iinnovate Podcast With IDEO Founder

We're always looking for great websites on creativity & innovation, and the iinnovate blog is no exception. The blog is run by students at Stanford University's Business and Design Schools, and offers podcast interviews with leaders of some of the world's most innovative companies.

We found the interview with IDEO Founder, David Kelley particularly relevant.

Kelley highlighted the importance of empowering your people to think that they are creative. Companies should tap into the creativity of everyone in the organization, not just the boss. Kelley stressed that we need to give all employees opportunities to generate and share their ideas no matter their position in the organization.

We couldn't agree more. But how do you provide such opportunities for generating new ideas?

People who are trained in Six Thinking Hats love the fact that in Six Hat Thinking there is a time and a place for creative thinking (called green hat thinking) where they don't have to worry about their ideas being criticized or "shot down."

Analysis of ideas, both the positive aspects and potential weaknesses, takes place at a later stage in the thinking process. During green hat thinking, you're strictly capturing new ideas.

The Six Thinking Hats process encourages creative thinking from each individual, not just those who are the most vocal.

Six Thinking Hats For Problem-Solving

Six Thinking Hats provides a wonderful framework for problem solving. It helps teams identify the differences between problems and opportunities and allows them to look at each in a systematic manner.

Participants will learn a process that simplifies thinking by allowing them to deal with one aspect of a problem at a time. With Six Thinking Hats you’ll separate out the different aspects of thinking and focus as a team in parallel on the information known or needed (white hat), the benefits (yellow hat), then the risks (black hat), then feelings (red hat) about an issue, and so on. This process helps lay out all views of a problem side by side in parallel and then design a way forward. Six Thinking Hats also stimulates innovation using specific techniques to generate solutions to problems. We call this green hat thinking.

Six Thinking Hats is a powerful problem solving tool because it puts everyone in meetings on an equal playing field, keeps egos in check, depersonalizes criticism, and creates an open environment that encourages the unique contributions of each individual, even those who are typically more reserved.

Want to learn Six Thinking Hats?
Call 800.278.1292 or email info@deBonoConsulting.com.

Kemin Industries use of Six Thinking Hats

An article appeared in the Sunday paper of the Des Moines Register that discussed Kemin Industries' recent Six Thinking Hats training. Lifetime Master de Bono Trainer, Barbara Stennes, trained over 20 research and development employees at Kemin earlier this year.

Kemin is a global corporation that specializes in human health, food products, and animal and pet food ingredients. Kemin recently used Six Thinking Hats for two major research and development projects: one long-term project that took them in a completely different direction than they had planned, and one that involved a nutritional supplement being marketed in Europe. Six Thinking Hats allowed Kemin to lower production costs on the later project.

To read the full article, visit: http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061029/BUSINESS04/610290302/1033

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Technorati Tags: Edward de Bono, Innovation, de Bono Thinking, de Bono courses, de Bono Consulting, six thinking hats, research and development

Edward de Bono to Host Certification on Simplicity

A Certification on Simplicity, Dr. Edward de Bono's newest course, is currently being held in London. The inaugural Certification event was in 2005. For anyone who could not attend, this opportunity offers a second chance to be certified by Dr. de Bono himself. The first two days of the event are open to those who wish to attend the end user course, but do not wish to certify.

Barbara Stennes, Lifetime Certified Master Trainer of the de Bono Thinking Methods, is currently in attendance. She also attended the Simplicity Certification in 2005.

Though it is too late to register for this event, please call us at 800.278.1292 to find out about future Simplicity courses.

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Technorati Tags: Edward de Bono, Innovation, de Bono Thinking, de Bono courses, de Bono Consulting, simplicity, simplicity course

Webinar: Imagine What Six Thinking Hats Training Can Do For Your Organization

Today was our second day of hosting a Webinar focused on Six Thinking Hats and how you can bring Six Hats to your organization. We had three speakers on the call: Barbara Stennes, Certified Lifetime Master Trainer of Edward de Bono's Thinking Methods; Amy Hoey, Business Development Manager of de Bono Consulting; and Jim Atkinson, Six Sigma Master Black Belt with Pioneer Hi-Bred Int'l, which is a DuPont Company.

