Asking Good Questions

A child questions everything, yet as adults, we often accept what is front of us, even if it doesn’t work so well, never asking for more information, clarification or simply, why? Our acceptance of what is rather than what could be can mean the loss of potential for an organization. By encouraging and asking questions,--good questions -- the kind of questions to challenge processes and simply ask why are we doing what we do in the workplace, organizations can move past the status quo and get more creative.

Why? So, why don’t we ask questions? Those of us who have been in the school system too long (high school, college, grad school) often regret asking too many questions; we get singled out, and not in a good way, for asking rather than accepting what we are told.

Maybe we have a question yet don’t ask when given the opportunity because we believe our question isn’t good enough to ask. In the workplace environment, we hesitate to question someone with authority or power over us, whether it’s our boss, a subject-matter expert, or even a colleague.

Many of us are intimidated by silence, the time when someone says “does anyone have any questions”; we may not want to reveal our ignorance. Instead of putting ourselves into a potentially embarrassing situation, we keep silent. Our question goes unasked and unanswered.

Good questioning skills are a talent we should help our employees to embrace.

Communicate and encourage. First and foremost, let employees know there are no stupid questions. Smart, successful people don’t accept what is front of them at face value and they certainly aren’t satisfied until they find an explanation they understand—to do this they ask questions.

Engage. Help people ask better questions. Give them effective examples such as:

·         "Can you explain the details of this situation?"

·         “Why did you choose this particular approach?”

·         “What are the possible consequences of going this route?"

·         “Why do you think this project turned out as it did?”

·         "Can this be accomplished in any other way?"

·         “Why did this work?”

·         "Why didn’t this work?"

·         "Based on your experience, what do you suggest we do here?"

Self-help guru Tony Robbins puts it like this, “Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers. “ By encouraging and showing employees how to ask good questions, you can develop their abilities—abilities for solving problems, being resourceful, and becoming more creative in the workplace.

Karen Sieczka is an Instructional Designer with a performance consulting company, Creativity@Work expert, and founder of Growing Great Ideas.com, a training resources website. Karen has designed, facilitated, and managed a variety of training programs including technology, soft skills, customer service, leadership, and business communications. She also trains organizations of all sizes to be more creative and innovative in the workplace using micro-steps from her Kindle eBook Growing Great Ideas: Unleashing More Creativity@Work.

Key Trends in Training for 2012

From HR Matters: Special Feature -As I see it

13 practitioners share what they believe to be key trends in training and development for 2012

Karen Sieczka shares, "Since most training departments will still be running “lean” in 2012, one of the trends I see is that training programs will need to be even more targeted and relevant to the job skills your organization’s workforce needs. "

Read more here.

The classroom vs. elearning

Technology for learning is available at our fingertips, from our desktops and across the Internet. As organizations search for cost-effective alternatives to onsite classroom training, it is natural to wonder if face- to-face classroom training is still worth the time and effort. Is it even relevant?

Read the rest of the post on the Greenlight Communications blog.

Harvesting Creativity through Social Media

Social media can be a creative and collaborative portal for organizations that makes it easier to gather ideas and generate innovations. Proper implementation is necessary to fully develop these tools so the business can reap the rewards. This article illustrates how to successfully integrate social media into the workforce for a creative idea harvest.

Read the rest of the article in Training Industry Quarterly...

Want to get more creative and innovative in the workplace? Growing Great Ideas: Unleashing More Creativity@Work, THE creativity training book, is now available for Kindle. 

The Paradox of Creativity

Creativity is often born in a paradox. Why? Many creative thinkers are divergent thinkers.  This means they are able to generate large quantities of ideas, whether brilliant or mundane, maintain a playful attitude about the process, and have the flexibility to switch perspectives to unusual and new associations.  The paradox comes from the need to temper creativity with a dogged determination and perseverance necessary to bring ideas from the conception stage to actual, practical use.  

One without the other results in a net gain of nothing: either there are no ideas generated or the ideas languish and die unused.

It’s here! Creativity@Work, Growing Great Ideas: Unleashing More Creativity@Work, with over 80 pages of ideas, exercises, and resources at the E-book website.

Follow me on Twitter or become a fan of my Facebook Creativity@Work page. I can also train you and your organization to be more creative and innovative using microsteps at work. Email me for more information.

Creativity@Work: Articles

Gather creativity and innovation information to add to your organizational Idea Library from some of these interesting resources. How can you and your organization apply these ideas and resources to problems and projects or use to seek new opportunities, niches, and combinations?

• Duke University: Creative Thinking Value Rubric
• How to Overcome Creative Blocks and Distractions on BNET
• What is Creativity by Linda Naiman
• Do You Recognize These 10 Mental Blocks to Creative Thinking? On Copyblogger
• WorkMadeEasier.com: Will Creative Thinking Make You More Successful?

What creative and idea resources will you add to your Idea Library? 

It’s here and it’s free! Until March 31, 2011-- download the complete training guide to Creativity@Work, Growing Great Ideas: Unleashing More Creativity@Work, with over 80 pages of ideas, exercises, and resources at the E-book website.

