Where is your Giraffe?

You may remember a previous article 'The Creative Management Challenge' which posed some simple questions such as 'How do you get a giraffe into a refrigerator?' There were some novel answers to that particular question, note that there is no correct answer for two reasons. First of all the problem situation was not fully specified, leaving many questions un answered. What size is the refrigerator, where is it, does it have to get in unaided or can force be used? Secondly there was a deliberate intention to introduce ambiguity. There was no mention of the size of the giraffe, whether it was real/stuffed/inflatable or could it be folded/squashed in any way.

In our businesses we tend to have many giraffes, situations that we have not properly understood with solutions that do not take into account all of the relevant factors or which have been constructed as a result of poor decision making. Curiously, unlike the tall animals, these giraffes seem to exist unnoticed. Why is this, how can all of these poor decisions be swept under the carpet. The answer is of course ego. We do not like to admit that we do not have all of the answers, that we are not in control of our business. The irony is that by ignoring or hiding these 'giraffes' we are actually admitting that we are not in control.

So how can we help ourselves?

• Examine all of the boundaries to any problem, test them and do not introduce any that do not have to be there.
• Ask questions, why do things have to be the way they are?
• Look at things in as many different ways as possible, inside out, upside down or from a customer or competitor viewpoint.

And finally, just to stop you wasting time chasing your tail, ask yourself the question, 'What would happen if I ignored this situation altogether?' If the answer is nothing then you have one less thing to worry about and a greater feeling of being in control. You are beginning to understand your giraffe!

The Slipping Point

Most readers will be familiar with, or have heard of Malcolm Gladwell's best selling business book 'The Tipping Point'. The author suggests that there is a point at which you need apply only a small effort to create an effect. This is rather like giving the final push to topple a large boulder or tipping a finely balanced set of scales. If only we could find this point, we could all save ourselves time and effort.

Once the tipping point is found then we, and our businesses will be beating the competition and lining our pockets with untold riches, right? Is there anything to stop us? Well, quite a lot actually. Take the simple case of sitting down on a chair. You see the chair, walk round to the front and then sit down. Did you check that the chair was still there or that it did not have a wobbly leg. Most of the time nothing will happen but what happens in the 1 in 100 or 1 in 1000 cases when a practical joker has removed the chair?

This is a somewhat simplified example but neatly illustrates the point that we must keep our wits about us at all times. Having created a strategy for the future we want it to succeed but how many of us do not keep watch? What is it exactly that we are watching for? This is where we come to The Slipping Point. If you were driving up a slippery slope or along an icy road it would be the place where you lost grip, where your forward momentum slowed, and where things just did not go as planned. What can be done about this?

• Ensure Management are 'Hands Ready' i.e. they are aware of what is going on but are not micro-managing or too eager to take control. This provides space to see the bigger picture.
• Do your employees work in teams? The more they do this, the more support they provide, the more knowledge is shared and the more flexible they are when confronted with challenges.
• Is there a desire to win or are you all there to pick up your pay cheques?
• Even if you have a desire to win, do you know how to win?
• Keep an eye on the external environment, competitors, customers and any other factors that could affect the economic landscape.
• Foster as many external relationships as you can. These provide information and can also be leveraged in times of need.
• Promote the right culture. Transparency and morale are often used but infrequently heeded. Lead by example and gain trust and you will be in good shape.
• Promote the concept of stretch, an environment in which your employees and management alike are challenged and allowed to learn.
• Get the best from your staff. This extends from what management actually 'do' to staff to encourage and motivate them as well as reward systems.

Pay attention to the above and you have a very good chance of executing that carefully crafted strategy and avoiding The Slipping Point.

Creativity – selecting the right technique

You, your staff or even your boss have been on a course or bought a self help book that described some creative techniques. You have tried one or two and they sort of worked, but not as you had hoped. Or maybe they did not work at all. Why could this be?

Sometimes Creativity just doesn’t work for one or more of the following reasons:

• The problem scenario or situation has not been properly defined
• The facilitator does not have the correct skills
• The participants are unwilling

Or more than likely the wrong techniques have been selected. Alas you cannot use brainstorming for everything! So how should you go about categorising and selecting techniques?
The following ideas might be useful:

Group/Solo working – who is going to use this technique? Will you use it for one person or a group?

Converge/Diverge – are you looking to focus on, or identify just one possibility or are you wishing to actively generate many options or ideas?

Exploration/description – does the technique allow you to just explore or perhaps describe the situation more fully?

Reality checking/planning – you know what the possibilities are but you need to check that your ideas are feasible or to set out some course of action.

Idea generation/building – this is divergent but are you generating los of ideas or taking a smaller number and building upon them?

If we want to classify Reverse Brainstorming (click here for my blog article) then we could classify it as Solo or group working, convergent, exploring, idea generation. A Cartoon Storyboard could be classified as Solo or Group working, convergent, planning or building.