Agenda:

• Origin of Six Thinking Hats
• Client Applications
• Jim Atkinson, Pioneer Hi-Bred, International
• Explanation of the Six Modes of Thinking
• Demonstration of Parallel Thinking
• Opportunities for In-depth Learning

15 people attended each Webinar, many of them from Fortune 500 companies. Barbara used the state of US airline travel as an example as she went through a demonstration of of Six Thinking Hats. Her sequence was Blue Hat, Yellow Hat, Black Hat, White Hat, Green Hat, Red Hat, Blue Hat.

Jim Atkinson was asked to speak at this event because he has facilitated many meetings in a wide range of venues using Six Hats. Jim brought a broad background of hands-on experience to our Webinars.

Visit the de Bono Events page on our website to view our upcoming Edward de Bono Training events.

Comments and Questions from participants:

"Focus is positive, it was quick, flowed very well. Even though I never tried this process before.. easy to learn."

"Would you please speak to the application of Six Thinking Hats in leadership development?"

"Thank you for this overview. I look forward to becoming certified. I plan on attending a Six Thinking Hats Certification program in the spring."

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Technorati Tags: Edward de Bono, Innovation, Six Hats, six hats course, six hats certification, de Bono Thinking, de Bono courses, de Bono Consulting, Pioneer Hi-Bred, Six Sigma

Criticism: The Innovation Killer

From Seth Godin's new book "Small Is The New Big":

"Three curses of criticism that make companies put the brakes on innovation (and worse, put their best employees-the innovators-on the defensive):

• Successful companies fear external criticism
• Successful innovators are more subject to harsh criticism
• Less innovative employees have carte blanche to criticize the innovators unfairly"

With these in mind, how can you help your company be more innovative and overcome the fear of criticism?

1) Teach your employees to be innovative. Give employees a process to better generate new ideas and employees will become less fearful of innovation. Once people understand the process of innovation, and realize with success comes the possibility of failure, the more willing they are to create new ideas and help harness the ideas of others.

2) Create an environment that is accepting of innovation. Help your employees understand they don't need a box of crayons to be creative. Start asking for creative ideas in your business meetings. In the business world, creativity provides a means of solving problems and generating alternatives. With global competition, the Internet, and demand for quick results, today innovation is even more necessary for an organization's survival and prosperity into the future.

Lateral Thinking: Dr. Edward de Bono’s Lateral Thinking methods provide a deliberate, systematic process resulting in innovative thinking. Lateral Thinking will teach you how to think creatively, turn problems into opportunities, find alternative solutions, & dramatically increase your number of new and practical ideas using unconventional thinking techniques normally untapped by our usual ways of thinking.

Creative thinking is not a talent; it’s a skill that can be learned. It empowers people by adding strength to their natural abilities, which improves creativity and innovation, which leads to increased productivity and profit. Today, better quality and better service are essential, but they are not enough. Creativity and innovation are the only engines that will drive lasting, global success.

Learn how you can bring Lateral Thinking to your organization.

Questions? Call us at 800.278.1292.

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Technorati Tags: Edward de Bono, Innovation, Lateral Thinking, lateral thinking course, lateral thinking certification, de Bono Thinking, de Bono courses, de Bono Consulting, Seth Godin

School Bus Test

The following problem solving exercise has been circulating around emails and blogs:

"In which direction is the bus pictured below traveling?" The only possible answers are "left" or "right."

Think about it.

Still don't know?

Before I tell you, we can use White Hat to figure out this problem.

What do we know?
We know what a school bus looks like.

What do we need to know?
The direction the bus is traveling

How do we find out what we need to know?
We need to think about the difference in how the bus looks when it is traveling left compared to what it looks like when it is traveling right.

The answer: The bus is traveling left.
Why do you think the bus is traveling in the left direction? Because you can't see the door.

Want to learn more about how you can use Six Thinking Hats for problem solving? Visit our website at: http://www.debonoconsulting.com/Six_Thinking_Hats.asp or call us at 800.278.1292.

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Technorati Tags: Edward de Bono, Innovation, Six Thinking Hats, Problem Solving, de Bono Thinking, de Bono courses, de Bono Consulting