Articles

Cool Names, Creative Thinking and Humor

By Chuck Dymer

In a recent post Seth Godin wrote: “Getting smart about naming is at the heart of marketing.” But how do you come up with a cool name for your product or service?

Mike Brown answers that question in a great post on the Brainzooming Blog: Creating Cool Product Names for a New Product Idea – 8 Creative Thinking Questions. What’s enjoyable about this post is the invitation to apply our creativity to the naming process. Too often naming is either left to “the experts” or done by means of some black-box process that attempts to appear analytical and scientific.

Mike’s eighth question is: “What words would be more exciting, powerful, fun, surprising, or memorable?” I’m not sure what Mike means by “powerful,” but below is an example of a product name that’s exciting, fun, surprising and memorable.

Brilliance Activator helps leaders uncork the creative power of their teams to develop products and services that delight customers, increase repeat sales, and improve their profit margins. Receive regular insights and information from Brilliance Activator by subscribing to our free newsletter.

Posted in Brilliance, Communication, Creative Thinking Techniques, Thinking Skills | Tagged Brainzooming, branding, brilliant branding, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, cool names, creative thinking, memorable name, Seth Godin, surprising name, wine | Leave a comment

Six Ways to Deal with Stumbling Blocks to Creative Thinking

By Chuck Dymer

Whether we call it writer’s block, creative block, or the blues – sometimes we can’t come up with a single idea or a simple response. We’re stuck and there seems to be no way forward.

This can happen for hours or it can happen for days. And sadly for some, it can happen for years. So what do we do that doesn’t involve drugs, alcohol or any other brain altering substance?

Here are six suggestions for dealing with a stumbling block:

Admit that it’s there. Find a physical representation of the block, like the one I’ve pictured above. Literally place the block in your workspace and force yourself to deal with it. Now try writing on the paper with this large block upon it. You’ll have to stand up in order to write around the top of the block and you’ll have to write on an angle. And you’ll probably start getting angry, AT THE BLOCK, and no longer at yourself. Sooner or later you’ll pick the block up and put it somewhere else. When you do, it will be much easier to write–the words can flow straight-out.
Chose a pebble to represent your block. Take a long, hard look at the pebble. Pick it up and roll it with your fingers. How could such a pitifully small piece of stone possibly hold you back from doing what you need to do? It can’t. So toss it in the wastebasket and get on with it.
Package and sell blocks as pets and make millions of dollars.
Write about or do something creative with the block. Talk to it. Question it. Explore it for insights. You could do that with the physical representation of the block or the block itself. Why is it here? Why is it here now? What significance does it have? How long does it intend to be around? When will it leave? Why not now? Why are you letting it bother you?
Remember what is unique about you, the perspectives you hold, the talents you possess, the manner in which you inhabit the world. Explore how only you could write a sentence, develop an idea or lead a team. Then try doing it.
Take some time off and separate yourself from the block. Remind yourself that you left it where you left it and enjoy a walk in the country, a visit to a new part of town, or conversation with friends. Relax, renew, re-create.

When I was in university, I had a small card on the cork board above the desk in my room. The card said: “Problems are solved by moving ahead.” Sometimes the answer to not being able to do something is to do something.

What do you think? What ideas do you have to overcome stumbling blocks to creative thinking? I welcome your comments below.

Posted in Brilliant Actions, Creative Thinking Techniques, Musings | Tagged creative blocks, creative thinking, creativity, Stumbling blocks, writer's block | Leave a comment

On Track with de Bono, Six Hats and Creative Thinking

By Chuck Dymer

Don’t know how my Dad felt about it, but when I was young I loved it when we had to stop at a railroad crossing and watch the trains go by. One time while we were waiting, Dad asked me if I knew what the sign near the track said. I said no, so he told me it said: Stop, Look and Listen.

One of the great lessons I learned from Dr. Edward de Bono is that our thinking and that of our team can benefit from taking the time to Stop, Look and Listen. That’s the message of the video below. Read More »

Posted in Brilliance, Brilliant Actions, Creative Thinking Techniques, Focus, Leadership, Teamwork, The Good Doctor: Prescriptions for Better Thinking, Thinking Skills | Tagged creative thinking, Edward de Bono, innovation, lateral thinking, Simplicity, Six Thinking Hats, Six Value Medals, team building, team work, The Power of Perception | 1 Comment

Leadership Lemonade – five insights to develop better change leaders

By Chuck Dymer

An insightful article appeared today in the McKinsey Quarterly, Developing Better Change Leaders. The message of the article is that leadership too often overlooks the “softer” skills needed to spread and embed change throughout an organization. Here are some of their insights:

Leaders can’t ask others to change if they’re not willing to change themselves.
Tie leadership training to business goals in a timely manner – provide training when it’s needed and its value is apparent.
Build on the existing leadership strengths that would enable engagement within the organization.
Support the leaders spreading the message of change.
Establish networks of change leaders who share insights, vocabulary and the willingness to collaborate.

