The Step by Step Guide to Brainstorming

Brainstorming can be an effective way to generate lots of ideas on a specific issue and then determine
which idea – or ideas – is the best solution. Brainstorming is most effective with groups of 8-12 people
and should be performed in a relaxed environment. If participants feel free to relax and joke around,
they'll stretch their minds further and therefore produce more creative ideas.

A brainstorming session requires a facilitator, a brainstorming space and something on which to write
ideas, such as a white-board a flip chart or software tool. The facilitator's responsibilities include guiding
the session, encouraging participation and writing ideas down.

Brainstorming works best with a varied group of people. Participants should come from various
departments across the organisation and have different backgrounds. Even in specialist areas, outsiders
can bring fresh ideas that can inspire the experts.

There are numerous approaches to brainstorming, but the traditional approach is generally the most
effective because it is the most energetic and openly collaborative, allowing participants to build on each
others' ideas.

Creativity exercises, relaxation exercises or other fun activities before the session can help participants
relax their minds so that they will be more creative during the brainstorming session.

Step by Step
1. Define your problem or issue as a creative challenge. This is extremely important. A badly
designed challenge could lead to lots of ideas which fail to solve your problem. A well designed
creative challenge generates the best ideas to solve your problem. Creative challenges typically
start with: "In what ways might we...?" or "How could we...?" Your creative challenge should be
concise, to the point and exclude any information other than the challenge itself. For example:
"In what ways might we improve product X?" or "How could we encourage more local people to
join our club?"Click here to read Dr. Arthur Van Gundy's The care and framing of strategic
innovation challenges (PDF document: 537kb)

2. Give yourselves a time limit. We recommend around 25 minutes, but experience will show how
much time is required. Larger groups may need more time to get everyone's ideas out.
Alternatively, give yourself an idea limit. At minimum, push for 50 ideas. But 100 ideas is even
better.

3. Once the brainstorming starts, participants shout out solutions to the problem while the
facilitator writes them down – usually on a white board or flip-chart for all to see. There must be
absolutely no criticizing of ideas. No matter how daft, how impossible or how silly an idea is, it
must be written down. Laughing is to be encouraged. Criticism is not.

4. Once your time is up, select the five ideas which you like best. Make sure everyone involved in
the brainstorming session is in agreement.
 5. Write down about five criteria for judging which ideas best solve your problem. Criteria should
start with the word "should", for example, "it should be cost effective", "it should be legal", "it
should be possible to finish before July 15", etc.

6. Give each idea a score of 0 to 5 points depending on how well it meets each criterion. Once all of
the ideas have been scored for each criterion, add up the scores.
7. The idea with the highest score will best solve your problem. But you should keep a record of all
of your best ideas and their scores in case your best idea turns out not to be workable.

Key Factors to successful...

BRAINSTORMING
There are a numerous approaches to brainstorming, but
whichever approach you use, there are several key
factors which make the difference between a
successful brainstorming session and a mediocre
brainstorming session.
State your challenge correctly. In order to get the right ideas, you need to ensure that you are giving the
brainstorm session participants the right challenge. Otherwise, you could end up with a lot of ideas which
do not actually solve your problem. To learn more, download Dr. Arthur Van Gundy's article: The care and
framing of strategic innovation challenges (PDF document: 537kb)

No squelching! Squelching is when you criticise an idea or a person contributing the idea. Squelching can
be obvious, such as "That's the dumbest idea I have ever heard!" or subtle, such as "you'd never get the
budget to do that." No matter what the form, squelching does two terrible things to a brainstorming
session. Firstly, it makes the person who contributed the idea feel bad. As a result, she is unlikely to
contribute any more ideas to the session. Even if her idea was not a good one, it is likely she would have
had other, better ideas to contribute. Secondly, squelching tells other participants that unusual ideas are
not welcome at this brainstorming session. Since most creative ideas are also unusual ideas, a single
squelching effectively prevents participants from offering creative ideas. So, if you remember nothing else
about brainstorming, remember: no squelching!

Mixed participants. When brainstorming works well, it is because the session taps into the combined
creativity of all the participants. Clearly, then, the more varied the participants, the wider the range of
creative thinking and the more creative the ideas generated. It is a common mistake for managers to
think: we need marketing ideas, so let's get the marketing department together to brainstorm ideas.
These people work together all the time, have similar backgrounds and know too much about marketing.
As a result, their ideas will be limited in scope. Bringing together a dozen people from a dozen
departments is a far better approach to generating a wide range of creative ideas.

Enthusiastic facilitator. The facilitator is the person who manages the brainstorming session. Normally,
she does not contribute ideas, rather she makes note of the ideas, encourages participation, prevents
squelching, watches the time and directs the session. A good facilitator will have a sense of humour and a
knack for encouraging people to contribute ideas and be creative in their thinking. A good facilitator
compliments ideas and gives high praise to the most outrageous ideas - that's because she knows that
outrageous ideas encourage outrageous thinking which generates creative ideas. Moreover, what at first
might seem a crazy idea may, on reflection, prove to be a very creative idea. Incidentally, if the facilitator
is in the same company as the participants, care should be taken not to use a facilitator who is
significantly higher in the corporate heirarchy. A high ranking moderator can make participants reluctant
to take the risk of proposing an outrageous or highly unusual idea.

Well stated challenge. The challenge is the problem or issue for which you will be generating ideas. It is
important to indicate very clearly the challenge in such a way as to indicate the kind of ideas you want,
while not making the challenge so restricting that brainstormers cannot get creative. In our experience,
the most common problem is that the challenge is vaguely phrased. A manager who is looking for ideas
on how to improve product X in order to make it more attractive to younger customers all too often
phrases the challenge like this: "New product ideas" or "product improvements". Such vague challenges
encourage vague ideas, many of which do not respond to the managers' needs. For more information
about stating challenges effectively, download and read: The care and framing of strategic innovation
challenges (PDF document: 537kb) by Arthur Van Gundy.

Good environment with no disturbances. An uncomfortable environment, an overly small room,

cellphone calls and sectretaries calling their bosses out of the room for a moment all not only interupt a
brainstorming session, but also interupt the continuity and thinking of participants. If you want an
effective brainstorming session, you must insist participants turn off their telephones and inform their
staff that they are not to be disturbed short of a total catastrophe. You should find a space that is large
enough for the group and comfortable. A supply of water and coffee should be provided. Sometimes a
little alcohol, such as wine or beer, can losen people up and reduce inhibitions about proposing crazy
ideas. Where possible, hold the brainstorming session outside your office, in a pleasant environment
where participants are less likely to be disturbed or worry about their other work obligations.

The Adventures of Brainstorm Man and the

Boring Pushchairs
Willy Heckert flung the magazine across the room in frustration. “How do the Americans come up with
such clever new pushchairs (baby strollers for our American readers) every year?” he demanded of no one
in particular. “BabiGo has been making quality pushchairs for years. But they are boring, boring, boring!
The Americans always have clever new models. And now the Chinese are making good pushchairs for half
the price of ours!”

Solveig, his long suffering secretary, looked on with a touch of sympathy mixed with fear that he might
have a full-fledged tantrum. Willy's company had seen steadily declining sales figures for the past two
years – and it had done nothing for Willy's disposition. She hoped he had finished and would get back to
the marketing plan. No such luck.

“If we cannot come up with better pushchairs for next year, I might as well pack in this job and sell
sausages in the town square!” That was new. Solveig was worried. Maybe this time he really meant it.

“Maybe we need to brainstorm some new ideas,” suggested Solveig.

Willy was just about to make a disparaging remark, but then Solveig's suggestion reminded him of the
mysterious man from Erps-Kwerps whom he had met at an IT conference in Munich a few months ago.
“What was his name?” he asked out loud.

“Whose name?” asked Solveig.

“Brainstorm Man, that's it!” and he pulled out his mobile phone, checked the address book and found it.
He pushed the button to call the number.

After two rings, a deep confident voice answered: “Never fear. Brainstorm Man is here. How can I help?”

Willy explained his situation.

“We've no time to lose!” Said Brainstorm Man. “Put together a team of a dozen people from different
divisions and different backgrounds. And be sure to include a few men and women with small children. I'll
be at your office tomorrow first thing.”

In Erps-Kwerps, Brainstorm man rang off and called together a quick meeting with his colleagues, Jeffrey,
Andy and Molly. He explained the situation, a brainstorm strategy was devised and Brainstorm Man
prepared his bag of tricks. The morning flight to Munich was booked from Brussels airport.

***

The following morning, a tall man with a shock of unruly grey hair, wearing a tweed suit and a long coat
that billowed in the wind, marched into the head office of BabiGo. “I'm here to see Mr. Willy Heckert. My
name's Brainstorm Man. He was immediately ushered into a plush office where he quickly introduced
himself to Willy before getting down to business. “Let's plan the first session with the Brainstorm team for
10:00,” he said. “Meanwhile, why don't you give me a tour of your operations?”

The tour revealed much of what Brainstorm man had expected, a traditional medium sized business with
most production in-house, although the company recently opened a production line in Bulgaria.

At 10:00 he met the brainstorming team and was happy to see that Willy had followed his instructions.
Unfortunately, everyone in the room had dead serious expressions on their faces. “Never mind,” thought
Brainstorm Man, “I'll soon fix that.”

“Hello and welcome to the BabiGo brainstorming event,” he boomed. “My name is Brainstorm Man and
my job is to ensure you generate great new product ideas for your pushchairs. We're going to spend most
of today doing three brainstorming exercises. Then tomorrow morning we will finish off. And I should
warn you in advance: you might find parts of this session extremely fun, possibly even funny. Will that be
a problem for anyone?” A few people smiled, which relieved Brainstorm Man, the worst thing that can
happen to a brainstorming event is for everyone to take it overly seriously.

Brainstorm Man reached into his bag of tricks, pulled out a dozen pocket-sized notebooks and gave one to
each participant. “Once you start having ideas, you may find it hard to stop. Don't worry. That's good. I
want you each to take a notebook and keep it with you at all times. If you have an idea, be sure to write it
in the notebook. We will look at your notebook ideas tomorrow morning.

“Before we begin with the first session, I need to explain a few basic rules.

“Rule one: no squelching. Squelching is when you criticise another participant or her idea. Squelching can
be as blunt as saying, 'what a stupid idea!' or as subtle as raising your eyebrows and saying 'tsk, tsk'. When
you squelch, it does very, very bad damage to the creativity of the brainstorming session. I will shoot
anyone who attempts to squelch.
I'd rather have to deal with a dead body or two than a dead brainstorming event.

“Rule two: push your ideas as far into the realm of craziness as you can. The point of idea generation is
not to come up with safe, dull ideas. It is about generating as many creative ideas as possible. Crazy ideas
push our creative minds to think more creatively. They inspire more creative thinking. Moreover, some
ideas which seem crazy at first turn out, after analysis, to be pure genius. So, anything goes as far as ideas
are concerned.

“Rule three: no squelching.

