.

Do you think seeking out women for senior executive positions is a good business strategy?

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