The article echoes what I spoke about in episode three of The Seven Lemons of Leadership, the episode about Tepid Teams. Teams won’t whole heartedly embrace change if leadership doesn’t relate what it’s doing to core purpose or fails to “walk the talk.”

Whether you choose to call the skills and actions mentioned above “softer” skills,” they are without a doubt essential skills.

Posted in Brilliance, Brilliant Actions, Communication, Leadership, Seven Lemons of Leadership, Teamwork | Tagged change, change leadership, leadership, leadership training, teams | Leave a comment

Taking the plunge with new ideas – 7 questions for idea assessment

By Chuck Dymer

: Hand over the money, I’m armed!

If you’ve ever attended a brainstorm session you have, like me, heard the phrase: “There are no bad ideas.” And like me, you probably said to yourself: “Oh yes there are!”

During a brainstorm, we shouldn’t judge ideas because judgment stifles idea generation. But once the idea generation phase is over, we must assess the ideas before implementing any of them. To avoid judgment of ideas at this phase would be foolish.

Here’s an example of a really novel idea that was not well assessed:

On Thursday afternoon in Utica, New York, a man attempted to rob three different banks armed with a toilet plunger.

Undoubtedly the man was flush with excitement when he came up with the idea of using a toilet plunger as a weapon – plungers are readily available, inexpensive, and attention-grabbing. Plungers are not, however, highly threatening (at least when compared to a gun, knife or club). Plungers as weapons or means of intimidation = bad idea.

Idea assessment helps us determine whether ideas are feasible and worth implementation. Here are seven examples of questions we might use to assess an idea: Read More »

Posted in Brainstorming, Brilliant Actions, Creative Thinking Techniques, Thinking Skills | Tagged brainstorm, idea assessment, idea generation, new ideas, utica bank robbery | Leave a comment

Nine Constraints To Innovation & Change

By Chuck Dymer

Innovation may be the latest business craze, but for most organizations, the achievement of bold innovation targets is difficult. To make matters worse, any one of these nine constraints make the task of innovation more difficult, if not impossible:

Posted in Brilliance, Brilliant Actions, Communication, Creative Thinking Techniques, Innovation Navigation, Innovation Strategy, Leadership | Leave a comment

Pink Slime, Leadership and Slime Balls

By Chuck Dymer

Barb Shelly wrote a commentary in the Kansas City Star titled: ‘Pink Slime’ A Product Of Our Cheap-Beef Economy. In that article she quotes Donald D. Stull, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Kansas, saying this about pink slime:

“It is interesting to watch how framing really transforms the dialogue. It seems to me that critics have framed the debate in such a way that the meat industry is going to have a hard time recovering.”

Whether or not you find the use of pink slime hard to swallow is not the point of this post. My interest is creativity and innovation in the workplace and how framing those activities either promotes or discourages their occurrence and success.

Consider the impact of these frames:

Posted in Brilliance, Brilliant Actions, Communication, Creative Thinking Techniques, Leadership, Teamwork, Thinking Skills | Tagged communication, creative thinking, creativity, innovation, leaders, leadership, pink slime | 1 Comment

Is brainstorming an ideas generator or a myth?…part two

By Chuck Dymer

: Is Jonah Lehrer’s argument against brainstorming all wet?

Posted in Brainstorming, Brilliant Actions, Communication, Creative Thinking Techniques, Focus, Innovation Navigation, Innovation Strategy, Leadership, Logical Thinking and Argument, Teamwork, Thinking Skills | Leave a comment

Is brainstorming an ideas generator or a myth? – a New Yorker State of Mind

By Chuck Dymer

I’ve read about the brainstorm technique–

work as a team and wildly ideate

don’t criticize or ideas deflate.

But I want to think alone,

where not a white board you’ll find–

I’m in a New Yorker State of Mind.

(with apologies to Billy Joel)

In January of 2012, Jonah Lehrer wrote an article for The New Yorker titled: “Groupthink – the brainstorming myth.” After a lengthly and interesting discussion about Alex Osborn, the inventor of brainstorming, Lehrer wrote:

The underlying assumption of brainstorming is that if people are scared of saying the wrong thing, they’ll end up saying nothing at all. The appeal of this idea is obvious: it’s always nice to be saturated in positive feedback. Typically, participants leave a brainstorming session proud of their contribution. The whiteboard has been filled with free associations. Brainstorming seems like an ideal technique, a feel-good way to boost productivity. But there is a problem with brainstorming. It doesn’t work.

Posted in Brainstorming, Creative Thinking Techniques, Innovation Strategy, Leadership, Logical Thinking and Argument, Musings, Teamwork, Thinking Skills | 1 Comment

The Seven Lemons of Leadership – Episode Seven

By Chuck Dymer

What do leaders do? According to Robin Ryde in his book, Thought Leadership, leaders talk. In other words, communication is at the heart of being a good leader. “Crummy Communication”, the seventh of The Seven Lemons of Leadership, is one of the most serious reasons for failed leadership. In the video that follows, I discuss why good communication is critical for leadership.
Read More »

Posted in Brilliance, Brilliant Actions, Communication, Leadership, Seven Lemons of Leadership, Teamwork | 2 Comments