Facilitating a brainstorm - managing the event

A skilled facilitator can make a huge difference to the success (or otherwise) of a brainstorm or creative thinking session - and this starts with how the event is set up. 

Once you have the objectives of the session agreed, you can start planning it. 

The first thing to think about is timing. Of course, this may be more fixed than you'd like - the only day people are available, or by the demands of the job (for example, if you have to do it within the next couple of days to have the ideas ready by a certain time). 

But if you can be more flexible, think about the best day of the week. Mondays for many organisations are a no-no - Thursdays and Fridays are often best. Consider the availability of the people you'd like to involve, even the best time of day. 

I like to choose either early morning (before people have been caught up in day-to-day problems) or late afternoon (but use energisers and hands-on exercises to keep post-lunch energy levels up). 

How long should the session last? Anything from an hour to a day or two - as long as you are creative about the agenda (yes, even brainstorms should have an agenda or plan, even if it's only shared by the facilitator and problem-owner).

Next is venue. My preference would always be to go off-site, if only because in my experience the simple act of changing environment changes thinking. However, unless you can "borrow" another building or meeting room, going off-site will almost inevitably cost money.

But whether you stay in-house or go off-site, I'd implore you to be creative about the venue too. 

Is there natural light? Can you get up and move around? Can you be flexible with the layout of the rooms? Is it fit for purpose? In other words, does it have the right AV or can you take your own? Does it have flipcharts and white-boards if you need them? Are there areas which let you break the team up into smaller thinking groups? And no, you don't need expensive breakout rooms, just different areas like a lounge, bar, or garden. 

Think about attendees - who must attend? Who else could you invite - clients or customers? People from other teams? Outside experts? And about how you'll invite them, and what you'd like them to do in advance of the session. 

And finally, start thinking about what you'll need for the session itself - how will you inspire great thinking? Take a look at "How to Headsurf" at www.headsurfing.com for some ideas. Think about music, exercises, and what stimulus you might use to provoke creative thinking. 

Now all you have to do is manage the process, manage the people, manage timing and manage the outcome - but more on those in my next blog.

Presentation tip - play it, don't say it

This week I have a special guest at the Professional Speakers Chapter I run – John Cremer from Brighton.

John runs The Maydays, one of the UK’s leading improvisational comedy groups – I have performed with them quite a few times, and enjoyed (almost) every second!

I saw him speak in South Africa recently, and was struck with how good he is at translating what he’s saying into what he’s doing.

Of course, John has an acting background, but anyone, yes anyone, can put more performance and action into their presentations – and you should try it.

I call it "play it, don't say it". Look for passages in your presentation where you are describing a scene, or telling a story, and use movement, body language, facial expression to bring the piece alive.

Watch friends telling stories in the pub – they become animated, adding gestures, pulling faces, and acting out what actually happened. Try the same in your next presentation – bringing your talk alive will bring your audience alive too.

Creativity Tip - Improve your facilitation skills

I’ve been working with a great new client over the last couple of weeks – the makers of three (if not four) of my favourite whiskies.

As well as doing the opening keynote at their conference (which was a blast) they asked me to train some of their key staff in facilitating brainstorms – so that during the conference we could run several creative thinking sessions simultaneously, getting the most out of them.

The ability to run a meeting properly is a great skill to have – it cuts down on wasted time, keeps energy levels up, and helps your colleagues to look forward to meetings rather than hate them.

The first tip I’d give you is that The facilitator’s key responsibility is to ensure the meeting achieves its objectives.

There’s no other point to facilitating – indeed, there’s no other point to any meeting.

Of course, step one is to have objectives in the first place. Ever been to a meeting that seemed to have no objective, no process, and no point? Thought so.

I’ll put up the key tasks of the facilitator – managing the meeting, managing people and managing process included – as well as tips and strategies for success on this blog over the next couple of weeks.

To learn the skills you need to get the most out of your sessions, keep reading the tips.

The Bowel and The Pussycat

Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Bum.

I think I'm a pretty typical guy of a certain age.

I love my family, and watching sport. I enjoy a pint, and a good curry. I've got lots of friends I've known for years, and some I've only just met. I love to travel, but I love to stay at home too.

And I don't like medical tests. Hate them.

It's not that I'm scared or anything. Well, not as in really scared. I'm just, you know, a bit of a pussycat.