“Rule four: no interruptions. Turn off your mobile phones, tell your assistants not to knock on this door or
disturb you for any reasons short of terrorist attack and then only if nuclear weapons are involved. Now
let's get to know each other.”

Brainstorm Man reached into his bag and pulled out a set of cards. He fanned them out, passed them
around the room and had everyone take a card. “Each of you has got a card with a word on it. That is your
word. Now, I would like us to go around the table with each of you sharing your name and describing
yourself in a sentence using the word on the card.”

This went smoothly and started to warm up the participants as Brainstorm Man had expected.

“For the first brainstorming session, I want you each to take your BabiGo persona, crumple it up and toss
it in the rubbish,” explained Brainstorm Man while miming the actions. “Now, pretend you are parents.
For those of you who are parents, that should be no great challenge. The rest of you will need to use your
imagination. We shall begin by spending a half hour brainstorming ideas for features you would like to see
on pushchairs. Stretch your imagination as far as it will go and remember, no idea is too crazy to share.
Indeed, I shall be disappointed if we do not hear a lot of crazy ideas.

“While you shout out ideas, and please do shout, I shall write them on the poster paper here. Now
remember: no squelching. Ready? Good! Let us begin!” Said Brainstorm Man as he pulled a starter pistol
from his bag and fired it into the air.
There was a moment's silence and then an idea was softly called out, then another and another. The ideas
were timid, but that was to be expected. In about five minutes the first really creative idea would be
suggested. In fact, it arrived at six minutes and set off a round of laughter which inspired an even sillier
idea that led to more laughter and the first squelching attempt.

“Don't be ridiculous, we could never...” began one of the male participants who reeked of middle
management.

Brainstorm Man pulled a revolver from inside his coat, pointed it at the man and said. “I told you no
squelching.” The room went silent as he pulled the trigger. The gun made a loud farting sound and filled
the room with confetti. Everyone laughed, some a little uncomfortably, and the brainstorming continued.
There was no squelching after that.

At the end of the half hour, 43 ideas had been written on the poster paper. “Which ones do you like best
and why?” asked Brainstorm Man. A dozen of the ideas were checked.

“Very well done indeed,” said Brainstorm Man. “We've got some interesting ideas here and we're only a
third of the way through. Herr Heckert, I believe we will have no problem out-innovating the competition
if you and your colleagues keep up the good work.

“Let's break until after lunch. Remember, if you have any additional ideas during lunch, pull out your
notebook and write them down. In the meantime, Herr Heckert, we need to work out the evaluation
criteria for these ideas. Let's you and I and anyone else you want to involve sit down for a half hour and
sort these out.”

Two directors joined the meeting. Brainstorm Man explained the purpose of evaluation criteria for
providing quick, yet reasonably accurate initial analysis of ideas. He explained that criteria based
evaluation means taking each good idea and measuring against a set of five criteria. (for more information
on evaluating ideas using this method, take a peak at
http://www.jpb.com/brainstorming/evaluation.php).

With Brainstorm Man's guidance, Willy and two other directors worked out a set of five criteria for
evaluating new product feature ideas.

After lunch the team convened again in the meeting room. Brainstorm Man pulled out of his bag of tricks
a set cards and had everyone take one.

“I want everyone with a 'Samantha' card over here, everyone with a 'Arthur' card over here and everyone
with a 'Juliet' card right here, Brainstorm Man said, indicating three different spaces in the room. Once
everyone joined their team, Brainstorm Man reached into his bag again and pulled out three baby dolls of
the sort small children play with.

“Each team is now a baby or small child represented by your doll. What I want each team to do is to work
together to design the most outrageously luxurious, feature filled dream pushchair for yourself – as the
baby. Remember, you are not adults, you are not cost conscious employees of BabiGo. You are babies
who demand the absolute best and have no conception of costs.
“Each team has poster paper, coloured paper, pens, pencils and scissors. You have forty five minutes to
design one or more pushchairs. When the time is up, each team will present its concept to the group.
Remember: be super-duper outrageous and no squelching!” Brainstorm Man patted his gun pocket.

The teams promptly got to work while Brainstorm Man walked around listening in and offering advice. He
found that interactive group activity like this was perfect for after lunch brainstorming when people are
sometimes drowsy and easily distracted.

At the end of the teamwork session, the Samantha team made its presentation of a ludicrous, motorised,
computerised four wheel drive pushchair. Everyone was delighted and the presentation was frequently
interrupted by laughter. “This is how brainstorming is meant to be,” thought Brainstorm Man to himself.
At the end of the presentation, Brainstorm Man asked the audience what they liked about Samantha's
pushchair. While the group talked, Brainstorm Man took notes on another sheet of poster paper. In
particular, he made note of the most popular ideas.

The remaining two teams each made their presentation in the same way. Brainstorm Man filled two
sheets of poster paper with new ideas. “You're going to knock the Americans' socks off with these ideas,”
Brainstorm Man remarked to Mr. Heckert.

“Let's take a half hour beak for coffee, and any quick business you need to do and we'll reconvene here at
three.”

When the brainstormers returned to the room, they found Brainstorm Man waiting for them by the door
with yet another deck of cards. “Take one and go the table with the same name,” he said to each person.
The cards read “busy executive parents”, “show off parents” and “gadget loving parents”.

Once everyone was at their table, Brainstorm Man explained. “This session is rather like the last one, but
instead of being the children, you will be the parents. The busy executives have lots of money, but not
much time. They are willing to pay for quality, practicality and anything that makes their lives easier. The
show off parents love to get one up on their friends and colleagues. They like to show off and believe that
their worth is demonstrated by their possessions. The gadget lovers prefer function over form. The more
gadgets, functions and gimmicks the better.

“So, imagine you are the kind of parents described by your cards and design a pushchair that would
delight you. Like before, the more outrageous, the better.”

The third session was structured largely like the second session, with each group making a presentation
followed by a discussion where brainstorm man made notes of the most intriguing ideas. Because it was
the end of a long, mind stretching day, most of the participants were a bit silly and there was substantial
laughing during the group work as well as the presentation. Ideas were crazier – but there were also some
very creative suggestions made.

“Terrific, terrific, terrific,” said Brainstorm Man. “You've done wonderfully. There are some great ideas
here. But that's enough for today. We'll meet up again tomorrow morning to review the results, discuss
evaluation and conclude the brainstorming. Also, if you have any ideas tonight, be sure to make a note of
them in your notebooks and share them tomorrow morning.
“Now, I have heard rumours that your German beer is almost as good as Belgian beer. So, I shall go out
this evening and try a beer or two to see if that's the case. If anyone would like to join me, I would delight
in your company.”

***

The following morning, the group reconvened in the meeting room. A few of the brainstormers had had
ideas the night before and they were added to the lists.

“You have a lot of ideas here. Some are brilliant, some are merely good. The next step is to evaluate ideas
to determine which ones to apply to your pushchairs immediately and which ideas you may want to
develop further. And remember, just because I am gone does not mean you cannot play around with
these ideas some more.”

Brainstorm Man went on to explain how to evaluate ideas using the 5x5 evaluation matrix. “For your
convenience, we have set up a secure on-line evaluation tool that you can use to evaluate your ideas
easily. All of your ideas from yesterday are already in the system and I will add today's latest ideas within
a few hours. You can also add additional ideas later.” Brainstorm Man demonstrated the simple-to-use
evaluation tool.

“I shall call you next week to see how things are getting on. In the meantime, please feel free to give me a
call at any time if you have questions about the brainstorming, evaluation or any other aspect of what we
have done today.

“It has been a pleasure, ladies and gentlemen. And now I have a plane to catch. Good bye!” Brainstorm
many shook everyone's hand, turned and walked out the door with Willy.

“That was fantastic, Brainstorm Man,” said Willy. “Yesterday, I felt lost. Today, we have enough ideas for
several new lines of pushchairs and I feel so inspired, I am sure we will have more ideas. How can I ever
repay you?”

“No worries, you'll soon get our invoice which will be reward enough. Good luck.” They shook hands and
Brainstorm Man hopped into a taxi.

Over the next few days, Willy, the brainstormers and others evaluated and reviewed their ideas. Several
prototypes were made incorporating more than 20 ideas from the brainstorming event. Another dozen
ideas were considered worth developing for future implementation.

The following year's pushchairs sold better than ever before and BabiGo gained substantial market share
over other quality pushchair manufacturers.

All in all, everyone lived happily ever after. Oh, and the invoice wasn't nearly as bad as Willy had feared.
He even hired Brainstorm Man again to brainstorm new product launches. But that's another story.

VISUAL BRAINSTORMING
Brainstorming verbally frequently does not work. Visual brainstorming , that is brainstorming with
images, objects and actions frequently works spectacularly well.

Why Verbal Brainstorming Fails

The ugly truth about brainstorming is that more often than not it leads to mediocre results. In fact, if
you've been involved in brainstorming sessions, you've probably experienced more than your share of
events in which few truly creative ideas were suggested.

There are several reasons why a brainstorming session might fail to generate great creative ideas.

1. Badly formulated challenge. Any proper brainstorming event starts with a creative challenge
that is the focus for idea generation. Unfortunately, few people appreciate how important a well
formulated challenge is. They'd rather go right to the idea generation part of the brainstorming.
Unfortunately, if you get the challenge wrong, the best ideas in the world probably will not solve
your problem.

2. Poor facilitation. Even trained facilitators who do not understand creative problem solving (CPS)
are often unable to manage properly a brainstorming event.

3. Squelching. Criticising ideas during the idea generation phase of brainstorming demotivates
everyone. It tells participants that wacky ideas will get you in trouble. The thing is: the wackiest
ideas are the most creative. So, any squelching basically communicates to participants that
creative ideas are not wanted. And participants oblige by suggesting uninspiring and predictable
ideas.

4. Dominating personalities. If one person dominates the brainstorming session, her ideas
inevitably become the focus and other participants' ideas are pushed to the side. Unfortunately,
this means that only one person is really doing any brainstorming - and that makes nonsense of
bringing a brainstorming group together. Worse, dominating people are usually more interested
in power than in discovering the best ideas.

5. Topic fixation. When someone suggests an obviously good idea in a brainstorming event, other
people tend to focus on similar ideas. The result is that other avenues of possibility are ignored.

6. Too much noise. In a good brainstorming event, a lot of people are sharing ideas loudly. That
means everyone has to listen to other ideas before sharing their own. The result is more time
and energy is spent on listening and interpreting than ideas than on generating ideas. Worse,
quiet or shy people tend to keep to themselves when brainstorming gets noisy - so you lose their
ideas.

The bad news is that one any of these flaws can spoil a brainstorming event and lead to poor,
unimaginative ideas. The good news is that non-verbal brainstorming -- based on images, objects, actions
or any combination of these -- not only avoids almost all of the flaws listed above, but seems more
reliably to result in better, more usable ideas.
Visual Brainstorming

Visual brainstorming is about collaboratively generating ideas without using the spoken or written word.
You might use objects which teams put together to solve problems. You might use arts and crafts
materials such as coloured construction paper, tape, string, card, pens and the like. You might use people
to create improvisational role plays.

