I remember sitting in the front row of church the first time that I heard this ridiculous phrase, “Think of lady bugs running a dishwasher.” It was the Willow Creek Leadership Summit. I was attending via simulcast in south Florida. Dr. Steve Sample of the University of Southern California was speaking in an interview about being creative. He told the audience of thousands of young leaders that when he or his team hit a creative impasse, he would challenge them to think of how lady bugs would run a dishwasher.
The thought was absurd. In fact, it bordered on insanity. How could something so wildly outside the boundaries of conventional wisdom be considered in a serious conversation? That was the point.
For Dr. Sample, when his team could not reconcile an issue through common problem solving tactics, he had to challenge them to think outside the norm. The idea was to get his team thinking beyond the confines of what they had tried before. Often, this resulted in a solution that had never been discovered before. This created innovation and brought them to the cutting edge of leadership.
There are hundreds of problems that we come to as leaders everyday. Some are quickly solved through experience. However, some are so big that we consider to them to be beyond fixing. As a leader, it can be easy do your best to work in spite of these problems rather than thinking of ways to attack them creatively. Here’s the challenge, think of lady bugs running a dishwasher. Think of solutions to the problem that are so far beyond the boundaries normal that they just might work.
Once you are “outside the box” search for the solution that fits. It may be a risk, but if you plan it just right and get the right people on board the possibilities are endless. Creativity is the missing ingredient of the stagnant team. Think beyond the norm and discover the innovation that you can use to lead your people to the next level.
No comments:
Post a Comment