I’m describing here a small creativity workshop recently conducted that lasted one hour. If anyone wants to try the same kind of thing, please give me your feedback. But as often, a blog is mainly for oneself, to lay down one’s ideas, crystallize them, let the clay dry in a way. So take this little post as a note to myself. For this workshop, I was delighted to find myself at Bœuf sur le toit, right in the heart of Art Deco.
It’s Art Deco when the lines are straight – see the chandelier up there – and Art Nouveau when the lines are rounded. Little technical memo. Example of Art Nouveau: Gaudi’s Casa Batlló in Barcelona. If you get that you’ll never get it wrong again, reminds me Lahouari, my old friend, when I ask him about it while writing this post (“Art Deco? Modern art? Art Nouveau?”).
Delighted because in fact in my previous posts I mentioned the surrealists for thinking about creativity, and here I found myself in the lair of the Parisian Dadaists to work on it. This creativity workshop was the finale of a half-day of team building.
#1 Make concepts clash without shame
The objective was to find in one hour the name of the new organization (it’s a merger of two structures), or at least to bring serious leads. I decided as mentioned in a previous article to prepare minds quickly by laying out the key points of creativity, and by telling the bear story to allow everyone to be ridiculous without fear, outrageous without shame, then to use my meme space to make concepts clash.
The idea is first, like the Dadaists, to play with received ideas, conventions, logic, reason, by mixing concepts without restraint. So I display 3 lists on the screen: one contains random adjectives: Green, Blue, Insane, Germ, Transparent, Mold, Prompt, Rounded, Instant, Inflexible, Colorful, Inverted, Turned over, Invisible, Apparent, Superficial, Virtuoso, Swollen, Connected, Tidy, Clean, Grainy, Adherent, Viscous, Plump, Beautiful, Long, Short, Underground, Flying, Telepathy, Telekinesis, Oatmeal, Spoon.
The other contains names of companies or modern concepts or considered as such (it’s a bit the idea of the magic sauce of the Lean Canvas, “becoming the netflix of household appliances”): Spotify, Netflix, Amazon, Tesla, NASA, Playstation, Minecraft, AirBnB, Uber, Angry Birds, Pokemon, Instagram, Youtube, Whatsapp, Tinder, Happn, Mobile, Tablet, Connected object, Drone, Occulus rift, 3D, Lego, Playmobile, Snapchat, GoogleMaps, Waze, Twitter, Self-driving car, IOT, Augmented reality, 3D Print, Blockchain, Robot, Wearables, Machine Learning.
Finally a third list that contains lots of keywords describing the nature or business of the two current structures. I give 15 minutes to each group to associate three words (one word from each column) and tell me a story they would be proud of concerning their organization in 5/10 years. Each group presents its proposal to the others.
#2 Feel invested by something great, that transcends us
Remember the cathedral builder allegory, it’s important to give meaning, and to work for something that transcends us, or rather that makes us transcend ourselves. So I then ask for a second 15-minute conversation per group, to give me three words, three key concepts linked to their stories that synthesize why they are transcended, sublimated, proud of this projection concerning their organization. Each group presents to the others its story and why in three key words they would be proud of this achievement for their organization.
#3 Give a name to this meaning
The idea is obviously first to make something new emerge (clash of concepts) through a story onto which we can project ourselves. Then to place meaning in it, or to understand why we find meaning in it. With three words, bring it back to the essential. The conversation within the group is very important, it allows to harmonize understandings, expectations, etc. Finally in a third step, each group has 15 new minutes to invent a name that well represents this story and these three key concepts that make sense. Each group presents its triptych: story, key words, name. There was a specification (languages, formalism, minimum and maximum length, certain letters, etc.) but I absolutely did not want people to launch into a brainstorming on the name directly, I wanted to give meaning. If an organization has meaning and that meaning is shared, it has an undeniable advantage over those that don’t. Everything that carries meaning is a plus.