Bring More Creativity to Your Working Sessions for a More
Successful Conference
By: Jeffrey A. Govendo
The showpiece of most management meetings or other large corporate
conferences is the full-group plenary session that usually takes
place the first morning. This is when the CEO and other top leaders
are likely to address the assemblage about the company's mission
and strategies, its recent achievements and future expectations.
Often there is a keynote speaker to impart his/her knowledge
and wisdom, and motivate attendees to achieve their highest potential.
After the large session, though, audience members typically
move on to breakout groups, where the real "work" of
the conference is supposed to take place. Unfortunately, at many
corporate meetings these breakouts are conducted like mini-versions
of the plenary session, with participants listening to reports
from their divisions as facts and figures are displayed in Powerpoint.
Often, time is put aside for question and answers. Rarely, though,
is anything done to elicit new ideas and solutions for the company's
toughest challenges. Many consider the corporate conference a
time for informing and reviewing, rather than active problem-solving. "We
want our people to enjoy themselves," is an often-heard
rationale for this, as if sitting passively and listening for
hours on end is more fun than rolling up your sleeves and working
creatively with colleagues on real issues.
This is a short-sighted approach, because the most favorable
conditions for creative problem-solving are usually present at
a company-wide meeting. In one location is the vast majority
of your organization's best thinkers. Being results-oriented,
most want to make things happen. In addition, because they're
removed from the everyday routines of the workplace, they're
likely to feel freer offering ideas they wouldn't ordinarily
come up with under the weight of daily work demands. In short,
this is a great time for generating new ideas!
Here, then are 7 guidelines for designing and conducting your
working sessions for maximum creativity in dealing with the tasks
of your conference:
1. Exploit the diversity at large meetings - A company-wide
meeting presents an opportunity to put together new combinations
of employees - people who don't ordinarily interact, and therefore
haven't established routine patterns of response to one another.
Each of these combinations represents a new "chemistry" that
has the potential of coming up with innovative - perhaps even
breakthrough - solutions for your company's major challenges.
Take advantage of this opportunity when planning the composition
of work groups, by crossing the usual boundaries of geography,
function and organization hierarchy.
2. Have a clearly-stated task and set of deliverables at each
session - Most of us are more willing to go down an unknown path
if we're certain we can find our way back home. Too often, conference
attendees go into breakouts with only a vague sense of what they
are supposed to be working on, or what is expected as the output.
Some may argue this encourages creativity, but that is not the
case. People are much more willing to take mental risks when
their thinking is anchored in tangible objectives, and they understand
the rationale for each one. These should be prominently displayed
and referred to often throughout the session.
3. Encourage speculative, wishful thinking when brainstorming
ideas, free from early judgments or evaluation - This is easier
said than done, since most of us are well-trained to zero in
on what's wrong with a new idea. And of course, the more creative
and unfamiliar the idea, the more flaws it's likely to have.
Jumping on it right away is a sure way to kill it, and to discourage
people from engaging in further creative ideation. Instead, let
all ideas offered stand (in fact, it's best to display them prominently),
and encourage participants to build upon them, rather than assess
their usefulness or feasibility. Later on, they can simply choose
the most promising ones for further focus and development, without
judging each one along the way.
4. Take advantage of new surroundings - Most corporate conferences
are held offsite, in pleasant, interesting settings. So often,
though, the schedule of activities is so crammed, attendees never
leave the facility's meeting rooms! A new setting can do more
than simply provide respite from the daily work routine. Taking
in new sights and sounds enhances creativity by activating different
areas of the brain. This, in turn, stimulates fresh thinking
and new ideas. So, get up, move around, go outside - not simply
to take a break, but to enhance the quality of output at your
working sessions.
5. Provide neutral facilitators to keep sessions on track -
Creative ideation is a process, and should be conducted by someone
skilled at leading groups. Relying on someone from within the
group to take this role is risky because a) they may not have
the skills to keep the process going, and b) they may have an
agenda of their own. Likewise, leaderless groups - particularly
those newly-formed at the conference - are not likely to achieve
their objectives either. A skilled facilitator will not only
keep the process moving along, but also preserve new ideas and
support the people who offer them. This is important if you want
them to keep contributing and experiment with new thinking.
6. Plan enough time to develop and refine new ideas - Creative
idea generation can and should be fun. But done purely for its
own sake, it gets old quickly. A well facilitated brainstorm
should yield many beginning ideas, but left in their "raw" state,
they are of limited usefulness. Fleshing these out is as much
a part of the innovation process as coming up with creative ideas
in the first place. So, it's important to take several of the
more promising ones and "work" them a bit - teasing
out the positive elements, and problem-solving around the negatives
- to see if there is a potential working concept there. These
developed concepts constitute the real deliverables of such a
session.
7. Conclude with a set of action items or recommendations -
Even a well-developed, innovative concept is not likely to go
anywhere without some clearly-stated next steps, along with who
is responsible for them and when. Many potential breakthrough
ideas are lost through failure to take the necessary immediate
actions. And, in addition to losing the ideas, the people who
worked on them become jaded to the process and less willing to
try it again. Results-driven people want something to show for
their efforts; articulating the steps needed for implementing
a new idea is absolutely essential for making that happen.
In terms of ideas, your next corporate conference should be
a high-yield affair. Try instituting these guidelines and you'll
see more creative output from the people who know your business
best: your own employees.
Jeffrey A. Govendo is president of The
Innovative Edge(TM) Inc., a consulting firm based in
Massachusetts that helps client organizations tackle tough
challenges through creative problem solving.
Mr. Govendo works as a project consultant, group facilitator,
trainer and conference designer, enabling organizations to
achieve their goals by increasing their capacity for innovation.
He can be contacted at: 508-497-9096