An Example

Let's imagine your company manufactures farm machinery. You want to brainstorm new product
improvement ideas for your best selling tractors. Rather than running a brainstorming session where
people shout out ideas or write ideas on post-it's and stick them to the wall, you set up a visual
brainstorming activity.

The first step, of course, is to frame the creative challenge, for example: "What new features might we
add to our Super Bull Tractors?" This done, you bring together a diverse group of a dozen people from
various divisions in the company as well as a few typical customers. You provide them with a huge pile of
Lego building bricks and have them work together to build a model tractor with their new feature ideas.
Instead of shouting out ideas, the team works together to build a tractor out of Lego. As with verbal
brainstorming, each member should be encouraged to participate and try out new ideas. Likewise,
criticism must be forbidden. Talking, on the other hand, is perfectly acceptable. But, bear in mind that
ideas must be implemented in the Lego model and not simply vocalised.

The tractor that the team builds will probably look nothing like the company's existing tractors. But it will
probably be bursting with ideas. (Note: actually, in the author's experience, the team will probably break
off into sub-teams each building their own tractors - but that's okay. Indeed, if the initial team is large the
facilitator should separate it into multiple diverse teams anyway).

Once the model is completed, speaking is allowed. The team presents its ideas, explains the features and,
where relevant, the logic behind those features. Finally, all of the ideas together with images of the Lego
tractor are compiled into a report -- unless the company's management is open minded enough to accept
a Lego model in lieu of a report!

The advantages to visual brainstorming in the example given include..

• There are fewer distractions. No one needs to wait for someone else to speak. Everyone can
focus on building.

• No one can sit quietly in the background. unlike in a verbal brainstorming event where quiet
people hide behind the noise, in a visual brainstorming event, it is obvious who is participating
and who is not.

• It is harder for anyone to dominate when everyone is building bits and pieces. People who
attempt to dominate vocally will be unable to keep pace with the visual development of the
ideas and so, will actually, provide less involvement with the end result.
 • In the author's experience, there is far less squelching in visual brainstorming. Probably this is
because visual brainstorming is fun, requires a high level of personal concentration and people
find it harder to criticise visual ideas than verbal ideas.

Various Approaches

Visual brainstorming need not be limited to physical objects such as new products. You may also use it to
brainstorm processes, services and activities. All you need is a little imagination and the ability to visualise
problems. Here are a few examples.

• A software company wants to speed up the process by which new features are specified,
approved and implemented.

A collection of small dolls, building blocks and satay sticks allow brainstormers to simulate
people, places, tools and workflow. The dolls, of course, represent people. The building blocks
can be made to represent computers, buildings and other structures. The satay sticks can show
workflow direction. Thus, the team can build a model of the current process and modify it to
improve efficiency. Alternatively, they might tear the entire model apart and start from scratch.

• A multinational wants to improve internal communications

Lego can be used to create representations of divisions, communications methods and the
strength of communications. Alternatively, construction paper, tape and small crafts tools can be
used to build representations of divisions and string can be used to show the path of
communications. As with the above example, the brainstormers can modify the existing model to
improve it - or start from scratch and build a better system.

• A retail chain wishes to attract younger customers to its shops.

Role-play is probably the way to go. Have the brainstormers break up into teams, where one
team represents target customers. The other represents the company. Design a number of
improvisational role plays where the customers interact with the company. Discuss the results,
how they can be improved and role play again. You will probably need to do this several times.
Although this approach is verbal, it also focuses uses movement, gesture and more.

Clearly, there is substantial room for creative thinking in the approach you take to visually brainstorming a
problem. And it is worth investing your time in devising a good approach. After all, a creative
brainstorming approach is likely to motivate participants to be extra creative in their ideas.

The tools you use in visual brainstorming might include...

• Children's construction toys such as building blocks, Lego, etc. Dolls and action figures to
represent people.
• String, wire, yarn to represent connections
• Satay sticks to represent directions
• Construction paper
• Tape
 • Modeling clay
• Cups
• Bits of fabric, buttons and other sewing materials
• Pipe cleaners
• Wire mesh
• Boxes of various sizes
• Toy cars

And anything else you can get your hands on. Children's toys, in particular, can be useful as well as
encourage creative thinking. Indeed, you would do well to spend some time in a toy shop when planning
your visual brainstorming activity.

Evaluation and Implementation

The first step of evaluating ideas from visual brainstorming is to have the team or teams present their
models -- or results in the case of role-play -- to a wider audience. This should open discussion on the
ideas, their viability and their potential value. At this stage, the facilitator should encourage positive
feedback. Instead of criticising weaknesses, the audience should be encouraged to remark upon potential
weaknesses and challenge the team to improve upon their ideas. In the example above, an audience
member might remark: "The automatic gearbox is a good idea, but I am worried it would not be as
reliable as our customers expect our products to be. How could you ensure a high level of reliability?"

The next step is typically to put the results in a written report. At this stage, traditional idea evaluation
approaches such as criteria based evaluation matrices, SWOT analyses, business cases and the like may be
applied.

Implementation of good ideas should be the result of any brainstorming activity.

Surprisingly, many great ideas never reach the implementation stage. Don't let that happen to your ideas!
The Creative Idea Implementation Plan is a useful tool for planning idea implementation.

Conclusion

The author has seen considerable success with visual brainstorming, including..

• Higher levels of participation

• More divergence of thinking (ie. more creativity)
• More fun

That said, visual brainstorming requires a higher level of creativity in the planning stage in terms of
devising an effective approach and appropriate tools. Moreover, socially conservative business people
may be reluctant to play with children's toys and may need to be convinced of the value of the activity.

Your best approach would be to run some trail visual brainstorming events with friends, sympathetic
colleagues, students or other groups who can provide useful feedback.
Brainstorming
Generating many radical, creative ideas

Brainstorming is a popular tool that helps you generate creative solutions to a problem.

It is particularly useful when you want to break out of stale, established patterns of
thinking, so that you can develop new ways Brainstorm better with James Manktelow of looking at
things. It also helps you&Amy Carlson.
overcome many of the issues that can make group problem-solving a
sterile and unsatisfactory process.

Used with your team, it helps you bring the diverse experience of all team members into play
during problem solving. This increases the richness of ideas explored, meaning that you can find
better solutions to the problems you face.

It can also help you get buy in from team members for the solution chosen – after all, they were
involved in developing it. What’s more, because brainstorming is fun, it helps team members
bond with one-another as they solve problems in a positive, rewarding environment.

Why Use Brainstorming?

Conventional group problem-solving can be fraught with problems.
Confident, "big-ego" participants can drown out and intimidate quieter
group members. Less confident participants can be too scared of ridicule
to share their ideas freely. Others may feel pressurized to conform with
the group view, or are held back by an excessive respect for authority. As
such, group problem-solving is often ineffective and sterile.

By contrast, brainstorming provides a freewheeling environment in which

everyone is encouraged to participate. Quirky ideas are welcomed, and
many of the issues of group problem-solving are overcome. All participants
are asked to contribute fully and fairly, liberating people to develop a rich
array of creative solutions to the problems they're facing.

“Brainstorming 2.0”
The original approach to brainstorming was developed by
Madison Avenue advertising executive, Alex Osborn, in the 1950s. Since then,
many researchers have explored the technique, and have identified issues with
it.
The steps described here seek to take account of this research, meaning
that the approach described below differs subtly from Osborn's original
one.

What Is Brainstorming?

Brainstorming combines a relaxed, informal approach to problem-solving with lateral thinking. It

asks that people come up with ideas and thoughts that can at first seem to be a bit crazy. The
idea here is that some of these ideas can be crafted into original, creative solutions to the
problem you're trying to solve, while others can spark still more ideas. This approach aims to get
people unstuck, by "jolting" them out of their normal ways of thinking.

During brainstorming sessions there should therefore be no criticism of ideas: You are trying to
open up possibilities and break down wrong assumptions about the limits of the problem.
Judgments and analysis at this stage stunt idea generation.

Ideas should only be evaluated at the end of the brainstorming session – this is the time to
explore solutions further using conventional approaches.

Individual Brainstorming

While group brainstorming is often more effective at generating ideas than normal group
problem-solving, study after study has shown that when individuals brainstorm on their own,
they come up with more ideas (and often better quality ideas) than groups of people who
brainstorm together.

Partly this occurs because, in groups, people aren’t always strict in following the rules of
brainstorming, and bad group behaviors creep in. Mostly, though, this occurs because people
are paying so much attention to other people’s ideas that they're not generating ideas of their
own – or they're forgetting these ideas while they wait for their turn to speak. This is called
"blocking".

When you brainstorm on your own, you'll tend to produce a wider range of ideas than with
group brainstorming – you do not have to worry about other people's egos or opinions, and can
therefore be more freely creative. For example, you might find that an idea you’d be hesitant to
bring up in a group session develops into something quite special when you explore it with
individual brainstorming. Nor do you have to wait for others to stop speaking before you
contribute your own ideas.

You may not, however, develop ideas as fully when you brainstorm on your own, as you do not
have the wider experience of other members of a group to help you.
Tip:
When Brainstorming on your own, consider using Mind Maps to arrange
and develop ideas.

Group Brainstorming

When it works, group brainstorming can be very effective for bringing the full experience and
creativity of all members of the group to bear on an issue. When individual group members get
stuck with an idea, another member's creativity and experience can take the idea to the next
stage. Group brainstorming can therefore develop ideas in more depth than individual
brainstorming.

Another advantage of group brainstorming is that it helps everyone involved to feel that they’ve
contributed to the end solution, and it reminds people that other people have creative ideas to
offer. What’s more, brainstorming is fun, and it can be great for team-building!

Brainstorming in a group can be risky for individuals. Valuable but strange suggestions may
appear stupid at first sight. Because of this, you need to chair sessions tightly so that ideas are
not crushed, and so that the usual issues with group problem-solving don’t stifle creativity.

How to Use the Tool:

You can often get the best results by combining individual and group brainstorming, and by
managing the process carefully and according to the "rules" below. That way, you get people to
focus on the issue without interruption (this comes from having everyone in a dedicated group
meeting), you maximize the number of ideas you can generate, and you get that great feeling of
team bonding that comes with a well-run brainstorming session!

To run a group brainstorming session effectively, do the following:

• Find a comfortable meeting environment, and set it up ready for the session.

• Appoint one person to record the ideas that come from the session.
These should be noted in a format than everyone can see and refer to. Depending on
the approach you want to use, you may want to record ideas on flip charts,
whiteboards, or computers with data projectors.
• If people aren’t already used to working together, consider using an appropriate warm-
up exercise or ice-breaker.
• Define the problem you want solved clearly, and lay out any criteria to be met. Make it
clear that that the objective of the meeting is to generate as many ideas as possible.
• Give people plenty of time on their own at the start of the session to generate as many
ideas as possible.
 • Ask people to give their ideas, making sure that you give everyone a fair opportunity to
contribute.
• Encourage people to develop other people's ideas, or to use other ideas to create new
ones.
• Encourage an enthusiastic, uncritical attitude among members of the group. Try to get
everyone to contribute and develop ideas, including the quietest members of the group.
• Ensure that no one criticizes or evaluates ideas during the session. Criticism introduces
an element of risk for group members when putting forward an idea. This stifles
creativity and cripples the free running nature of a good brainstorming session.

