Tracy Stanley

Consultant | Author

Articles

Getting unstuck through opposite thinking

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When you’ve been stuck searching for a solution to a wicked problem, have you tried Opposite Thinking? This involves taking an opposite approach to solving the problem and identifying those things that will help you to achieve the opposite of what you really want to achieve. Instead of asking,

‘How do I solve or prevent this problem?’ ask,

‘How could I make the problem worse?’

This discussion can be fun and provide new insights into the problem, which then helps you to identify new solutions.

Barbara Wilson describes how to undertake negative brainstorming in our book, Creativity Cycling: Help your team solve complex problems with creative tools. She suggests that if you are working with a team, use a brainstorming approach to identify different ways that you can avoid or stop the problem from being solved. Put your ideas up on a whiteboard so everyone can see them. Then use a reversal exercise to discuss how you could turn each idea into something positive.

I’ve talked previously about the importance of identifying the assumptions we have about a problem, and about the solution, as they can constrain our thinking. I found an interesting video that presents an approach that maps out our assumptions as a first step in engaging in opposite thinking. Here’s a link to the video from Board of Innovation which will give you more ideas on how you can shake up your thinking to knotty problems.

References

Creativity Cycling: Help your team solve complex problems with creative tools by Barbara Wilson and Tracy Stanley

Negative Brainstorming Link

Mindtools article

Image source

Entrepreneurial journey: The Speckio Story

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Many of you will be familiar with the Chinese proverb –

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step

In the case of a Startup weekend, the journey starts with a lightning-fast, 10 000 metre sprint.

Except you’re not running the race on your own: you’ve just formed a team with people you don’t know who you’ll need to rely on to cross caverns and scale mountains. It’s all rather nerve wracking.

On 22 September, Team Speckio won the Global Techstars Startup Weekend Women event with their idea being to use behavioural nudges to raise self-awareness and understanding of others.

The event was held at the River City Labs in Brisbane and the team comprised –  Christina Cardarello, Britt Furlanis, Patrice Cotter, Tanya O’Shea, myself Tracy Stanley and Michael Moore. (Michael was invited to join the team when we recognised we would benefit from additional tech skills. He had come along to the event to support his Mum who was in one of the other teams).

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Marvelous metaphors

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I suspect we’re not aware of how often we use metaphors to explain something through the lens of something else. Let me provide a few examples.

In Australia, metaphors are generously sprinkled throughout our language. For example,

A dog’s breakfast

meaning a messy or complicated situation, while being

Mad as a cut snake

describes someone who is really angry.

Metaphors help us to think and see and feel and experience a situation through another sensory lens. (And sometimes to mix humour into an explanation).

Tom Albrighton talks about metaphors as bridges from the close and familiar to the distant and strange, explaining the unknown in terms of the known. He adds that metaphors are valuable tools in business, particularly when people need to communicate complex and dry ideas. By their very nature they are imperfect. Like spotlights, they illuminate some things while leaving others in the dark. This means they sometimes outlive their usefulness.

Sophie Playle beseeches writers to use metaphors as they surprise the brain. They can simultaneously make writing delightfully succinct while concentrating meaning. I like how she proposes that you pair two unexpected images to interrupt your reader’s expected train of thought. This is similar to the process used in innovation of combining two products to create something entirely new and unexpected such as the wine press and coin punch to make the printing press or more recently a winter coat that doubles as a sleeping bag.

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The importance of knowledge management and of not losing old ideas

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Photo by Leslie Holder on Unsplash

Where does critical knowledge reside in your organisation? In a database? In SharePoint? In people’s heads?

I remember Glen Carlson of Key Persons of Influence saying that –

the gap between where you are and where you want to be – is often knowledge

It’s an empowering statement.

So where do you acquire and keep this knowledge?

We live in a world where knowledge is plentiful and there are many knowledge capture systems inside and outside of our organisations.

But do we use them? Are you able to find the knowledge that we need when we need them or do we spend hours trawling through websites and data bases?

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Someone else’s shoes

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Photo credit: Unsplash MD Zahid Hasan Joy

A simple and powerful technique for thinking differently is metaphorically stepping into someone else’s shoes and living their experience. This someone else could be a customer, a supplier, a competitor or another team inside your organisation.

In this blog I’m going to outline a process for metaphorically stepping into someone else’s shoes. This process is similar to the Fresh-Eyes process where you get a perspective from an outsider who may or may not have a stake in the problem being examined.

To start you need to consider a number of questions?

  • How well do I know the people impacted by this problem?
  • What are their needs and fears?
  • What would the best resolution of this problem look like for them?
  • What would be the worst outcome for them?

It’s always important to check yourself to ensure that you are considering their perspective and not your own.

In this activity you will gather and review the information you have about the problem. Then you will participate in a role play being one of the parties affected by the problem. This is a powerful way of building empathy for each stakeholder.

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Journey to the summit still a great metaphor for change

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When we start a change management project, we consider the journey that we will embark on and the support that we will need. 

I really like the metaphor of a big goal being akin to a journey to the top of a mountain. This metaphor works particularly well for large scale change projects. 

Let me share with you the parallels. 

The vision thing 

When you are standing in the valley and looking up to the summit, you are often in awe, tingling with excitement and bursting with desire to begin the journey.   You are certain this energy will sustain you to the top. 

While optimism and energy may help you make a great start, they may not be enough to get you to the summit. 

Despite the fact we can see the mountain summit clearly from the valley we may lose sight of it along the way. We will have cloudy days and face unforeseen obstacles. We may feel lost and disheartened. Exhaustion may also set in. At these times we will need to recall the image of the summit in our head, and review our detailed plan to guide us there. 

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