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Team Members’ Guide for Contributing to
the Creativity of the Group
We are trying to find innovative new
solutions. This checklist outlines your role as a team member in the
creative problem-solving process.
 Expect to be creative: Before the session begins, tell
yourself, “I will find new solutions.” Make a commitment to thinking
creatively. If you start out thinking you will be creative, you will have a
much better chance of finding new ideas.
Help explore the problem. When you see the problem, you may be
tempted to go for solutions right away, but in this process you should hold
off until the session leader tells you, so you and the team can learn more
about the problem and come up with ideas.
Join in generating beginning ideas. When you understand the problem, join
your team-mates in coming up with beginning ideas.
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Come out with any ideas that POP into your head at this point. They won’t be perfect, but that doesn’t
matter.
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Still don’t go for solutions. Have fun
coming up with weird ideas.
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Go for quantity. Linus Pauling said,
“The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.” The more the
better.
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Respect all your team-mates’ ideas:
Don’t evaluate any of them now. New ideas are flawed, but leave them alone.
They will lead to better ideas as you go along. Ideas are only ideas, and
you don’t have to deal with each one as it comes up.
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Go for the outrageous. Wacko ideas are
good because they stimulate energy and laughter in the group.
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Don’t be limited by the present order of
things. Think outside the box. Deliberately look for the unconventional and
the untried.
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Expect uncertainty. New ideas create
anxiety at first. “Suppose the boss walks in and sees these flip charts. He’d think we’re nuts.”
As you become used to the process, your anxiety will disappear.
Play with ideas: build, combine, modify, enhance. After the
team has come up with a wide range of ideas, help the group pick the most
exciting ones, then play with them to get more ideas and to make them
stronger.
Find a solution. End up with an idea that:
Is new.
Is workable.
Solves the problem.
Management will buy into.
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“The gift of fantasy has meant more to
me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.” - Albert
Einstein
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