Get your message across, supercharge productivity and spend less time in meetings Information overload is a significant and growing challenge, impacting both individuals and organisations. It slows down cognitive functions, affects mental health, disrupts decision-making and reduces productivity. The constant … Continue reading
Tag Archives: Creative Thinking
Neurodivergents: Assemble! Superpowers for staff. How ‘Six Hat’ thinking boosts engagement with neurodivergent workers
According to the National Autistic Society, 45% of neurodivergent people have lost or left their job because of challenges due to being misunderstood. In today’s diverse work environment, embracing neurodivergence is both an ethical imperative and a strategic advantage. … Continue reading
Are you ready to revolutionise the way you tackle meetings?
Six Thinking Hats® is a game-changing tool that has transformed decision-making processes for businesses around the world. Why Six Thinking Hats®? Developed by Dr. Edward de Bono, the Six Thinking Hats® framework simplifies thinking by breaking it down into six … Continue reading
Why creativity is your most important business asset
Creativity is not just about artistic endeavours, it’s a strategic tool that fosters growth, competitiveness and sustainability. Several businesses have struggled or ultimately failed due to a lack of creativity, innovation or adaptation to changing market conditions. While it’s not … Continue reading
Once you’ve made your mind up… changing it can be really difficult… or can it?
In business, changing your mind can be seen as a weakness and that you have a lack of clarity or direction. People who change their minds can be considered unreliable or indifferent. Changing your mind in business, known as pivoting, … Continue reading
How Lateral Thinking enriches team creativity and collaboration
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 … Continue reading
Why creativity is essential for strategic thinking
Before beginning a strategic thinking or strategy development activity, we often spend excessive time and effort on determining the rigorous analytical, solution-oriented processes and skills needed. These methods are crucial and should not be discarded. They help us understand an … Continue reading
Allowing people’s creativity to flow when writing for business
Richard Morris, Accredited Trainer Creativity in business enhances success. It fosters engagement, teamwork, innovative ideas, product and service enhancements. Breaking old thinking habits and work patterns. But how often do businesses actually promote creativity in their business writing? In creative … Continue reading
Creative leadership
As the saying goes, ‘In calm water, every ship has a good captain’. It’s only in turbulent times that leaders need to show what they are made of. With financial storms looming, what can leaders do to keep their organisations … Continue reading
Agile decision-making
Although the Agile model was developed with software design in mind, two of its principles have been widely adopted by businesses in all sectors: Valuing individuals and interactions over processes. Responding to change over following a plan. These are appealing, … Continue reading
Design thinking
The business world has been abuzz with the concept of Design Thinking over the last few years – and with good reason. This non-linear, iterative process is a great way to avoid the trap of rushing in to solve a … Continue reading
Sur/petition – focus on value creation
“Sur/petition: creating value monopolies when everyone else is merely competing” Edward de Bono Competition is based on the idea of different individuals or companies striving to win a part of the same thing. Dr Edward de Bono suggests an alternative: … Continue reading
Leaders can do more with less
Leaders have opportunities to use creative thinking every day. Whether they’re making improvements, cutting costs or solving problems, they have to go beyond what has been done before. The constant need to do more for less demands creativity from … Continue reading
Make a real difference to your organisation’s creativity
‘Necessity is the mother of invention’, as the saying goes – and we’re certainly seeing that now. The Coronavirus pandemic has led to a proliferation of new ideas everywhere. The Mercedes Formula 1 Team have worked with medics to develop … Continue reading
Robust and clear ideas to take forward
Now that Covid-19 has challenged us to work and think, more creatively, it would be a shame to lose this new ability of approaching life with an innovative mindset. Dr Edward de Bono’s ‘Lateral Thinking’ gives the tools to come … Continue reading
Stop talking over me! Making the most from online meetings.
This weekend I decided to attempt a family ‘Mother’s Day’ get together on Zoom – given the social distancing rules in place. We are not a particularly quiet family, but we are polite and usually observe the informal rules of conversation … Continue reading
Too busy to think?
The decision is made – two weeks later you have to backtrack! How many times has that happened to you, either as the person making the decision or as a part of the team bringing it to life. This happens … Continue reading
Classic Lateral Thinking™ in action: Plastic bottle tops that double as Lego blocks.
