Relationships before ideas
It's fairly common in business to champion creativity. Yet an emphasis on coming up with new ideas risks putting the cart before the horse.
Sometimes the demand for new ideas can demoralise many people who don't see themselves as creative, yet actually play a vital role in making things happen.
Consultants and ad agencies are often appointed because of a big idea - which then fails in the real world because it is pursued without paying attention to the problems of execution.
I've witnessed quite a few businesses doing brainstorming and other creativity sessions on awaydays/offsites. If they're lucky, they have an exciting day... then they return to their offices, the adrenalin rush long past, and revert to their normal, much less inspired, ways of working together. Sure, they went somewhere and had a few ideas. But they haven't really changed the way they relate to each other.
By creating more trusting relationships, allowing more thoughts to be shared and risks taken, you get not just ideas but an atmosphere in which ideas are continuously generated. Crucially, it's an atmosphere in which ideas get a more sensitive assessment and where there is more chance of creating support to make them happen. I list some of the ways I do this on Core Facilitation Skills.
It's the difference between being given a fish and learning to fish.
