Creative Thinking

Imagine your people are truly engaged and interested in making a difference to your business.

And they know how to use their creativity to make a contribution to bottom line profits. Teams understand each other and understand other teams within the business and work collaboratively. They make best use of their creative diversity. And leaders know how to recruit and motivate top performing teams.

Achieving different results requires behaviors but to effectively do things differently we must first address the way we think.

Challenging? Perhaps. Necessary? Absolutely - particularly if you are seeking to increase growth and improve competitive advantage.

Creative diversity exists within every organisation - the challenge is in harnessing it to achieve business performance improvement.

Understanding and acting in demand from the customers' point of view is the greatest lever for performance improvement.

The 'Creative Thinking' programme plays a pivotal role in re-igniting a person's natural ceative ability by helping them re-learn how to apply adaptive and innovative approaches to creative problem-solving.

Aims

Creative Thinking will help:

  • Individuals and teams identify their style of creativity and understand the role everyone plays in being creative, solving problems and making decisions
  • Improve communication and collaboration in teams due to increased understanding
  • Leaders obtain an overview of the shape and spread of the creative style of their teams so they can identify strengths and gaps in their teams' capabilities
  • Individuals understand how they can use their creativity and be confident about the decisions they make
  • Define more accurately terms such as 'innovation', 'creativity' and 'problem-solving'
  • Teams allocate tasks by matching preferences to the nature of the challenge to be resolved.

    • Benefits

    The understanding and confidence gained, skills learned and behaviours adopted will improve participation in any creative or problem-solving team situation, from strategic decision-making to performance improvement.

  • More accurately define customer requirements, improve value propositions and business system performance
  • A common and collaborative approach to creativity and problem solving, which means that there will be a stronger sense of team and closer alignment with the strategic imperatives of the business
  • Managers will better understand their own role and use the wide range of styles necessary to deliver corporate strategy with certainty and will recruit and manage people more effectively
  • Teams spend less time trying to resolve interpersonal issues and more time responding to customer needs and resolving system issues
  • Individuals will understand more fully their role in applying changes effectively and leading the change process
  • People will work more effectively with others and create more value for the business.

    • Approach

    The programme is highly participative and practical, enabling tools and techniques to be learnt in a stimulating environment and then applied immediately in the business context.

    Each customised programme consists of four self-contained modules that are scheduled to fit with your business priorities.

    In preparation, we work with you to identify and agree your aims and required outcomes. In particular we:

  • Learn what specific challenges your business is facing and what needs to be achieved
  • Understand the current strategic imperatives - the things that are engaging the attention of your board
  • Agree the programme scope and objectives in terms of changing individual behaviour and expanding the bandwidth of creative thinking - the programme is most effective when cascaded top down
  • Define the measurable benefits and current status so that when we review effectiveness we can report the tangible difference.

    • Stage 1 - Understanding team dynamics

    We use one or a number of psychometric instruments, including KAI inventory, to assist with the analysis process; the findings and implications will form part of subsequent workshops. Topics to be covered include:

  • Understanding individual preferences and those of others, which may be different
  • Discovering how diversity of style in a team is an advantage if it is understood but a potential area of conflict if it is not
  • How understanding creative style generates opportunities for collaboration
  • How diversity and collaboration lead to more effective problem solving
  • Understanding potential conflict areas and how they can be managed
  • How managing teams in their preferred style can improve productivity
  • Understanding what approach a particular challenge requires in order for it to be resolved most effectively and matching your strategy appropriately
  • Creative thinking and its relationship with successful management of change.

    • Stage 2 - Team dynamics in action

    The 'Innovation Factory' is a whole-day event run using brain-friendly learning principles. It draws out the creative culture of the team, testing self-knowledge and knowledge of others, building on the knowledge gained in stage one. The event itself is based on the highly acclaimed television advert for the Honda Accord with its rolling cogs and shuffling windscreen wipers. It exercises:

  • Different styles of creative thinking
  • Problem solving ability
  • Organisational skills

    • The activity is enormous fun, fires the imagination, facilitates some really valuable learning and provides a memorable experience.

    Expert facilitators provide support through situational analysis, coaching and mentoring.

    Stage 3 - Coaching and reinforcement

    This stage is key to ensuring that the knowledge and skills acquired during the programme are being reinforced back in the business environment.

    Stage 4 - Measuring success

    Following programme delivery, a questionnaire and interview process is used to measure training effectiveness and quantify the difference the learning has made to your business.

    "Creative thinking is not a talent. It is a skill that can be learnt. It empowers people by adding strength to their natural abilities which improves teamwork, productivity and where appropriate profits." Edward de Bono

    "It's the job of a manager not to light the fire of motivation, but to create an environment to let each person's personal spark of motivation blaze." Frederick Herzberg

    Please contact us at Verdandi for available dates and to make a booking.

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