Virtually every business in the world promotes ‘teamwork’. Teams play a crucial role in generating profit, gaining market share, enhancing customer service, increasing engagement and securing a competitive edge—all contributing to organisational success.
Teams are the social ‘bond’ that blend people, processes and technologies. Businesses cannot function without teams, however teams need a high level of autonomy, trust and to be truly collaborative. They need to produce ‘creative’ outputs, which doesn’t happen by chance. Like artists need tools to produce their creative work, teams need tools to help guide creativity and innovation.
Steer creativity and innovation
Lateral Thinking provides a framework and set of tools that are used in a systematic way. The framework is facilitated in the same way that a conductor control’s the collective outputs of an orchestra, guiding the creative yields of the team using the following thinking process:
Creating focus – Focus gives us clarity of purpose, which is key to creative collaboration. A clear, collective purpose makes everything seem meaningful and valuable.
Lateral Thinking shows teams how to create ‘Purpose Focus’ statements, so you think with a purpose in mind. Having a clear and well-defined statement clarifies where and more importantly ‘why’ we need new ideas. People are motivated when they serve a purpose that has tangible benefits.
Providing a framework of tools to assist in idea generation – Lateral Thinking enables teams to collaboratively think in new directions. It provides four defined, yet different, techniques that enable us to:
- Look for alternatives by connecting to higher concepts.
- Challenge the status quo.
- Use random techniques to start from very different idea points.
- Agitate the thinking process by creating provocations.
Each tool ensures the team views the challenge from alternative perspectives. By doing this it helps support the next essential ingredient for creative collaboration…
Creating an atmosphere of trust, respect and fun – Encouraging Lateral Thinking across the organisation promotes diverse viewpoints, shares multiple perspectives and embraces a ‘no idea is a bad idea’ culture.
Keeping it ‘Playful, Positive and Prolific’. Allows teams to collaboratively choose ideas to work on, this helps to gain buy in and commitment to ‘make it happen’.
Making ideas visible and tangible – Lateral Thinking not only helps generate ideas but also aids in building upon them using ‘Treatment and Assessment’ techniques. It enables the team to shape and strengthen the initial idea. Understanding stakeholder viewpoints, working backward from the initial proposal, and considering it from the stakeholder perspective helps the team grasp constraints and reinforce their ideas.
Collaborating with stakeholders will help you access collective intelligence, make informed decisions and create more value.
Providing great leadership, whilst losing the feeling of ‘hierarchy’ – Lateral Thinking helps you to foster your team’s brilliance and eliminate barriers to high performance. Allowing them to generate ideas and select the best ones that have the biggest interest, the most potential and immediate appeal.
Lateral Thinking helps a team to creatively generate and explore innovative ideas, encouraging diverse perspectives and removing barriers to high performance. It facilitates problem-solving by allowing teams to consider unconventional approaches and perspectives, ultimately promoting creativity and innovation within the group.
Edward de Bono’s Lateral Thinking – a 4-stage process to supercharge idea generation:
- Develop a robust focus for your thinking.
- Seek out alternatives to current issues, problems or concerns.
- Employ four incredibly different creative techniques to generate ideas.
- Confidently implement techniques to assess each idea, to make them fit for purpose.
Find out more about Lateral Thinking:
- Workshop outline.
- Download brochure.
- Public workshop calendar.
- Enquire about training for groups and teams.
More about Richard Morris Richard is an accredited Think on Your Feet®, Writing Dynamics™, Lateral Thinking and Six Thinking Hats® trainer and has delivered these workshops to numerous clients.
From an organisational development context, he has created and implemented a new leadership behavioural framework and set of associated flagship leadership development programmes.
