Challenge

The CEO of a high-performance marine products company felt that the organization’s leadership team kept trying to solve the same business problems with the same solutions, and they weren’t working. He needed new ideas to move the business forward.

One of the company’s quality managers attended the “Conditioning Your Mind to Fuel Creativity” BrainSpark workshop and was struck by the applicability of the content. He felt the workshop would be helpful as the leadership team sought to more creatively solve business problems, and the CEO of the company agreed. The company scheduled the BrainSpark workshop to prime the leadership team for creative thinking during their annual strategic meeting.

The BrainSpark workshop typically lasts four hours but had to be reduced to two hours to suit the company’s annual planning meeting schedule. Important material still had to be covered, along with interactive activities to reinforce the concepts, challenging the BrainSpark creator to exercise creative problem solving of her own.

Solution

While some of the leadership team was surprised to find an expert creativity facilitator hosting a training session when they arrived for strategic planning, and some where initially skeptical about the usefulness of the endeavor, all concerns were soon put to rest. By the end of the workshop, there was substantial energy in the room. Everyone was engaged, enthusiastic, and demonstrated a better understanding of how creative thinking could (and soon would) help in their jobs.

The leadership team emerged from the workshop understanding ways to “become more adept at clearing their minds and seeing how all the puzzle pieces come together”. They felt more empowered to build solutions that satisfied the demands of their customers and suited the best interests of their company. Ultimately, the participants entered their annual planning process with a drive to go beyond the “usual plan” and consider new ideas to old challenges.