Does My Bum Look Big In This?
As every man knows, this is a question that is impossible to answer. Say yes exchange server hosting you will either be dead within seconds or you will be drowning in tears to the words Are you saying Im fat and ugly? You dont love me any more do you? Reply no and you will be accused of not wanting your partner to be slim and resemble a supermodel.
Joking aside, what sort of question is this anyway? Does it help, is there likely to be a way forward, can we develop a win-win situation? Much of creative thinking and hence innovation projects are based on subtle The Punisher being asked at the right time. The art of questioning is paramount. Here are some examples of frequently heard, but not always helpful questions together compare home equity loans some suggested alternatives:- Why do we always do it this way? What sort of things would happen if we did it this (or any other) way?
- Will it work? If it does not work, what is likely to happen?
- How much will it cost? What is the target cost that we need to be aiming for?
- What are we doing this for? The learning opportunities are incredible. Can we explore all of the options and capture the results?
- When can we have a meeting to discuss this? We will start doing some prototyping and let you The Avengers our initial results as soon as we have them!
These alone could cause some of your team to lose the will to live. Assume you do actually get started, what about some questions that will help the creative process? The questions you ask will depend on whether you want to stimulate thinking, shift perspective, motivate others or break mindsets to name just a few.Here are one or two suggestions:
- What would happen if we added banana flavouring? random stimulus
- What would happen if we did not do this at all? shift perspective
- All options are open, can we explore as many as possible and record our findings? motivational
- As we are all here can we try plan b instead of plan a and see what happens? break mindset Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space different method plus peer pressure
As ever, this article is designed to make readers think about the questions they use. Oh and about the question in the title. Say you look great, I agree with you or encourage a question of the type I think I look great/fat/ugly/young, dont you agree? If you think this is still fraught with danger then pretend not to hear the question.
Derek Cheshire is an expert, speaker, consultant and facilitator in the areas of Business Creativity, Innovation and Idea Generation. He is creator of the Innovation Toolkit, and co creator of workshops such as Creating The Difference, Creativity as a Business Tool, Sticky Strategy and The Idea Factory. Derek is also a director of the PRD Partnership, experts in commercializing ideas.
You can receive regular ideas and updates on Business Creativity and Innovation by visiting www.creative4business.co.ukhttp://www.creative4business.co.uk and filling out the simple sign up form. See also www.prdpartnership.comhttp://www.prdpartnership.com
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