Because tests mean results, and results might mean something wrong. And something wrong means illness. And illness means, potentially - well, let's not go there.

So imagine my joy when on my fiftieth birthday, in among my cards and presents, I found a special "Happy Birthday" from NHS Scotland. A little padded pack, which made me think "Ooh, that's nice. A present from my doctor".

"Dear Mr. Harris" it said. "Now you are fifty, we would like to present you with this wee Bowel Screening Kit".

It went on. "Please take a sample of your poo and send it to us so that we can confirm your darkest fears". It may not have said exactly that - I'm paraphrasing a bit.

I did exactly what I always do. The wrong thing.

I looked at the pack, read the instructions carefully, and put it in a drawer.

Every now and again I took it out, looked at it again - and put it back in the drawer. For over a year. Well, I told you - I don't like medical tests.

You see, it wasn't really convenient. Not for a man like me - I have things to do, places to go, people to see.

I'd have to plan, and think, and synchronise my poo-sampling with all the other important things in my life, like having meetings, speaking at conferences, listening to the radio, taking trains and watching re-runs of "Friends".

Before I knew it, I'd forgotten about it altogether.

Then last autumn, at a conference, I saw someone make a presentation on the success of a Bowel Screening Campaign in Glasgow. She said that more than 37,500 men and women are diagnosed with Bowel Cancer in the UK every year - it's the second most commonly diagnosed cancer. She talked about how the vast majority of cases are among those who have passed their 50th birthday.

And she told us that Bowel Cancer, if caught early, is 90% treatable with total success.

So when another test kit arrived through the door the following week (another birthday - they come along so quickly these days, don't you think?) I did what I should have done the first time. I decided to take the test, and to stop acting like, well, the thing I was about to take samples from.

The way the test works is that they give you a little pack of, er, lollipop stick things. You stick these into different areas of your poo (I apologise. This is as elegant as I can make it). Then you post the samples, in a very, very well-sealed pack off to the Bowel Cancer Screening Centre.

Mailing my poo was the part I found most strange, having never before sent my poo through the post to anyone.

Well, not if you don't count Piers Morgan.

You get the results back within two weeks, and for the vast majority of people it's an all-clear.

Not for me, though.

I received a letter telling me that the test had shown "hidden blood" - a possible sign of Bowel Cancer.

See? That's why I don't like medical tests.

With the letter was another sampling kit. This time, I completed it in double quick time. I'm sure you would too. And off it went.

This time the results came in a phone call. My daughter Ellen answered the phone and said "Dad, there's a really nice woman on the phone for you".

Which made me think that either I've won a free conservatory because they're in my area, or I've got cancer.

It was neither, but closest to the latter.

The second test had confirmed what was indicated in the first - there was hidden blood in this sample too.

So a week or so later, after a Sunday spent mostly on the loo (thanks to a strange fizzy concoction called Picolax) I presented myself at Edinburgh's Western Infirmary for a Colonoscopy.

This "procedure" involves a doctor inserting a thin tube, with a camera inside it, into your back passage.

Or "Up your jacksie for a shufti", as my dad would have put it.

Don't worry, the camera is very, very small.

I wish the same could have been said for the camera man.

Joking. I'm only joking.

The anaesthesia let me sleep through the whole thing. Just as well, really, because it avoided the unpleasant experience of me lying half naked on my side with a tube up my you know what, trying to make the doctor and nurses laugh.

I got the results almost immediately.

All clear.

The happiest words in the world.

All clear.

The doctor said a bit more than "all clear", of course. Like how I would be sent further tests in the future, and that I should take them (no argument from me). And that if I had any worries or symptoms I should see my GP. Agreed.

I think he then told me that I have one of the clearest bottoms in Edinburgh, but that might have been the after-effects of the anaesthesia.

Of course, I was delighted. More than delighted. relieved. Delirious. And quite weepy.

My wife was delighted too. And Diane, I promise to make it up to you next Valentine's Day. (Oh, did I mention that my colonoscopy took place on Valentine's Day? No? Ah. Happy Valentine's Day, darling).

But here's the point.

Even if the colonoscopy had confirmed "bad news", the chances are high that it would have been caught, dealt with there and then, and treated.

With total success.

That's why, if the test comes through your door, you should take it. No, you MUST take it.

Not just to check that you're clear. But because if you're not, they can treat it.

If you take the test, and any trace of early stage cancer is found, it is treatable. If you don't take the test, it might develop into something that isn't treatable. It might be too late.