• Let people have fun brainstorming. Taking Your Brainstorming Further...

Encourage them to come up with as
many ideas as possible, from solidly If you're still not getting the ideas you
practical ones to wildly impractical want, try using these approaches to
ones. Welcome creativity! increase the number of ideas that
• Ensure that no train of thought is you generate:
followed for too long. Make sure that
you generate a sufficient number of The Stepladder Technique – This
different ideas, as well as exploring improves the contribution of quieter
individual ideas in detail. members of the group. Brainwriting –
• In a long session, take plenty of breaks A written approach to brainstorming.
ideas from all participants in your
session, and gives you a
so that people can continue to The Crawford's Slip Approach –
concentrate. This helps you get plenty of

Where possible, participants in the brainstorming creativity.)

process should come from as wide a range of
disciplines as possible. This brings a broad range of view of the popularity of each idea.
experience to the session and helps to make it more
creative. However, don’t make the group too big – The techniques below help you in
as with other types of teamwork, groups of specific brainstorming situations:
between 5 and 7 people are often most effective.
Reverse Brainstorming – This is useful
Key Points: for improving a product or service.
Starbursting – Brainstorm the
Brainstorming is a useful way of generating radical questions you need to ask to evaluate
solutions to problems, just as long as it's managed a proposal. Charette Procedure – This
well. During the brainstorming process there is no procedure helps you brainstorm
criticism of ideas, and free rein is given to people's effectively with large groups of
creativity (criticism and judgment cramp people.
This tends to make group brainstorming sessions enjoyable experiences, which are great for
bringing team members together. Using brainstorming also helps people commit to solutions,
because they have participated in the development of these solutions.

The best approach to brainstorming combines individual and group brainstorming. Group
brainstorming needs formal rules for it to work smoothly.

brainstorming process
brainstorming technique for problemsolving, team-
building and creative process
Brainstorming with a group of people is a powerful technique.
Brainstorming creates new ideas, solves problems, motivates and develops
teams. Brainstorming motivates because it involves members of a team in
bigger management issues, and it gets a team working together. However,
brainstorming is not simply a random activity. Brainstorming needs to be
structured and it follows brainstorming rules. The brainstorming process is
described below, for which you will need a flip-chart or alternative. This is
crucial as Brainstorming needs to involve the team, which means that
everyone must be able to see what's happening. Brainstorming places a
significant burden on the facilitator to manage the process, people's
involvement and sensitivities, and then to manage the follow up actions.
Use Brainstorming well and you will see excellent results in improving the
organization, performance, and developing the team.
N.B. There has been some discussion in recent years - much of it plainly daft
- that the term 'brainstorming' might be 'political incorrect' by virtue of
possible perceived reference to brainrelated health issues. It was suggested
by some that the alternative, but less than catchy 'thought-showers' should
be used instead, which presumably was not considered to be offensive to
raindrops (this is serious…). Happily recent research among relevant groups
has dispelled this non-pc notion, and we can continue to use the
brainstorming expression without fear of ending up in the law courts…
brainstorming process
1. Define and agree the objective.
2. Brainstorm ideas and suggestions having agreed a time limit.
3. Categorise/condense/combine/refine.
4. Assess/analyse effects or results.
5. Prioritise options/rank list as appropriate.
6. Agree action and timescale.
7. Control and monitor follow-up.

In other words:

plan and agree the brainstorming aim

Ensure everyone participating in the brainstorm session understands and
agrees the aim of the session (eg, to formulate a new job description for a
customer services clerk; to formulate a series of new promotional activities
for the next trading year; to suggest ways of improving cooperation
between the sales and service departments; to identify costs saving
opportunities that will not reduce performance or morale, etc). Keep the
brainstorming objective simple. Allocate a time limit. This will enable you to
keep the random brainstorming activity under control and on track.

manage the actual brainstorming activity

Brainstorming enables people to suggest ideas at random. Your job as
facilitator is to encourage everyone to participate, to dismiss nothing, and
to prevent others from pouring scorn on the wilder suggestions (some of
the best ideas are initially the daftest ones - added to which people won't
participate if their suggestions are criticised). During the random collection
of ideas the facilitator must record everysuggestion on the flipchart. Use
Blu-Tack or sticky tape to hang the sheets around the walls. At the end of
the time limit or when ideas have been exhausted, use different coloured
pens to categorise, group, connect and link the random ideas. Condense
and refine the ideas by making new headings or lists. You can
diplomatically combine or include the weaker ideas within other themes to
avoid dismissing or rejecting contributions (remember brainstorming is
about team building and motivation too - you don't want it to have the
reverse effect on some people). With the group, assess, evaluate and
analyse the effects and validity of the ideas or the list. Develop and
prioritise the ideas into a more finished list or set of actions or options.

implement the actions agreed from the

brainstorming
Agree what the next actions will be. Agree a timescale, who's responsible.
After the session circulate notes, monitor and give feedback. It's crucial to
develop a clear and positive outcome, so that people feel their effort and
contribution was worthwhile. When people see that their efforts have
resulted in action and change, they will be motivated and keen to help
again.

personal brainstorming
for creativity, planning, presentations, decision-
making, and organizing your ideas
Personal brainstorming - just by yourself - is very useful for the start of any
new project, especially if you can be prone to put things off until tomorrow.
Planning a new venture, a presentation, or any new initiative, is generally
much easier if you begin simply by thinking of ideas - in no particular order
or structure - and jotting them down on a sheet of paper or in a notebook.
Basically this is personal brainstorming, and it can follow the same process
as described above for groups, except that it's just you doing it.
Sometimes it's very difficult to begin planning something new because you
don't know where and how to start. Brainstoming is a great way to begin.
The method also generates lots of possibilities which you might otherwise
miss by getting into detailed structured planning too early.
A really useful tool for personal brainstorming -
and note-taking generally is the wonderful Bic 4-
colour ballpen.

The pen enables you quickly to switch colours

between red, blue, black and green, without having
to walk around with a pocket-full of biros.

Using different colours in your creative jottings and

written records helps you to make your notes and
diagrams clearer, and dramatically increases the
ways in which you can develop and refine your ideas and notes on
paper. To prove the point, review some previous notes in black or
blue ink using a red pen - see how you can organize/connect the
content, still keeping it all clear and legible.

This simple pen is therefore a brilliant tool for

organizing your thoughts on paper much more
clearly and creatively than by being limited to a
single colour - especially if you think in visual terms
and find diagrams helpful.

For example, using different colours enables you to

identify and link common items within a random list,
or to show patterns and categories, or to over-write
notes without making a confusing mess, and
generally to generate far more value from your
thoughts and ideas. Keeping connected notes and
ideas on a single sheet of paper greatly helps the
brain to absorb and develop them. Try it - you'll be
surprised how much more useful your notes
become.

The principle is the same as using different colours of

marker pens on a flip-chart. Other manufacturers
produce similar pens, but the Bic is reliable, widely
available, and very inexpensive.
The usefulness of different colours in written notes is further illustrated
(please correct me or expand on this if you know more) in a wider
organizational sense in the UK health industry. Apparently, black is the
standard colour; green is used by pharmacy services, red is used after
death and for allergies, and blue tends to be avoided due to poorer
reprographic qualities (thanks M Belcher). As I say, correct me if this is
wrong, and in any event please let me know any other examples of
different coloured inks being used to organize or otherwise clarify written
communications within corporations, institutions or industries.
Additionally I am informed (thanks T Kalota, Oct 2008) of a useful
brainstorming/organizing technique using coloured pens when reviewing a
written specification, or potentially any set of notes for a design or plan.
Underline or circle the words according to the following:

nouns/people/things black (entities) verbs

('doing'/functional red (relationships) words)
adjectives/adverbs
(describing words) blue (attributes)

This technique was apparently used for clarifying written specifications or

notes for a database design, and was termed 'extended relational
architecture', advocated by a company of the same name, at one time. (I've
been unable to find any further details about the company or this
application. If you know more please tell me.)
This method of colour-coding notes (using underlines or circles or boxes) to
help clarification/prioritization/organization/etc can itself naturally be
extended and adapted, for example:
nouns/people/things black (entities)
verbs ('doing'/functional words)
red (relationships)

adjectives (describing a
noun/thing/etc) blue (attributes)

adverbs (describing a
verb/function) green (degrees/range/etc)

timings/costs/quantities yellow (measures)

The colours and categories are not a fixed industry standard. It's an entirely
flexible technique. You can use any colours you want, and devise your own
coding structures to suit the situation.

In relation to the group brainstorming process above, see also the

guidelines for running workshops. Workshops provide good situations for
group brainstorming, and brainstorming helps to make workshops more
productive, motivational and successful.
To create more structured brainstorming activities which illustrate or
address particular themes, methods, media, etc., there is a helpfulset of
reference points on the team building games section. Unless you have
special reasons for omitting control factors, ensure you retain the the
essence of the rules above, especially defining the task, stating clear
timings, organising participants and materials, and managing the review
and follow-up.
 see also
The following tools and models can be used within the brainstorming
process to build and create a context for brainstorming, and a framework
for brainstorming actions. When using any of these tools or models within
the brainstorming process, select models appropriate to the group, and the
desired development and outcomes for the brainstorming session:
• SWOT analysis - for assessing the strength of a company,
department, proposition or idea.
• PEST analysis - for measuring the attractiveness and potential of a
market.
• The McKinsey Seven-S's - criteria for a successful company
• Adizes corporate life-cycle model - phases of company development
• Delegation model - successful task delegation and staff development
through delegation
• Tuckman's group development model - forming, storming, norming,
performing
• Kolb's learning styles - for training the trainers, coaching the coaches,
and management development
• Leadership attributes - for developing leadership among managers
• Negotiation process - for sales and commercial staff and optimising
on profitable outcomes and customer relationships
• Cherie Carter-Scott's rules of life - behaviour and attitude
development and soft skills development
• The Four Agreements - behaviour and attitude development and soft
skills development
• Advanced 'Kaleidoscope Brainstorming ' © technique
 swot analysis
SWOT analysis method and examples, with
free SWOT template
The SWOT analysis is an extremely useful tool for understanding and
decision-making for all sorts of situations in business and organizations.
SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats.
Information about the origins and inventors of SWOT analysis is below. The
SWOT analysis headings provide a good framework for reviewing strategy,
position and direction of a company or business proposition, or any other
idea. Completing a SWOT analysis is very simple, and is a good subject for
workshop sessions. SWOT analysis also works well
in brainstorming meetings. Use SWOT analysis for business planning,
strategic planning, competitor evaluation, marketing, business and product
development and research reports. You can also use SWOT analysis
exercises for team building games. See also PEST analysis, which measures
a business's market and potential according to external factors; Political,
Economic, Social and Technological. It is often helpful to complete a PEST
analysis prior to a SWOT analysis. See also Porter's Five Forces model,
which is used to analyse competitive position.
Here is a free SWOT analysis template worksheet (in MSWord). And the
same free SWOT analysis tool in pdf format.
If you have difficulty opening the above doc file here are two other
formats:
• SWOT Analysis Template doc file using table format instead of text-boxes
(portrait layout)
• SWOT Analysis Template doc for Apple Mac (thanks U Weissbach)

