The Developing Leaders magazine just published our new article on Stealthstorming, a new and different philosophy for corporate creativity.
Excerpt below – link to full article at the bottom.
Stealthstorming: Making innovation happen under the radar
Creativity isn’t about crayons. It is about finding a way to adopt creativity to your workplace – and that often entails leaving the more flamboyant methods behind in favour of a subtler, more pragmatic approach.
Here is how it normally goes: A manager, challenged with making his or her organization more innovative, sets in motion a range of initiatives. A fun and energizing workshop is organized; a new framework is introduced; brainstorming tools are taught and wild ideas encouraged. The manager also starts some kind of online idea contest – “Submit your ideas for improving our company!” It looks like a great start on the journey towards a creative culture.
And then, after the initial excitement – comes the silence. The workshop didn’t change anything. The brainstorming tools aren’t used. The new innovation buzzwords are received with surprising coolness by the front-line employees. And with slowly dawning horror, the manager finds that people have started to think of innovation not as a serious value add, but as the ‘Department of Light Entertainment’.
The answer is what we call Stealthstorming. Stealthstorming, in essence, is about making innovation happen under the radar. It is guerilla warfare, waged with ideas. It is a radical thinker dressed in a suit and a tie. It is when you abandon all the usual trappings of creativity – multi-coloured hats, flamboyant workshops, cheesy change management techniques – and sneak under the corporate defences to make it happen.
The successful stealthstormers we have studied follow some simple, if counterintuitive, rules when they make innovation happen. [...]
Read the full text: Download the article as a PDF or read it online at Developing Leaders.