So how should you select a technique? Often we wish to perform several actions one after the other but for the sake of simplicity lets imagine you need some ideas about how to beef up your sales and marketing effort. You could work either on your own or in a group, you simply wish to generate a large number of ideas in a short space of time. Something like Reverse Brainstorming or a Nominal Group Technique might be the answer. If, however, you needed to explore or describe your current situation before moving on to generate ideas then the above techniques would not be ideal and you might find a modelling, drawing or even visualisation technique more useful.

Go on, try it! You might even find this Creativity stuff useful.

Creative Management Challenge

Below are four simple questions. Try to answer them all before looking at the answers.

• Q1 How do you put a giraffe into a fridge?
• Q2 How do you put and elephant into a fridge?
• Q3 The King of the Jungle is holding a meeting for all of the animals. One of them is not there. Which one?
• Q4 You are standing on the bank of an Alligator infested river and have to get to the other side. What do you do?

A survey by Accenture found that around 90% of Managers are likely to answer all of the questions incorrectly. Many school children under the age of six will actually get these questions right. What does this say about Management thinking? And now for the answers:

• A1 Open the fridge, put the giraffe inside, close the fridge.
• A2 Open the fridge, remove the giraffe, put the elephant inside, close the fridge.
• A3 The elephant. The elephant is in the fridge.
• A4 You swim across the river because all the alligators are attending the gathering.

I can already hear you say "Its not fair" and "they are for kids". This is what the questions are trying to find out:

• Q1 checks to see if you try to make simple things complicated and make assumptions about problem boundaries. Nobody actually said that the fridge was not big enough to put a giraffe inside!
• Q2 tests your ability to consider previous actions. Who says that they are four separate questions?
• Q3 simply tests your memory.
• Q4 checks to see how quickly you learn. After all you must have got question 4 correct if you were a successful Senior Manager.

Try these on your colleagues and see what happens.

Solving problems creatively - Boundary Relaxation

A problem boundary is the imaginary line between what a problem is, must be, should be, or could be, and what it isn't, mustn't be, shouldn't be, or couldn't be. This approach works by creating awareness of the different components of the boundary and then seeing how far they can be loosened. Here are some ways of making a boundary more visible.

NOT-ing the problem statement Take each significant term in a problem statement and define it more clearly by saying what it is not, for example:

How to develop (not replace, alter, reduce,…)
the motorway (not other roads, airlines, ships, ... )
network (not piecemeal)
to allow for (not compel)
the gradual (neither imperceptible nor rapid)
replacement (not augmentation)
of rail (not air, ships, …)
transport (not pleasure use, prestige use)

Boundary conditions not mentioned in the problem statement may often be found by looking elsewhere e.g. budgets, policy statements, market analyses, etc., and by 'asking around'. Sometimes you may need to 'read between the lines'. Once a boundary feature has been identified dearly, then it is usually relatively simple to ask yourself and/or others involved:

'Would it make the problem any easier to solve if this part of the boundary could be altered in some way?'

'If so, under what circumstances could it be altered or ignored?'

It may be easier to get temporary leeway around a boundary by discreetly 'bending' it and making sure nothing goes wrong, than by trying to get formal permission to alter it. Many are familiar with the saying ‘Remember it is easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission.'

Innovation – what a consultant will not tell you

Have you noticed how consultants and academics tend to turn innovation into a highly complex system involving numerous processes, approaches and models (requiring you to spend even more on consultants)?

Such systems are promoted by consultants who charge by the day for implementing and teaching their complex systems - which require many, many months to implement. Worse, consultants scare their clients into believing that not implementing the consultants' system will lead to failure. Indeed, when the system does fail, the consultant can easily blame the client for not implementing the complex system properly.

But, these consultants are wrong! Innovation need not be complex. In fact, complex systems actually stifle creativity and hence innovation. Most organisations contain many creative thinkers and innovators: their employees; and many external creative thinkers: their customers. All that they require is:

• The ability to make people comfortable about sharing their ideas and to make mistakes without suffering any consequences.
• That management demonstrate their commitment and ability to be creative themselves.
• Budget - funds will be necessary, however they will be modest in comparison to the demands of the consultants!
• Tools for capturing and managing ideas, techniques for generating and shaping ideas and a method of measuring the fruits of your labours.
• Space and more importantly time to meet, share ideas or just think.
• Rewards, a fair system that rewards idea generation, knowledge sharing and team working.

How all of these components come together will vary from firm to firm. What is important is that these components exist, that there is flexibility and that ideas are implemented. Of course these components of corporate innovation are greatly simplified. Nevertheless, they provide the mainstay of an innovation plan.

So don't let the expensive consultants fool you. An innovation strategy is relatively easy provided you have the commitment, the desire and resources. It should fit your organisation with minimal disruption and you should not be left with a strong dependency on any outside organisation.