A SWOT analysis measures a business unit, a proposition or idea; a PEST

analysis measures a market.
 A SWOT analysis is a subjective assessment of data which is organized by
the SWOT format into a logical order that helps understanding,
presentation, discussion and decision-making. The four dimensions are a
useful extension of a basic two heading list of pro's and con's (free pro's
and con's template here).
SWOT analysis can be used for all sorts of decision-making, and the SWOT
template enables proactive thinking, rather than relying on habitual or
instinctive reactions.
The SWOT analysis template is normally presented as a grid, comprising
four sections, one for each of the SWOT headings: Strengths, Weaknesses,
Opportunities, and Threats. The free SWOT template below includes
sample questions, whose answers are inserted into the relevant section of
the SWOT grid. The questions are examples, or discussion points, and
obviously can be altered depending on the subject of the SWOT analysis.
Note that many of the SWOT questions are also talking points for other
headings - use them as you find most helpful, and make up your own to suit
the issue being analysed. It is important to clearly identify the subject of a
SWOT analysis, because a SWOT analysis is a perspective of one thing, be it
a company, a product, a proposition, and idea, a method, or option, etc.
Here are some examples of what a SWOT analysis can be used to assess:
• a company (its position in the market, commercial viability,
etc)
• a method of sales distribution
• a product or brand
• a business idea
• a strategic option, such as entering a new market or
launching a new product
• a opportunity to make an acquisition
• a potential partnership
• changing a supplier
• outsourcing a service, activity or resource
• an investment opportunity

Be sure to describe the subject for the SWOT analysis clearly so that people
contributing to the analysis, and those seeing the finished SWOT analysis,
properly understand the purpose of the SWOT assessment and
implications.

SWOT analysis template

Subject of SWOT analysis: (define the subject

of the analysis here)
strengths • Processes, systems, IT,
communications?
• Advantages of proposition? • Cultural, attitudinal,
• Capabilities?
• Competitive advantages? weaknesses
• USP's (unique selling points)?
• Disadvantages of proposition?
Resources, Assets, People?
• Gaps in capabilities?
• Experience, knowledge, data? • Lack of competitive strength?
• Financial reserves, likely • Reputation, presence and
returns? reach?
• Marketing - reach, • Financials?
distribution, awareness? • Own known
Innovative aspects? vulnerabilities?
• Location and geographical? • Timescales, deadlines and
• Price, value, quality? pressures?
• Accreditations, qualifications, • Cashflow, start-up cashdrain?
certifications?
• Continuity, supply chain • Partnerships, agencies,
robustness? distribution?
• Effects on core activities, • Volumes, production,
distraction? economies?
• Reliability of data, plan
predictability? • Seasonal, weather, fashion
• Morale, commitment, influences?
leadership?
threats
• Accreditations, etc?
behavioural? etc?

Management cover, Management cover, succession?

succession?
• Processes and systems, • Political effects?
opportunities • Legislative effects?
• Environmental
• Market developments? effects? IT
• Competitors' vulnerabilities? developments?
• Industry or lifestyle trends? • Competitor intentions
• Technology development and - various?
innovation? • Market demand?
• Global influences? • New technologies,
• New markets, vertical, services, ideas?
horizontal? • Vital contracts and
• Niche target markets? partners?
• Geographical, export, import? • Sustaining internal
• New USP's? capabilities?
• Tactics - surprise, major • Obstacles faced?
contracts, etc? Insurmountable
• Business and product weaknesses?
development? • Loss of key staff?
• Information and research?
 • Sustainable financial • Seasonality, weather
backing? effects?
• Economy - home,
abroad?

free SWOT analysis template worksheet version in

MSWord

swot analysis example

This SWOT analysis example is based on an imaginary situation. The
scenario is based on a business-to-business manufacturing company, who
historically rely on distributors to take their products to the end user
market. The opportunity, and therefore the subject for the SWOT analysis,
is for the manufacturer to create a new company of its own to distribute its
products direct to certain end-user sectors, which are not being covered or
developed by its normal distributors.

Subject of SWOT analysis example: the creation of

own distributor company to access new end-
user sectors not currently being developed.

strengths weaknesses
• End-user sales control Customer lists not tested.
 and direction. Some gaps in range for Right products, quality
certain sectors.
and reliability. committed and confident.
• Superior product • We would be a small player.
performance vs competitors. • No direct marketing
• Better product life and experience.
durability. • We cannot supply endusers
• Spare manufacturing abroad.
capacity. • Need more sales people.
• Some staff have experience • Limited budget.
of end-user sector. • No pilot or trial done yet.
• Have customer lists. • Don't have a detailed plan
• Direct delivery capability. yet.
• Product innovations ongoing. • Delivery-staff need training.
• Can serve from existing sites. • Customer service staff need
• Products have required training.
accreditations. • Processes and systems, etc
• Processes and IT should cope.
• Management cover
• Management is insufficient.

opportunities • Environmental effects would

favour larger competitors.
• Could develop new • Existing core business
products. distribution risk.
• Local competitors have • Market demand very
poor products.
new ideas.
• Profit margins will be good.
• Could extend to overseas.
• End-users respond to
• New specialist applications.
threats • Can surprise competitors.
• Support core business
• Legislation could impact. economies.
 • Could seek better supplier • Possible negative publicity.
deals. seasonal.
• Retention of key staff • Vulnerable to reactive attack
critical. by major competitors.
• Could distract from core
business.
See also the free PEST analysis template and method, which measures a
business according to external factors; Political, Economic, Social and
Technological. It is often helpful to complete a PEST analysis prior to
competing a SWOT analysis.
See also Porter's Five Forces model.

more on the difference and relationship between

PEST and SWOT
PEST is useful before SWOT - not generally vice-versa - PEST definitely helps
to identify SWOT factors. There is overlap between PEST and SWOT, in that
similar factors would appear in each. That said, PEST and SWOT are
certainly two different perspectives:
PEST assesses a market, including competitors, from the standpoint of a
particular proposition or a business.
SWOT is an assessment of a business or a proposition, whether
your own or a competitor's.
Strategic planning is not a precise science - no tool is mandatory - it's a
matter of pragmatic choice as to what helps best to identify and explain the
issues.
PEST becomes more useful and relevant the larger and more complex the
business or proposition, but even for a very small local businesses a PEST
analysis can still throw up one or two very significant issues that might
otherwise be missed.
The four quadrants in PEST vary in significance depending on the type of
business, eg., social factors are more obviously relevant to consumer
businesses or a B2B business close to the consumer-end of the supply
chain, whereas political factors are more obviously relevant to a global
munitions supplier or aerosol propellant manufacturer.
All businesses benefit from a SWOT analysis, and all businesses benefit
from completing a SWOT analysis of their main competitors, which
interestingly can then provide some feed back into the economic aspects of
the PEST analysis.

the origins of the SWOT analysis model

This remarkable piece of history as to the origins of SWOT analysis was
provided by Albert S Humphrey, one of the founding fathers of what we
know today as SWOT analysis. I am indebted to him for sharing this
fascinating contribution. Albert Humphrey died on 31 October 2005. He
was one of the good guys.
SWOT analysis came from the research conducted at Stanford Research
Institute from 1960-1970. The background to SWOT stemmed from the
need to find out why corporate planning failed. The research was funded
by the fortune 500 companies to find out what could be done about this
failure. The Research Team were Marion Dosher, Dr Otis Benepe, Albert
Humphrey, Robert Stewart, Birger Lie.
It all began with the corporate planning trend, which seemed to appear
first at Du Pont in 1949. By 1960 every Fortune 500 company had a
'corporate planning manager' (or equivalent) and 'associations of long
range corporate planners' had sprung up in both the USA and the UK.
However a unanimous opinion developed in all of these companies that
corporate planning in the shape of long range planning was not working,
did not pay off, and was an expensive investment in futility.
It was widely held that managing change and setting realistic objectives
which carry the conviction of those responsible was difficult and often
resulted in questionable compromises.
The fact remained, despite the corporate and long range planners, that the
one and only missing link was how to get the management team agreed
and committed to a comprehensive set of action programmes.
To create this link, starting in 1960, Robert F Stewart at SRI in Menlo Park
California lead a research team to discover what was going wrong with
corporate planning, and then to find some sort of solution, or to create a
system for enabling management teams agreed and committed to
development work, which today we call 'managing change'.
The research carried on from 1960 through 1969. 1100 companies and
organizations were interviewed and a 250-item questionnaire was designed
and completed by over 5,000 executives. Seven key findings lead to the
conclusion that in corporations chief executive should be the chief planner
and that his immediate functional directors should be the planning team.
Dr Otis Benepe defined the 'Chain of Logic' which became the core of
system designed to fix the link for obtaining agreement and commitment.
1. Values
2. Appraise
3. Motivation
4. Search
5. Select
6. Programme
7. Act
8. Monitor and repeat steps 1 2 and 3
We discovered that we could not change the values of the team nor set the
objectives for the team so we started as the first step by asking the
appraisal question ie what's good and bad about the operation. We began
the system by asking what is good and bad about the present and the
future. What is good in the present is Satisfactory, good in the future is an
Opportunity; bad in the present is a Fault and bad in the future is a Threat.
This was called the SOFT analysis.
When this was presented to Urick and Orr in 1964 at the
Seminar in Long Range Planning at the Dolder Grand in Zurich Switzerland
they changed the F to a W and called it SWOT Analysis.
SWOT was then promoted in Britain by Urick and Orr as an exercise in and
of itself. As such it has no benefit. What was necessary was the sorting of
the issues into the programme planning categories of:
1. Product (what are we selling?)
2. Process (how are we selling it?)
3. Customer (to whom are we selling it?)
4. Distribution (how does it reach them?)
5. Finance (what are the prices, costs and investments?)
6. Administration (and how do we manage all this?)