Please. If you're fifty or over, take the test. If you know anyone over fifty - a parent, a partner, or a pal - please nag them to take the test.

Yes, medical tests are a pain in the arse. But not as big a pain in the arse as Bowel Cancer.

(April is Bowel Cancer Awareness month in the UK. However I have no association with that. Incidentally, your local health authority can give you much, much more information about why screening is so important, and so successful. They'll have a website, or a phone helpline. The one for my area is NHS Scotland, which is here: NHS Scotland Bowel Screening )

Creativity tip: Turbo-charge your imagination.

On Saturday I attended a TEDx event in Edinburgh.

If you don't know TED, you should. Drop what you're doing, and head to ted.com.

Billed as "Ideas worth spreading", TED is a series of conferences and events where the world's leading thinkers do short presentations on a truly remarkable variety of subjects.

The name comes from "Technology, Education, Design", but the speakers cover much, much more than that.

TEDx events are those run not by the TED Organisation, but by local supporters. Saturday's, live in London and simulcast to Edinburgh, Brighton, Liverpool and other cities, was set up and sponsored by the Observer newspaper.

I expected to be a 'sometime' attendee - to dip in and out as the whim took me, based on whether I thought the speaker was going to be interesting or not. That didn't happen. I sat transfixed, enjoying ALL the speakers. They engaged and involved us on subjects ranging from losing children in Israeli attacks (Izzeldin Abuelaish on "I shall not hate") to Climate Change, Ecology and Modern Art (the incomparable Vivienne Westwood). The unbelievably brave Katie Piper (turning her suffering sustained in an acid attack on her face into support and charity) and Martine Wright (who lost both legs in the 7/7 terrorist attacks and is now aiming to compete in the 2012 Special Olympics) showed us the strength of the human spirit in adversity - true adversity.

I did the hand-jive (all in the name of neurological research, of course) and joined in with people across the UK singing Zadoc the Priest in four part harmony. Honest.

I left the event with a notebook full of ideas, and a mind full of energy and inspiration.

Attending an event like this might be the most creative act you could ever do. It will inspire you, re-energise you - and most of all, fill your mind with possibility, with new ideas, and completely new ways of looking at the world.

It's like a turbo-charge for your imagination.

Creativity tip: Laughter equals ideas equals laughter

In every group I've worked with, when people are having ideas there tends to be a lot of laughter around.

And conversely, when people are laughing and enjoying themselves, the ideas tend to flow.

If you think about it, humour is very like creativity.

There’s a set-up (two men walk into a pub…), and then a punch line. The punchline is an "answer" to the set up. It's something we don’t expect, but which makes some sort of sense.

Great ideas are similar – there’s a challenge (or problem, or brief). And then an "answer".

If the "answer" we come up with is the obvious one, the one that immediately makes sense, it’s like a punchline you’ve heard before. It’s boring, unimaginative, the same old same old.

A new idea - like an unexpected punchline - surprises us. It's new - but it makes sense when checked against the problem or brief.

And having a laugh helps us have ideas. The centres of the brain which process humour, and come up with ideas, are so close that one helps the other.

Bring humour into your ideas sessions, by putting up cartoons, sharing jokes, or turning the problem into a limerick.

Have a laugh, and have an idea!

Presentation tip - put some humour in your presentations

Ask a professional speaker (like me) if you should use humour in a presentation and they’ll say “Only if you want to get paid”.

People whose income depends on speaking at conferences – and getting asked back – know the truth of the Victor Borge line “The shortest distance between two people is a smile”.

Humour engages an audience with what you are saying. It helps them relax, builds rapport and sets you apart from other presenters.

I don’t mean you should turn into Jimmy Carr, with a 20 minute set of one-liners. For most business presentations, actual jokes may be inappropriate.

But self-deprecating humour, taking an alternative view of the issue – or even sharing a funny moment that the team had while coming up with the solution – all help you build a relationship with the people listening to your presentation.

With this in mind, think about how you can improve your ‘take’ on humour.

I was doing some presentation coaching for a senior exec recently, and he asked me to help put more humour into his speeches. “What kind of humour do you enjoy?” I asked. “I don’t, really”, he said. "I tend to spend my time watching and reading more serious stuff".

I suggested he might spend more time reading PG Wodehouse and Christopher Brookmyre and less on Chekhov and Tolstoy.