Follow me on Twitter or become a fan of my Facebook Creativity@Work page. I can also train you and your organization to be more creative and innovative at work. Email me for more information.

Creativity@Work: Books

What better way to build a foundation and reference point for creative pursuits in the workplace than to read about innovation from a variety of viewpoints? Build an Idea Library with some books that may help your organization think more creatively:

• 101 Creative Problem Solving Techniques: The Handbook of New Ideas for Business by James M. Higgins

• A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative by Roger von Oech

• Get Back in the Box: Innovation from the Inside Out by Douglas Rushkoff

• The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO's Strategies for Defeating the Devil's Advocate and Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization by Thomas Kelley and Jonathan Littman

• How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day

Need more ideas to unleash Creativity@Work? Download a free, 25 page preview of THE training guide to Creativity@Work, Growing Great Ideas: Unleashing More Creativity@Work, at the E-book website.

Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter or become a fan of my Facebook Creativity@Work page. I can also train you and your organization to be more creative and innovative at work. Email me for more information.

Creativity@Work: Idea Master Buckminster Fuller

I just invent, then wait until man comes around to needing what I've invented.

--R. Buckminster Fuller

Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller (1895 –1983) was an American philosopher, thinker, visionary, inventor, architect, engineer, mathematician, poet, cosmologist, and is credited with being one of the first futurists and global thinkers.

Fuller is best known for his lattice shell structures or geodesic domes, which have been used as parts of military radar stations, civic buildings, environmental protest camps and exhibition attractions. Although Fuller popularized use of the dome, the original design came from Dr. Walther Bauersfeld. For the next half-century, he developed many ideas, designs and inventions, particularly regarding practical, inexpensive shelter and transportation because of his overriding concern for sustainability and human survival under the existing socio-economic system. Fuller, however, remained optimistic about humanity's future. He documented his life, philosophy and ideas scrupulously by a diary called the Dymaxion Chronofile.

Fuller also developed the Dymaxion Map of the world as the first world projection to show the continents on a flat surface without visible distortion. This view shows the earth as being essentially one island in one ocean.

His ideals are still carried on through the work of the Buckminster Fuller Institute. Visit the website for more information.

Need more ideas to unleash Creativity@Work? Download a free, 25 page preview of THE training guide to Creativity@Work, Growing Great Ideas: Unleashing More Creativity@Work, at the E-book website.

Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter or become a fan of my Facebook Creativity@Work page. I can also train you and your organization to be more creative and innovative at work. Email me for more information.

Creativity@Work Tool: Bubbl.us

Bubbl.us is a free, online mind mapping tool that allows you to create mind mapping and brainstorming diagrams without even a log-in required to get started. Have a great idea for a product or service. What now? How do you get it done? What steps do you need to bring this idea into reality? What’s related to this central idea? Get those ideas out of your head and into mind map.

It only took me a few moments to draw my sample mind map without ever using this tool previously as Bubbl.us is pretty intuitive to use and has familiar controls. I did create a free account so I could save this map to use again and also to be able to share with other, who can also add new bubbles of thought to the map.

Want to try it out and see what great ideas you can brainstorm? Check out the Bubbl.us website and click the start brainstorming button. On the getting help tab, there are easy to understand instructions for using this neat, interactive tool. If you try this out, send me an email and let me know how you like it and what ideas came from it.

For more, simple tutorials on using the tools within Bubbl.us click here and here.

Want more ideas to unleash Creativity@Work? For more information on how to get your copy of THE training guide to Creativity@Work, Growing Great Ideas: Unleashing More Creativity@Work, visit the E-book website. Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter or become a fan of my Facebook Creativity@Work page. I can also train you and your organization to be more creative and innovative at work. Email me for more information.

Creativity@Work: Idea Master Edward de Bono

“Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.” --Edward de Bono

Edward de Bono is one of the leading authorities in the field of lateral and creative thinking, treating thinking as a teachable skill to be enhanced and improved. de Bono has written over 70 books on the subject including Six Thinking Hats where he writes about the need to compartmentalize the various aspects of personality in order to analyze business problems and decisions. In the book, he separates these feelings into six thinking hats, allowing us to use each of the six areas to get a different perspective and to build more understanding of others’ perceptions.

Six hats are:

• White - considering purely what information is available, what are the facts?
• Red - instinctive gut reaction or statements of emotional feeling
• Black - logic applied to identifying problems or barriers, seeking mismatch
• Yellow - logic applied to identifying benefits, seeking harmony
• Green - statements of provocation and investigation, seeing where a thought goes
• Blue –the hat worn by those facilitating and directing the process

Six Thinking Hats provides a technique for looking at decision making from a number of different points of view, by allowing emotion and skepticism to be brought into purely rational decisions. This affords the opportunity for people to be more positive and creative.

Consider: how could putting on a different hat change your thinking?

For a good overview and examples of Six Thinking Hats in action, check out this post on MindTools.

Want more ideas to unleash Creativity@Work? For more information on how to get your copy of THE training guide to Creativity@Work, Growing Great Ideas: Unleashing More Creativity@Work, visit the E-book website. Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter or become a fan of my Facebook Creativity@Work page. I can also train you and your organization to be more creative and innovative at work. Email me for more information.