The second step then becomes 'what shall the team do' about the issues in
each of these categories. The planning process was then designed through
trial and error and resulted finally in a 17 step process beginning with
SOFT/SWOT with each issue recorded separately on a single page called a
planning issue.
The first prototype was tested and published in 1966 based on the work
done at 'Erie Technological Corp' in Erie Pa. In 1970 the prototype was
brought to the UK, under the sponsorship of W H Smith & Sons plc, and
completed by 1973. The operational programme was used to merge the
CWS milling and baking operations with those of J W French Ltd.
The process has been used successfully ever since. By 2004, now, this
system has been fully developed, and proven to cope with today's
problems of setting and agreeing realistic annual objectives without
depending on outside consultants or expensive staff resources.

the seven key research findings

The key findings were never published because it was felt they were too
controversial. This is what was found:
1) A business was divided into two parts. The base business plus the
development business. This was re-discovered by Dr Peter Senge at MIT in
1998 and published in his book the 5th Dimension. The amount of
development business which become operational is equal to or greater
than that business on the books within a period of 5 to 7 years. This was a
major surprise and urged the need for discovering a better method for
planning and managing change.
2) Dr Hal Eyring published his findings on 'Distributive Justice' and
pointed out that all people measure what they get from their work and
divide it by what they give to the work and this ratio is compared to others.
If it is not equal then the person first re-perceives and secondly slows down
if added demands are not met. (See for interest Adams Equity Theory and
the Equity Theory Diagram pdf)
3) The introduction of a corporate planner upset the sense of fair play at
senior level, making the job of the corporate planner impossible.
4) The gap between what could be done by the organisation and what
was actually done was about 35%.
5) The senior man will over-supervise the area he comes from. Finance-
Finance, Engineering-Engineering etc.
6) There are 3 factors which separate excellence from mediocrity:
a. Overt attention to purchasing
b. Short-term written down departmental plans for improvement
c. Continued education of the Senior Executive
7) Some form of formal documentation is required to obtain approval for
development work. In short we could not solve the problem by stopping
planning.

in conclusion
By sorting the SWOT issues into the 6 planning categories one can obtain a
system which presents a practical way of assimilating the internal and
external information about the business unit, delineating short and long
term priorities, and allowing an easy way to build the management team
which can achieve the objectives of profit growth.
This approach captures the collective agreement and commitment of those
who will ultimately have to do the work of meeting or exceeding the
objectives finally set. It permits the team leader to define and develop co-
ordinated, goal-directed actions, which underpin the overall agreed
objectives between levels of the business hierarchy.
Albert S Humphrey
August 2004

translating SWOT issues into actions under the

six categories
Albert Humphrey advocated that the six categories:
 1. Product (what are we selling?)
2. Process (how are we selling it?)
3. Customer (to whom are we selling it?)
4. Distribution (how does it reach them?)
5. Finance (what are the prices, costs and investments?)
6. Administration (and how do we manage all this?)

provide a framework by which SWOT issues can be developed into actions

and managed using teams.
This can be something of a 'leap', and so the stage warrants further
explanation. Translating the SWOT issues into actions, are best sorted into
(or if necessary broken down into) the six categories, because in the
context of the way that business and organizations work, this makes them
more quantifiable and measurable, responsible teams more accountable,
and therefore the activities more manageable. The other pivotal part in the
process is of course achieving the commitment from the team(s) involved,
which is partly explained in the item summarising Humphrey's TAM® model
and process.
As far as identifying actions from SWOT issues is concerned, it all very much
depends on your reasons and aims for using SWOT, and also your
authority/ability to manage others, whom by implication of SWOT's
breadth and depth, are likely to be involved in the agreement and delivery
of actions.
Depending on pretext and situation, a SWOT analysis can produce issues
which very readily translate into (one of the six) category actions, or a
SWOT analysis can produce issues which overlay a number of categories.
Or a mixture. Whatever, SWOT essentially tells you what is good and bad
about a business or a particular proposition. If it's a business, and the aim is
to improve it, then work on translating:
strengths (maintain, build and leverage),
opportunities (prioritise and optimise),
weaknesses (remedy or exit), threats (counter)
into actions (each within one of the six categories) that can be agreed and
owned by a team or number of teams.
If the SWOT analysis is being used to assess a proposition, then it could be
that the analysis shows that the proposition is too weak (especially if
compared with other SWOT's for alternative propositions) to warrant
further investment, in which case further action planning, other than exit,
is not required.
If the proposition is clearly strong (presumably you will have indicated this
using other methods as well), then proceed as for a business, and translate
issues into category actions with suitable ownership by team(s).
This is my understanding of Albert Humphrey's theory relating to
developing SWOT issues into organizational change actions and
accountabilities. (I'm pleased to say that Albert kindly confirmed that this is
indeed correct.)
There are other ways of applying SWOT of course, depending on your
circumstances and aims, for instance if concentrating on a department
rather than a whole business, then it could make sense to revise the six
categories to reflect the functional parts of the department, or whatever
will enable the issues to be translatable into manageable, accountable and
owned aims.
pest market analysis tool
PEST analysis method and examples, with free
PEST template
The PEST analysis is a useful tool for understanding market growth or
decline, and as such the position, potential and direction for a business. A
PEST analysis is a business measurement tool. PEST is an acronym for
Political, Economic, Social and Technological factors, which are used to
assess the market for a business or organizational unit. The PEST analysis
headings are a framework for reviewing a situation, and can also, like
SWOT analysis, and Porter's Five Forces model, be used to review a
strategy or position, direction of a company, a marketing proposition, or
idea. Completing a PEST analysis is very simple, and is a good subject for
workshop sessions. PEST analysis also works well
in brainstorming meetings. Use PEST analysis for business and strategic
planning, marketing planning, business and product development and
research reports. You can also use PEST analysis exercises for team
building games. PEST analysis is similar to SWOT analysis - it's simple,
quick, and uses four key perspectives. As PEST factors are essentially
external, completing a PEST analysis is helpful prior to completing a SWOT
analysis (a SWOT analysis - Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats
- is based broadly on half internal and half external factors).

free pest analysis template tool

PEST analysis template - doc format (thanks N Silva) PEST analysis
template - pdf format
pest variations
The PEST model, like most very good simple concepts, has prompted
several variations on the theme. For example, the PEST acronym is
sometimes shown as STEP, which obviously represents the same factors.
Stick with PEST - nearly everyone else does.
More confusingly (and some would say unnecessarily) PEST is also
extended to seven or even more factors, by adding Ecological (or
Environmental), Legislative (or Legal), and Industry Analysis, which
produces the PESTELI model. Other variations on the theme include STEEP
and PESTLE, which allow for a dedicated Ethical section. STEEPLED is
another interpretation which includes pretty well everything except the
kitchen sink: Political, Economic, Social and Technological - plus Ecological
or Environmental, Ethical, Demographic and Legal.
It's a matter of personal choice, but for most situations the original PEST
analysis model arguably covers all of the 'additional' factors within the
original four main sections. For example Ecological or Environmental
factors can be positioned under any or all of the four main PEST headings,
depending on their effect. Legislative factors would normally be covered
under the Political heading since they will generally be politically
motivated. Demographics usually are an aspect of the larger Social issue.
Industry Analysis is effectively covered under the Economic heading. Ethical
considerations would typically be included in the Social and/or Political
areas, depending on the perspective and the effect. Thus we can often see
these 'additional' factors as 'sub-items' or perspectives within the four
main sections.
Keeping to four fundamental perspectives also imposes a discipline of
considering strategic context and effect. Many potential 'additional' factors
(ethical, legislative, environmental for example) will commonly be
contributory causes which act on one or some of the main four headings,
rather than be big strategic factors in their own right.
The shape and simplicity of a four-part model is also somehow more
strategically appealing and easier to manipulate and convey.
Ultimately you must use what version works best for you, and importantly
for others who need to understand you, which is another good reason
perhaps for sticking with PEST, because everyone knows it, and you'll not
need to spend half the presentation explaining the meaning of STEEPLED or
some other quirky interpretation.
If you have come across any other weird and wonderful extended
interpretations of PEST I'd love to see them.
On which point (thanks D Taylor) I am informed of one such variation,
which featured in some 2010 coursework: PEST LIED. The PEST element
represents the usual factors - Political, Economic, Social and Technological.
The LIED add-on stands for Legal, International, Environment and
Demography. Suggestions of origin gratefully received, and any other
variations of the PEST model.

pest or swot
A PEST analysis most commonly measures a market; a SWOT analysis
measures a business unit, a proposition or idea.

Generally speaking a SWOT analysis measures a business unit or

proposition, whereas a PEST analysis measures the market potential and
situation, particularly indicating growth or decline, and thereby market
attractiveness, business potential, and suitability of access - market
potential and 'fit' in other words. PEST analysis uses four perspectives,
which give a logical structure, in this case organized by the PEST format,
that helps understanding, presentation, discussion and decision-making.
The four dimensions are an extension of a basic two heading list of pro's
and con's (free pro's and con's template here).
PEST analysis can be used for marketing and business development
assessment and decision-making, and the PEST template encourages
proactive thinking, rather than relying on habitual or instinctive reactions.
Here the PEST analysis template is presented as a grid, comprising four
sections, one for each of the PEST headings: Political, Economic, Social and
Technological.
As previously explained, extended variations of PEST (eg.,
PESTELI and STEEP, etc) include other factors, such as Environmental,
Ethical, Legal or Legislative, etc., however in most situations you will find
that these 'additional' factors are actually contributory causes or detailed
perspectives which then manifest or take effect in the form or one or
several of the original four main PEST factors. For example, Ethical and
Environmental factors will always tend to produce an effect in at least one
of the main four headings (Political, Economic, Social, Technological), but it
will tend not to work the other way. Hence why the basic PEST model is
often the most powerful - it puts more pressure on strategic appreciation
and analysis than a longer list of headings. When you next see a PESTELI or
a STEEPLED analysis ask yourself (or the author): "Okay, I understand that
customers tend to be more ethically minded now, but what does that mean
in terms of the basic four PEST factors - what's the effect going to be?..."
or: "Okay we know that carbon emissions is an issue, but tell me where in
the main four PEST factors will it impact..?
You will gather I am not a fan nor a particular advocate of extending the
PEST model. It works great as it is - why make it more complicated and less
specific? If you are worried about missing or forgetting a crucial point of
ethics or legislation (or anything else) keep a reference list of these
headings, and only build them into the model if you are sure that doing so
will make it work better as a strategic tool.
The free PEST template below includes sample questions or prompts,
whose answers are can be inserted into the relevant section of the PEST
grid. The questions are examples of discussion points, and obviously can be
 altered depending on the subject of the PEST analysis, and how you want
to use it. Make up your own PEST questions and prompts to suit the issue
being analysed and the situation (ie., the people doing the work and the
expectations of them). Like SWOT analysis, it is important to clearly identify
the subject of a PEST analysis, because a PEST analysis is four-way
perspective in relation to a particular business unit or proposition - if you
blur the focus you will produce a blurred picture - so be clear about the
market that you use PEST to analyse.
A market is defined by what is addressing it, be it a product, company,
brand, business unit, proposition, idea, etc, so be clear about how you
define the market being analysed, particularly if you use PEST analysis in
workshops, team exercises or as a delegated task. The PEST subject should
be a clear definition of the market being addressed, which might be from
any of the following standpoints:
• a company looking at its market a product looking at its
market
• a brand in relation to its market
• a local business unit
• a strategic option, such as entering a new market or
launching a new product
• a potential acquisition
• a potential partnership
• an investment opportunity

