FREE online courses on Is Your Team Effective - Manage Your Team Efficiently - Be Creative for Efficiency

Teams fail to achieve breakthrough-generating success without new ideas. All team members need to participate in the process of creative thinking. To encourage creative ideas certain points should be borne in mind.

• Look for the good points in an idea.
• Do not criticize any idea in public
• Seek experienced people to solve problems.

• Analyze the role played by people in the team
• Often foolish ideas lead to sensible solution
• Joint effort is always more creative than individuals provide alone.
• Criticizing ideas stops the flow of creativity
• Keep an amicable atmosphere during a brainstorming session
• Try to steer debate towards consensus
• Short list the feasible ideas
• Record all ideas on a flip chart

Work on your Strengths

Once a donkey became the king of the jungle. He wanted to do things differently. So he issued a gazette that stated:

“It is notified that from today the animals of the forest would improve themselves. It is done with a view to improve every body. Now the birds will run and horses fly. The elephants will eat rabbits and lions will eat fodder. The crow will sing and koels will crow. The cows will go for hunting and wolves will sit at home.”

Within a few days, there was chaos in the forest. Not this the donkey told his courtiers that animals were lazy and did not want to change themselves. But none believed him.

The donkey was dethroned shortly. The new king came and gave permission to all the animals to do things in the area of their strengths. Soon the jungle was a wonderful place once again.

Let people do what they are best at If you operate from their weaknesses, you are bound to fail.

Laughing Time

A policeman pulled over a driver and told him that because he was wearing his seat belt, he had just won $5000 in a safety competition. “What are you going to do with the money?” the officer asked.

“I guess I'll go to driving school and get my licence,” the man answered.