Resources for Creativity

There are many hits to my website from people searching for ‘resources for creativity’. Goodness knows what they are actually looking for. Some may be looking for resources for training and workshops but many appear to be looking for a list of tools and materials that are mandatory or desirable for getting Creativity into an organisation.

So what is the answer to the question ‘What do I need to be creative?’ For a perfect creative situation the answer is that you need absolutely nothing as any resources can be created from scratch. The real truth is that organisations are not patient and do like to get a head start. Also the mix of human resources may not be ideal so here is the list that you need:

• External stimulus or facilitation
• An agreed set of objectives
• Internal champions/creative catalysts
• An initial embryonic framework for promoting creativity
• Time and space for employees to be creative
• Enlightened managers who will actively ‘un manage’ creativity
• A light touch audit method
• A simple but effective library of techniques that individuals can use
• A method of capturing, storing and retrieving ideas and feedback

Seeing the above list you may be tempted to ‘go it alone’ and some may find that they succeed however the following should be borne in mind:

• Internally led idea generation initiatives often fail or do not deliver as expected
• Externally led idea generation initiatives often fail or do not deliver as expected
• Simply running creativity training courses will have no beneficial effect on your bottom line
• Leaving creativity and innovation solely in the hand of your HR department will often consign them to the wilderness

The moral is to get some good advice, target your scarce resources and do not commit to anyone who wishes you to create a long lasting dependency on them.

The Confusion of Innovation

On my travels I talk to a number of people who claim that they just don’t ‘get innovation’. Holistic, whole company Innovation is an abstract concept but how complicated is it? The answer may be more puzzling than you think.

First of all let us consider a simple Innovation project. Typically it consists of a number of steps from inception through, audit, idea generation and prototyping to roll out. Add some project management and knowledge transfer activities and you have it nailed. So far so good, although you may question what these steps actually are.

Now we are ready to consider continuous Innovation. Imagine all your Innovation steps neatly drawn out onto a Gantt chart and then wrap them around on themselves so that your nice straight lines become a series of concentric circles. This is but a snapshot in time so now add the time dimension. Imagine your circles turned on their side like a series of disks and then add time by moving the disks from left to right. You should now be looking at a series of concentric cylinders.

Now many companies will have several ongoing Innovation initiatives, all at different stages and involving different people so consider all of your innovation projects in the manner described above – several sets of concentric cylinders all moving at varying rates and requiring management and resources. Would this convince you that your organisation, and especially your managers, need some assistance in getting to grips with the situation?

Why Does My Organisation Need Creativity?

When was the last time you got into a difficult situation? Have you ever forgotten a present for a special occasion and found yourself making elaborate excuses? Well this is your creativity at work. Some people have more than others but we all have at least a spark. But why is this useful to your organisation?

Like people, organisations find themselves in difficult situations due to increased competition, global trading conditions or just increased pressure from stakeholders to perform better. There is no manual to escape, no ‘get out of jail free’ card. You will need to rely on the creativity of people at all levels within the organisation, not just management, marketing or your research and development team.

Unlike computers, people can process huge amounts of information instantaneously and then apply something completely illogical – intuition. Intuition is not crystal ball gazing but is decision making based on knowledge that cannot be currently expressed externally.

The three main drivers for creativity are knowledge and experience, frameworks and techniques and intrinsic motivation. To allow Creativity to flourish you will need to address these three areas. The interesting things is that if you have a Creative organisation you will have intrinsic motivation present amongst your employees but the converse is not necessarily true. If you have intrinsically motivated staff they may or may not be creative. Remember, a cat is a four legged animal but not all four legged animals are cats!

If you address all of the factors that affect organisational creativity then not only will you benefit directly from having a creative resource but you will gain an intrinsically motivated workforce for free. Perhaps it really is possible to get something for nothing.

Do I Need To be Creative?

The answer to this question is ‘No’. Refer to the Innovation Equation and you will soon understand why. An Innovation System is desirable from the point of view of developing new products, services or processes but it takes a wide variety of skills to make such a system work effectively. The only real requirement is for you, and those around you to have an open mind and be open to the possibility that the way you have run your company up until now may not be the same as the way it needs to be run from now onwards. This applies even if you currently run a successful business.

So the answer is ‘No’ but what should you be aware of? Well you will need to take a look at the staff you have and see what their strengths are and fill any gaps. They may need to be reorganised, either logically or geographically. Employees may need some sort of training but they will almost certainly require your ‘permission’ to behave and think in new ways.

If you are not one of the creative people yourself then you might need to widen your leadership and management skills. How would you react to the following?

• Drastically changed working patterns


• Having you decisions questioned


• More testing and trialling


• The business not being ‘lean and mean’


• Requests to but things that are not core to your business

These are just a fraction of the things that could occur and which you will have to be ready for. Don’t panic, there will be other people in the same situation. The good thing is that by using tools such as the Innovation Equation, this whole process can be managed successfully and measured so that you have control over it.