Breakthroughs

After I wrote my first book in 1996, “Collaborative Creativity,” I was invited to facilitate a breakthrough product development day with engineers and marketing people in a company that produced MRI technologies.

My work began with a tour of the company’s R&D offices and production and programming facilities. The sleek machines I saw there were in stark contrast to the first MRI invented by Raymond Damadian whom I had the good fortune of meeting at the opening of the National Inventors Hall of Fame when I was doing research for the book. The first version looked like a workout bench on steroids. It reminded me of the fact that innovations can have the humblest of beginnings and go through endless iterations of enhancements and transformations.

The fashion of idea sessions at the time was based on the mythology that creativity and innovation thrive in environments that stimulate both sides of the brain. I arrived at the day with the engineering and marketing people armed with a car packed with all sorts of materials. I had flip chart paper, Post-It’s, modeling clay, paints, crayons, poster board, silly string, action figures, water guns, balloons, high-energy snacks, junk food and beers.

When I arrived in the space at a conferences center, I walked into a dark room with a group of white shirt and tie, pocket-protector bearing men sitting around a flickering overhead projector staffed by someone droning on in the voice of seances and funerals. I had a seat in the back and hoped I was in the wrong room.

It was the right room and I quickly realized that if this represents the group’s ethos, it will either be the easiest work I ever encountered or an impossible task.

The presentation ended, lights came back on revealing a group as dreary as they appeared in the dark. “Can we help you set up?’ my host asked. “Let’s have everybody head outside for a breath of fresh air, it’ll take me a bit.”

When the group arrived, I was standing bare footed in the middle of the most visually alive room they may have ever seen. The windows now brought light and views of the pool into the room. “Sit anywhere you want,” I suggested. There were no chairs, just couches and pillows. It took a few minutes of watching the equivalent of sitting elephants on jellyfish, but the group was settled and completely off balance.

We dove into the work and a few hours later, a barefooted and laughing group had produced 283 ideas for breakthrough MRI innovations. The whole day was punctuated with eating, drinking, and lively critique sessions. The group’s energy became kinder and stronger and with beers in hand, we celebrated the sun setting over the 10 winning ideas.

from an upcoming book on the power of our stories

This entry was posted on Monday, November 10th, 2008 at 11:08pm and is filed under Appreciative living. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.