Be sure to describe the subject for the PEST analysis clearly so that people
contributing to the analysis, and those seeing the finished PEST analysis,
properly understand the purpose of the PEST assessment and implications.
PEST analysis template
Other than the four main headings, the questions and issues in the
template below are examples and not exhaustive - add your own and
amend these prompts to suit your situation, the experience and skill level
of whoever is completing the analysis, and what you aim to produce from
the analysis.
Ensure you consider the additional PESTELI/STEEPLED headings, and any
others you feel are relevant, but avoid building these into the final analysis
model unless you gain some strategic planning or presentation benefit
from doing so.
If helpful refer to a list of these other 'headings', for example:
Ecological/ Environmental, Legislative/or Legal, Demographic, Ethical,
Industry Analysis. Apply some strategic consideration and pressure to the
points you list under these 'additional' headings. Ask yourself what the
effects of each will be on the 'big four' (Political, Economic, Social,
Technological). Often your answers will persuade you that the original four-
part PEST model is best and that using a more complex series of headings
makes it more difficult to complete the analysis fully and strategically.
The analysis can be converted into a more scientific measurement by
scoring the items in each of the sections. There is are established good or
bad reference points - these are for you to decide. Scoring is particularly
beneficial if more than one market is being analysed, for the purpose of
comparing which market or opportunity holds most potential and/or
obstacles. This is useful when considering business development and
investment options, ie, whether to develop market A or B; whether to
concentrate on local distribution or export; whether to acquire company X
or company Y, etc. If helpful when comparing more than one different
market analysis, scoring can also be weighted according to the more or less
significant factors.
(insert subject for PEST analysis - market, business,
proposition, etc.)
political • taxation specific to
product/services
• ecological/environmental • seasonality/weather issues
issues • market and trade cycles
• current legislation home • specific industry factors
market
• trading policies
• future legislation
• funding, grants and initiatives
• international legislation
• home market
• regulatory bodies and
lobbying/pressure groups
processes
• international pressure groups
• government policies
• government term and change • wars and conflicts
economic • market routes and
distribution trends
• home economy situation
• customer/end-user drivers
• home economy trends
• interest and exchange rates
• overseas economies and
trends • international trade/monetary
• general taxation issues issues

social • brand, company, technology

image
• lifestyle trends • consumer buying patterns
• demographics • fashion and role models
• consumer attitudes and • major events and influences
opinions • buying access and trends
• media views • ethnic/religious factors
• law changes affecting social • advertising and publicity
factors
• ethical issues
technological • information and
communications
• competing technology • consumer buying
development mechanisms/technology
• research funding • technology legislation
• associated/dependent • innovation potential
technologies • technology access, licencing,
• replacement patents
technology/solutions • intellectual property issues
• maturity of technology
• manufacturing maturity and • global communications
capacity

more on the difference and relationship between

PEST and SWOT
PEST is useful before SWOT - not generally vice-versa - PEST definitely helps
to identify SWOT factors. There is overlap between PEST and SWOT, in that
similar factors would appear in each. That said, PEST and SWOT are
certainly two different perspectives:
PEST assesses a market, including competitors, from the standpoint of a
particular proposition or a business.
SWOT is an assessment of a business or a proposition, whether your own or
a competitor's.
Strategic planning is not a precise science - no tool is mandatory - it's a
matter of pragmatic choice as to what helps best to identify and explain the
issues.
PEST becomes more useful and relevant the larger and more complex the
business or proposition, but even for a very small local businesses a PEST
analysis can still throw up one or two very significant issues that might
otherwise be missed.
The four quadrants in PEST vary in significance depending on the type of
business, eg., social factors are more obviously relevant to consumer
businesses or a B2B business close to the consumer-end of the supply
chain, whereas political factors are more obviously relevant to a global
munitions supplier or aerosol propellant manufacturer.
All businesses benefit from a SWOT analysis, and all businesses benefit
from completing a SWOT analysis of their main competitors, which
interestingly can then provide some feed back into the economic aspects of
the PEST analysis.

tom peters - in search of excellence

Tom Peters and Robert H Waterman Jr - In Search Of
Excellence summary
The seminal management book In Search of Excellence, by Tom Peters and
Robert Waterman, was published in 1982, and remains one of the one of
the biggest selling and widely read business books ever. Peters and
Waterman found eight common themes which they argued were
responsible for the success of the chosen corporations, which have become
pointers for managers ever since. In Search of Excellence didn't start out as
a book, as Tom Peters explained when interviewed in 2001 to mark the
20th anniversary of In Search of Excellence: Peters and Waterman were
both consultants on the margins of McKinsey, based in the San Francisco
office. In 1977 McKinsey director Ron Daniel launched two projects; the
first and major one, the Business Strategy project, was allocated to top
consultants at McKinsey's New York corporate
HQ and was given star billing. Nothing came of it. The second
'weak-sister' project (as Peters called it) concerned
Organisation - structure and people. The Organisation project was seen as
less important, and was allocated to Peters and Waterman at San
Francisco. Peters travelled the world on an infinite budget, with licence to
talk to as many interesting business people he could find about teams and
organisations in business. He had no particular aim or theory in mind. In
1979 McKinsey's Munich office requested Peters to present his findings to
Siemens, which provided the spur for Peters to create a 700-slide two-day
presentation. Word of the meeting reached the US and Peters was invited
to present also to PepsiCo, but unlike the hyper-organised Siemens, the
PepsiCo management required a tighter format than 700 slides, so Peters
produced the eight themes.
The platform for Peters and Waterman onto which the In Search Of
Excellence research and theorising was built, was the McKinsey 7-S model:

McKinsey 7-S model elements

1. structure
2. strategy
3. systems
4. style of management
5. skills - corporate strengths
6. staff
7. shared values

Peters and Waterman examined 43 of Fortune 500's top performing

companies. They started with a list of 62 of the best performing McKinsey
clients and then applied performance measures to weed out what they
thought to be the weaker companies. General Electric was one of the
casualties which failed to make the cut. Peters says that one of his personal
drivers in carrying out his research was to prove that certain established
methods - particularly heavily systemised philosophies and practices - were
wrong, notably those used by Xerox, and advocated by Peter Drucker and
Robert McNamara. Peters says that he wanted - with a passion - to prove
 how crucial people are to business success , and to release business from
the 'tyranny of the bean counters'.
As Peters explained in 2001: 'Start with Taylorism, add a layer of
Druckerism and a dose of McNamaraism, and by the late 1970's you had
the great American corporation that was being run by bean counters...'
Contrast this with what Peters says became the essential message of In
Search of Excellence, simply:
• People
• Customers
• Action

Peters says that In Search of Excellence turned these 'soft' factors into hard
ones, when previously the only 'hard factors were considered to be the
'numbers'.
Peters also said in 2001 that other than certain wrong companies
highlighted - Atari and Wang for instance - In Search of Excellence
'absolutely nailed the eight points of the compass for business at that time'
(1982), but that its central flaw was in suggesting that these points would
apply for ever, when they most certainly have not.
Peters said finally in his 2001 interview that were he to write In Search of
Excellence today, he would not tamper with any of the eight themes, but
he would add to them: capabilities concerning ideas, liberation, and speed.
Here is a summary of the 'In Search of Excellence' eight themes, which also
form the eight chapters of the book.

In Search of Excellence - the eight themes

1. A bias for action, active decision making - 'getting on with it'.

2. Close to the customer - learning from the people served by the

business.
 3. Autonomy and entrepreneurship - fostering innovation and
nurturing 'champions'.
4. Productivity through people - treating rank and file employees as a
source of quality.
5. Hands-on, value-driven - management philosophy that guides
everyday practice - management showing its commitment.
6. Stick to the knitting - stay with the business that you know.
7. Simple form, lean staff - some of the best companies have minimal
HQ staff.
8. Simultaneous loose-tight properties - autonomy in shop-floor
activities plus centralised values.

ichak adizes - corporate life cycle model

dr ichak adizes ten stages of corporate life cycle
Dr Ichak Adizes is a renowned business guru and theorist, and founder of
the Adizes Institute, now the home of the Adizes organisational
development methodology and its related services. Adizes' simple ten-
stage corporate life cycle model is an elegant way to learn and understand
the typical life-cycle stages that many businesses pass through, from
conception to cessation, and is an example of the fine work and thinking of
the Adizes Institute and its founder, which extend considerably beyond this
model.
There is no pre-set timescale for this corporate life-cycle, and many
organisations do not fit this model. However the lifecycle stages that Ichak
Adizes describes in his model provide a useful basis for understanding a
fundamental perspective of organisational change, and the principle that
organisational ageing, with all that this implies, is inevitable.
One of the main challenges for mature corporations is therefore to seek
reinvention through new business development, before it's too late, often
through acquisition of other businesses in infancy stage, or by developing
new 'infant' business divisions within the parent corporation.
The model also provides a basis for useful team training activities - see for
example the Life-Cycle Exercise, for teaching people about organisational
development stages, which is helpful for selling, management and
understanding organisational cultures and systems.

adizes' ten stages of corporate life-cycle

The single-word Adizes descriptions are actually quite selfexplanatory for
many people's understanding, which is part of the model's appeal and
elegance. Below this first list I've extended the model with some brief
interpretation and descriptive examples of each stage.
1. courtship
2. infancy
3. go-go
4. adolescence
5. prime
6. stability
7. aristocracy
8. recrimination
9. bureaucracy
10. death

Terms explanations and examples:

 1. courtship (the initial development or creation of the
proposition/model/business/formation/etc)
2. infancy (after launch - start of active trading)
3. go-go (frantic energetic early growth and sometimes chaos)
4. adolescence (still developing but more established and defined)
5. prime (the business or organisation at its fittest, healthiest and most
competitive, popular and profitable)
6. stability (still effective, popular, can still be very profitable, but
beginning to lose leading edge - vulnerability creeping in maybe)
7. aristocracy (strong by virtue of market presence and consolidated
accumulated successes, but slow and unexciting, definitely losing
market share to competitors and new technologies, trends, etc)
8. recrimination (doubts, problems, threats and internal issues
overshadow the original purposes)
9. bureaucracy (inward-focused administration, cumbersome, seeking
exit or divestment, many operating and marketing challenges)
10.death (closure, sell-off, bankruptcy, bought for asset value or
customer-base only)

ichak adizes
Ichak Adizes PhD describes himself as "one of the world’s leading experts
on improving the performance of business and government by making
fundamental changes without the chaos and destructive conflict that
plague many efforts". He is also a lecturer and author of several books.
Notably, 'Corporate Lifecycles: How Organizations Grow and Die and What
to Do About It' (1988) is regarded by some as a classic in management
theory. A revised edition was published under the title Managing Corporate
Lifecycles in 1999. Adizes’ other books include the Pursuit of Prime (1996),
Mastering Change:
The Power of Mutual Trust and Respect in Personal Life, Family, Business
and Society (1992), How to Solve the Mismanagement Crisis (1979), and
Self-Management (1975). Adizes has a Ph.D. and M.B.A. from Columbia
University and a B.A. from Hebrew University. His website profile also
states that he works in English, Spanish, Hebrew, Serbian, Croatian and
Bosnian, and that he understands Bulgarian and Portuguese. Adizes is a
very clever fellow indeed.
Adizes approach is a "proprietary, structured, pragmatic system for
accelerating organisational change" which was developed by Adizes, and
has been applied by the Licensees of his Institute since 1975. So it's not just
a philosophy - the Adizes ten phases is a business and methodology in its
own right. Seemingly, when practicing the 'methodology', Adizes' associates
implement one or more of the 11 phases summarized below. These phases
are "a systematic approach designed to help a client accelerate their
development from one Lifecycle phase to the next on their path to 'Prime'.

