Developing a creative mindset

As problems and challenges persist for our customers, clients (and ourselves), a more creative mindset might help us and them out. 

How do you solve a challenge?

Do you go with what you’ve done before? Or seek out the possibility of a new solution and idea? 

Existing or well known solutions are safer; someone’s already done them, we can copy or replicate, change a few things and we’re good to go. 

Or are we?

The more we all keep replicating what’s already out there, thinking it’s working, the more limited our thinking becomes. 

Having the confidence to adopt a more creative mindset is risky yes, but with the risk can come incredible gains and rewards. 

The links to commercial success are clear. 

A more creative mindset helps us design and deliver better services, solutions and success for our clients and customers. 

Adapting to hybrid

A Harvard Business Review article ‘How to manage a hybrid team’ reports on what we’re seeing and experiencing: “your team members are likely contending with vastly different situations.”

Beyond just their locations of work, many are adapting to changing situations at home or the office and the more permanent distribution of team members across locations. 

This is the hybrid workforce. HBR suggests we ask: 

➡️ “What is the experience my employees are having at work, and how can I empower them to do the best they can?”

▶️ “What protocols can you put in place to ensure that the employees in the office are in sync with those working from home?”

Given people in your team might be located in different places but still need to be brought together - in meetings and workshops - how will you build empowerment and keep things in sync? 

Tips include : 
- beware of an ‘us vs them’ situation 
- be clear, inclusive and flexible
- know it’s not easy and will take some adjustment for all parties. 

For those who are new to this, be open to learning and experimenting, knowing that perfection isn’t possible, but progress certainly is. 

12 things to do when leading HYBRID groups

When some people are here and others are offsite or in another location, don’t just wing it, or bumble through it. 

Plan for it, and be ready to adapt. 


These are the things I prepare, consider and address when I’m training or facilitating, to bring a team or group together who are spread over several locations. 

It’s not everything but it’s many things. They take into consideration that we are all humans, just trying to do the best we can - often under some tricky or less then perfect conditions. 


The 12 things:

Plan - what is it
Tools - which ones
Structure - what am I following
Tech - what are we using

Activities - which ones 
Questions - what will I ask
Techniques - what will I do if...
Input - how will I collect it

Visualize - how will I show it 
Warmth - how will I convey it
Adapt - am I willing to
After - then what...


This is my checklist for a meeting or workshop and I don’t ‘take off’ without having considered or prepared them. 

Some people are here, some are there, some people are alone, some are together

This is the hybrid way of working. Remote, distributed, co-located and in person. The leader or facilitator, well, they could be anywhere!

The realities of work now mean you’ll likely have a mix of where people are located. 

How do we lead meetings and workshops like this? 

It's a new way of working for many of us and can raise questions, queries and tricky situations:

- how do you achieve and maintain engagement across all of these different spaces
- how do you know people are engaged and participating
- how do you get people involved
- how do you use breakout rooms if not everyone is on their own device
- what do we need to do differently than if everyone is in the one place (all online or all in the one location)?

Think about it and plan for it.

Explore your thinking - remember to act

If we’re the only creatures on earth who can think about how they think ... how well do we use that power? 

Because it is a power. It’s one of the greatest reflections we have available to us. 

To pause and think ... ‘wow, I wonder why or how I think about things?’

This can send us into a thinking vortex though, where we just keep thinking about thinking about thinking!

Some reflection is good but then what? 

When we are Sensemaking and not just thinking, we get to shift to some action. 

1. What’s going on here
2. What do I need to do about it
3. Now do it

If we are caught up in the first question of ‘what’s going on here’ ... analysis paralysis can be never ending. 

The second question - now we are getting somewhere - is, ‘what do I need to do about it?’ 

Here is the bias towards us taking an action. 

Thinking. 
Thinking. 
Now do it. 

...

...

...


Umm.... but then we return to thinking mode again to ‘work it out’ or ‘understand what’s going on’ or ‘run scenarios’ - more thinking. 

The ‘now do it’ gives us the opportunity to see what happens as a result of our actions. 

THEN we get some new stuff to think about ... but at least we have advanced.

Think ... sure. 
Now act.