This article, first published in March 2010, has become topical again with all the discussion regarding implementing a plastic bottle tax to tackle waste and ocean pollution. With a little Lateral Thinking there could be more innovative ways to solve these challenges… …bottle caps … Continue reading
Creativity throughout an organisation
We all know that change is happening more often and faster than ever before! Organisations have to be innovative, whether they’re responding to change or driving it. They’ll need to innovate at all levels and in all functions to be … Continue reading
Changing the way you do things
By Richard White – de Bono Accredited Trainer. Change for the better is always good but we have to make it happen, we can’t sit back and wait for it. Adding to that, the old adage “nothing is perfect” suggests … Continue reading
Adding a process to creativity is not restrictive
By Richard White – de Bono Accredited Trainer. Although many people think of creativity as being about a select group of unconstrained, “creative” individuals having inspirational ideas, the practical truth is very different. Inspirational ideas are great when they occur … Continue reading
Taking time to save time
By Richard White – de Bono Accredited Trainer. Creative thinking and innovation are key to the prosperity of most businesses and organisations today. This is especially true, as we look to the future – there will be some major changes … Continue reading
Creativity for leaders
By Richard White – de Bono Accredited Trainer. Leaders have opportunities to use creative thinking every day. Whether they’re making improvements, cutting costs or solving problems, they have to go beyond what has been done before. The constant need to … Continue reading
Create a culture of dynamic meetings
Most meetings don’t work hard enough. Don’t take our word for it: A 2016 study estimates that inefficient meetings cost the UK economy £582m per week, with one in three people reporting that many of their meetings are unnecessary. 95% … Continue reading
Engaging stakeholders
The skills required to understand, engage, manage and communicate with stakeholders. By Trish Thurley, Indigo Master Trainer and Richard Evans Stakeholder management can be the difference between success and failure for anyone who has to deal with other people. Who … Continue reading
Creativity for graduates
I’m Olivia, you may have read my other blog ‘The graduate: a day in the life’. I was lucky enough to attend two of Edward de Bono’s most popular techniques Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats® and Lateral Thinking™. This … Continue reading
The Graduate: A day in the life
Being a graduate is scary. This year’s cohort of freshly graduated newbies to the workplace are the second year group to leave university lumbered with higher debt than ever, with more pressure than ever to perform and succeed. I am … Continue reading
My day is just meetings, meetings, meetings…
Does this sound like a familiar problem? Too many of us find ourselves spending many hours a day in meeting after meeting, which all too often fail to reach any sort of positive outcome, even after hours of debate. The … Continue reading
Will your idea work?
So, ‘innovation is a part of your culture’ and you have accepted that ‘change is inevitable…’ You have set your focus and generated fresh, fast and on-demand ideas, so what next? Do you just pop them in a box somewhere … Continue reading
Where do you do your best thinking?
In the shower… Driving in the car… Lying in bed… Exercising… Gardening… Dancing… We ask this question at our Six Thinking Hats® training sessions. If you are like 95% of people we’ve surveyed… your answer is doing something alone that … Continue reading
Ideas on-demand: fresh ideas, fast = competitive advantage
Our article ‘Is innovation a part of your culture?’ looks at how many organisations want to be innovative or creative, yet the people at the top of the organisation cannot often elaborate on how or if this happens. In this article we … Continue reading
Is innovation a part of your culture?
Many organisations have mission or vision statements that suggest they are an innovative or creative organisation, yet the people at the top of the organisation can often not elaborate on how, or if this happens. Often just putting people in … Continue reading
Change – is inevitable…
Change in business is constant. The 2016 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, in Davos, focused on ‘employment, skills and human capital’. It found that successful organisations need to ensure their employees have the skills to be able to innovate, evaluate … Continue reading
Do you sound like the expert that you are?
“I know everything there is to know about my product, business and industry”. We are all specialists and experts in our given field/areas. We can speak for hours on end in terms of what we do, how we do it, … Continue reading
Can you laterally think?
Personally I have, until recently, considered ‘lateral thinking’ to be a buzz-phrase. Often when I hear it, my children are preparing a contrived, stupendously hard to answer question, with a blatantly obvious solution – existing only in hindsight. These playful … Continue reading
Try Before You Buy – The Free Webinar Line-Up
In these cost conscious times,we appreciate that it is often difficult to get approval to attend a workshop. For this reason we have created a number of FREE webinars to help you gain a clearer understanding of our events, before you decide which one to attend. Continue reading
Free Webinars – Indigo’s “try before you buy” series.
In these cost conscious times, and with travel budgets being cut, we appreciate that it is often difficult to get approval to attend a workshop, without a full understanding of how it will meet your training requirements, and link to your companies strategic plan. For this reason we have created a number of free webinars to help you gain a clear understanding of our events, before you decide which one to attend. Continue reading
Six Hats = Smart Business – nothing silly about it!
Recently, while keeping an eye on the virtual market place, we noticed that someone had taken our YouTube clip of Dr. Edward de Bono describing the Six Thinking Hats®, and added Arabic sub-titles to it! Continue reading
What’s keeping the CEO’s of global businesses up at night?
In this new era of perpetual change, rapid innovation and global competition, it may come as no surprise to learn that recent surveys indicate CEO’s worry most about… wait for it …UNCERTAINTY! Continue reading
Six Thinking Hats® in action at mark-making*
At Indigo we are always eager to hear from our clients after their training. The key measure of Indigo’s success is how our customers benefit from the practical use of our Creativity, Communication and Project Management training. Here is a … Continue reading
Indigo joins Facebook…
Join Indigo on Facebook Continue reading