Creativity Central [Marty Baker]

Have you rattled a cage lately?  Tipped a sacred cow?Tossed a cerebral grenade?  Ten years ago, authors and provocateurs de jour, Dick Whitney and Melissa Giovagnoli wrote a book called 75 Cage-Rattling Questions to Change The Way You Work.  It's a book that should be on every manager's shelf. Actually, it should be permanently attached to your employee manual.

It's a way to clear out the corporate cobwebs and put a barometer on mental road blocks that may be hindering growth or positive change in your company or department.  Let's wrap our heads around cage-rattling question #27. If you came up with a BRILLIANT idea, who or what MIGHT prevent you from implementing it?

Close your eyes and imagine a series of highway road blocks.  Who's face do you see? What process or rule are printed on the obstacle?  Whitney and Giovagnoli (W&G) say there are three great ways to use this question.

1.  It helps people think about making the impossible possible; generates ideas about how to remove the frustrating barriers that prevent creative ideas from being implemented.

2.  It's a way to obtain good suggestions for making the decision-making process more participatory; brings people into the working loop who often are out of the loop.

3.  It's a tool for organizations that want to get their people thinking intrapreneurially and innovatively.

Here's the W&G User Manual for making cage-rattler #27 work:

Expect to hear a lot of blaming and people saying they feel powerless.  (I call this blame-storming)  But if you want to maximize the benefit of this question:

1) Turn the negative responses into positives by asking "Who might bring visibility and leverage to your ideas besides your boss?  Is there anyone who might be a good internal champion?"  "What can you do to minimize the time and cost it would take to develop your idea?"  "Why is your idea so compelling?  How will it help the company do things smarter, faster, cheaper or more efficiently?"

2)  Focus on the obstacles rather than the idea.  Identify whether the obstacle is a person, a process, time, money, the corporate culture, or some combination of these factors.  Once the barrier is identified, ask the group to reach a consensus about whether there's a more significant barrier?  Sometimes the most obvious obstacle isn't always the right one.

3) Embrace the "art of woo."  Put as much thought into how you will "sell" or "market"  the idea within the organization.  Let emotion fuel the idea but let coolness and purpose drive your approach to marketing it.

So go ahead, tip a halo-wearing cow or rattle a cage today.