Can't be done

This slide was produced as part of a project to promote innovative thinking, and creativity for school teachers across England. Dare one say when ever I use this slide it generates a range of responses. The mischievous mavericks smile. Leadership types adopt a type of fetal position hoping the slide will go away. Most saw it as a mini road to Damascus revelation. It clearly articulated some of their day to day working dialogues and experiences. Its use always provoked a reaction, and sometimes when you are presenting, it is satisfying to have a response, where icy stares are the norm.

So why this slide? The opportunity to reverse. We don't have scapegoats. We have the opportunity to set our inform direction, if the organisational direction is lacking. Let us embrace problems, the old creative cliche problems as solutions.

Sorry but temporal thinking is different.

Fishy Fish

I had a colleague who hated Chinese proverbs. "The cliched of the most cliched" he used to say. Transfer to a workshop for local business leaders where during a presentation I showed this slide. Some of the more crusty delegates seemed somewhat confused. A School Headteacher who was attending, was not only significantly agitated, but was also personally offended.

The link to leadership and leadership teams was then alluded to. A true leader attending then threw the presenter a killer question "is it actually true that a fish after a few days actually start rotting from their head?". The audience could sense my discomfort as I was not categorically in a position to provide evidence that fish do in fact start decomposing from their heads. The assembled seemed reassured that organisational rotting did not always start at the leadership end.

Best Assets

This first blog promotes in a roundabout way the process of creatively thinking about "success". I have used this slide with a number of audiences and teams over the years and it always provides a range of responses. One comment was "it is not true that ostriches stick their heads in the sand". This by an obvious ostrich expert colleague. This prompted mass ostrich googling and revealed the extra-terrestrial being known as the ostronaut.

The slide also seems to prompt quasi-philosophical debates about thinking, and seeing, and their relative virtues. Vision or foresight? When asked upon my thoughts with regard to said topics my usual get out of jail card had to be deployed, "all thinking, seeing, and doing, is good" I said.

Some colleagues even started to think about what they were doing well, and how to build upon and promote those activities.

Yet celebrating success, identifying the good, and developing the good, is always good.