Suppose your team perceives itself hitting a creative block in your organization, unable to brainstorm new business ideas.

What can you do?

Using new creative thinking exercises may push your team to more extreme creativity and many new business ideas. Bringing in an outside facilitator to lead your thinking to more uncomfortable places is always a beneficial option (let me know if you need a suggestion on someone to do this).

It could be though other factors are responsible for a perceived inability to brainstorm new business ideas. While it may feel like your team simply cannot get past a creative block to come up with new business ideas, it could very well be the issue is not creative thinking skills at all.

Have you considered these reasons for an apparent creative block?

  • Perhaps brainstorming sessions in your organization always start at the beginning without building upon business ideas you have previously identified. Your best creative thinking time investment may be working with the old ideas to move them ahead.
  • Some strong ideas you have already considered are compelling and make sense, but they have never been implemented. As a result, people keep revisiting these same old ideas repeatedly.
  • Maybe new people are participating in your brainstorming session without adequate background in your previous efforts. Never having been exposed to the same old ideas before, the same old ideas to you are new business ideas to them.
  • It could be your organization does not prioritize new business ideas after they are generated to place a higher value on moving forward with the freshest ideas.

If you find your organization facing these types of issues, what is needed could be concentrating on the same old ideas to actually initiate action and integrate them into your organization’s daily activities.

Have you successfully worked through a creative block in your organization? What strategies worked for you?

If you are feeling your ideas are not as fresh as they should be, consider how doing something with old ideas can pave the way for generating new possibilities and breaking the creative block in your organization.  - Mike Brown

The Brainzooming Group helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can help you enhance your strategy and implementation efforts.