the 11 phases of the adizes methodology

1. Organisational Diagnosis (by the organisation's own management
team)
2. Team Building (addressing the priorities from phase 1)
3. Change Management (introducing new processes and systems to
improve organisational responsiveness and adaptability).
4. Vision/Mission/Values (developing strategic priorities and plan)
5. Structural Realignment (to better support the new strategy)
6. Management Information Systems (reviewed and developed to
ensure they meet new requirements, with a strong emphasis on
accountability)
 7. Adizes 'Technology Transfer' (enabling and licensing the organisation
to cascade the Adizes methods down to each level, providing for self-
sustaining progression)
8. Peak Performance 'Stretching' (optimising performance)
9. Strategic Resource Allocation (to evaluate the long-term direction
and viability of each organisational unit and identify new directions
for replacing discontinued activities)
10.Systemic 'Cybernetic' Structure (to enable continuous adaptability by
formalising the change management system of phase 3, and
integrate it with the structures of phases 4 and 5)
11.Synergistic Rewards Systems (ensuring rewards and compensation
are relevant and appropriate to the new business shape and
strategy)

The Adizes Institute is a change management organisation that offers its

services around the world through a network of accredited practitioners.
For a fuller explanation of the Adizes methodology and the activities of the
Adizes institute see the Adizes Institute website.
delegation
delegating authority skills, tasks and the process of
effective delegation
Delegation is one of the most important management skills. These logical
rules and techniques will help you to delegate well (and will help you to
help your manager when you are being delegated a task or new
responsibility - delegation is a two-way process!). Good delegation saves
you time, develops you people, grooms a successor, and motivates. Poor
delegation will cause you frustration, demotivates and confuses the other
person, and fails to achieve the task or purpose itself. So it's a management
skill that's worth improving. Here are the simple steps to follow if you want
to get delegation right, with different levels of delegation freedom that you
can offer.
This delegation skills guide deals with general delegation principles and
process, which is applicable to individuals and teams, or tospecially
formed groups of people for individual projects (including 'virtual
teams').

Delegation is a very helpful aid for succession planning, personal

development - and seeking and encouraging promotion. It's how we grow
in the job - delegation enables us to gain experience to take on higher
responsibilities.
Effective delegation is actually crucial for effective succession. For the
successor, and for the manager too: the main task of a manager in a
growing thriving organization is ultimately to develop a successor. When
this happens everyone can move on to higher things. When it fails to
happen the succession and progression becomes dependent on bringing in
new people from outside.
Delegation can be used to develop your people people and yourself -
delegation is not just a management technique for freeing up the boss's
 time. Of course there is a right way to do it. These delegation tips and
techniques are useful for bosses - and for anyone seeking or being given
delegated responsibilities.

As a giver of delegated tasks you must ensure delegation happens

properly. Just as significantly, as the recipient of delegated tasks you have
the opportunity to 'manage upwards' and suggest improvements to the
delegation process and understanding - especially if your boss could use the
help.

Managing the way you receive and agree to do delegated tasks is one of
the central skills of 'managing upwards'. Therefore while this page is
essentially written from the manager's standpoint, the principles are just as
useful for people being managed.

delegation and SMART, or SMARTER

A simple delegation rule is the SMART acronym, or better still, SMARTER.
It's a quick checklist for proper delegation. Delegated tasks must be:
• Specific
• Measurable
• Agreed
• Realistic
• Timebound
• Ethical
• Recorded

Traditional interpretations of the SMARTER acronym use 'Exciting' or

'Enjoyable', however, although a high level of motivation often results
when a person achieves and is given recognition for a particular delegated
task, which in itself can be exciting and enjoyable, in truth, let's be honest,
it is not always possible to ensure that all delegated work is truly 'exciting'
or 'enjoyable' for the recipient. More importantly, the 'Ethical' aspect is
fundamental to everything that we do, assuming you subscribe to such
philosophy.
The delegation and review form is a useful tool for the delegation process.
Also helpful tools for delegation, see the goal planning tips and template, and the
activity management template.
The Tannenbaum and Schmidt Continuum model proviodes extra guidance
on delegating freedom to, and developing, a team.
The Tuckman 'Forming, Storming, Norming Performing' model is
particularly helpful when delegating to teams and individuals within
teams.
Below are:
The steps of successful delegation - step-by-step guide.
The levels of delegation freedom - choose which is most appropriate for
any given situation.

the steps of successful delegation

1 Define the task

Confirm in your own mind that the task is suitable to be delegated. Does it
meet the criteria for delegating?

2 Select the individual or team

What are your reasons for delegating to this person or team? What are
they going to get out of it? What are you going to get out of it?
3 Assess ability and training needs
Is the other person or team of people capable of doing the task? Do they
understand what needs to be done. If not, you can't delegate.

4 Explain the reasons

You must explain why the job or responsibility is being delegated. And why
to that person or people? What is its importance and relevance? Where
does it fit in the overall scheme of things?

5 State required results

What must be achieved? Clarify understanding by getting feedback from
the other person. How will the task be measured? Make sure they know
how you intend to decide that the job is being successfully done.

6 Consider resources required

Discuss and agree what is required to get the job done. Consider people,
location, premises, equipment, money, materials, other related activities
and services.

7 Agree deadlines
When must the job be finished? Or if an ongoing duty, when are the review
dates? When are the reports due? And if the task is complex and has parts
or stages, what are the priorities?
At this point you may need to confirm understanding with the other person
of the previous points, getting ideas and interpretation. As well as showing
you that the job can be done, this helps to reinforce commitment.
Methods of checking and controlling must be agreed with the other person.
Failing to agree this in advance will cause this monitoring to seem like
interference or lack of trust.

8 Support and communicate

Think about who else needs to know what's going on, and inform them.
Involve the other person in considering this so they can see beyond the
issue at hand. Do not leave the person to inform your own peers of their
new responsibility. Warn the person about any awkward matters of politics
or protocol. Inform your own boss if the task is important, and of sufficient
profile.

9 Feedback on results
It is essential to let the person know how they are doing, and whether they
have achieved their aims. If not, you must review with them why things did
not go to plan, and deal with the problems. You must absorb the
consequences of failure, and pass on the credit for success.

levels of delegation
Delegation isn't just a matter of telling someone else what to do. There is a
wide range of varying freedom that you can confer on the other person.
The more experienced and reliable the other person is, then the more
freedom you can give. The more critical the task then the more cautious
you need to be about extending a lot of freedom, especially if your job or
reputation depends on getting a good result. Take care to choose the most
appropriate style for each situation. For each example the statements are
simplified for clarity; in reality you would choose a less abrupt style of
language, depending on the person and the relationship. At the very least,
a "Please" and "Thank-you" would be included in the requests.
It's important also to ask the other person what level of authority they feel
comfortable being given. Why guess? When you ask, you can find out for
sure and agree this with the other person. Some people are confident;
others less so. It's your responsibility to agree with them what level is most
appropriate, so that the job is done effectively and with minimal
unnecessary involvement from you. Involving the other person in agreeing
the level of delegated freedom for any particular responsibility is an
essential part of the 'contract' that you make with them.
These levels of delegation are not an exhaustive list. There are many more
shades of grey between these black-and-white examples. Take time to
discuss and adapt the agreements and 'contracts' that you make with
people regarding delegated tasks, responsibility and freedom according to
the situation.
Be creative in choosing levels of delegated responsibility, and always check
with the other person that they are comfortable with your chosen level.
People are generally capable of doing far more than you imagine.
The rate and extent of responsibility and freedom delegated to people is a
fundamental driver of organisational growth and effectiveness, the growth
and well-being of your people, and of your own development and
advancement.

levels of delegation - examples

These examples of different delegation levels progressively offer,
encourage and enable more delegated freedom. Level 1 is the lowest level
of delegated freedom (basically none). Level 10 is the highest level typically
(and rarely) found in organisations.
1 "Wait to be told." or "Do exactly what I say." or
"Follow these instructions precisely."
This is instruction. There is no delegated freedom at all.

2 "Look into this and tell me the situation. I'll

decide."
This is asking for investigation and analysis but no recommendation. The
person delegating retains responsibility for assessing options prior to
making the decision.

3 "Look into this and tell me the situation. We'll

decide together."
This is has a subtle important difference to the above. This level of
delegation encourages and enables the analysis and decision to be a shared
process, which can be very helpful in coaching and development.

4 "Tell me the situation and what help you need

from me in assessing and handling it. Then we'll
decide."
This is opens the possibility of greater freedom for analysis and decision-
making, subject to both people agreeing this is appropriate. Again, this level
is helpful in growing and defining coaching and development relationships.
5 "Give me your analysis of the situation (reasons,
options, pros and cons) and recommendation.
I'll let you know whether you can go ahead."
Asks for analysis and recommendation, but you will check the thinking
before deciding.

6 "Decide and let me know your decision, and wait

for my go-ahead before proceeding."
The other person is trusted to assess the situation and options and is
probably competent enough to decide and implement too, but for reasons
of task importance, or competence, or perhaps externally changing factors,
the boss prefers to keep control of timing. This level of delegation can be
frustrating for people if used too often or for too long, and in any event the
reason for keeping people waiting, after they've inevitably invested time
and effort, needs to be explained.

7 "Decide and let me know your decision, then go

ahead unless I say not to."
Now the other person begins to control the action. The subtle increase in
responsibility saves time. The default is now positive rather than negative.
This is a very liberating change in delegated freedom, and incidentally one
that can also be used very effectively when seeking responsibility from
above or elsewhere in an organisation, especially one which is strangled by
indecision and bureaucracy. For example, "Here is my analysis and
recommendation; I will proceed unless you tell me otherwise by (date)."
8 "Decide and take action - let me know what you
did (and what happened)."
This delegation level, as with each increase up the scale, saves even more
time. This level of delegation also enables a degree of follow-up by the
manager as to the effectiveness of the delegated responsibility, which is
necessary when people are being managed from a greater distance, or
more 'hands-off'.
The level also allows and invites positive feedback by the manager, which is
helpful in coaching and development of course.

9 "Decide and take action. You need not check back

with me."
The most freedom that you can give to another person when you still need
to retain responsibility for the activity. A high level of confidence is
necessary, and you would normally assess the quality of the activity after
the event according to overall results, potentially weeks or months later.
Feedback and review remain helpful and important, although the
relationship is more likely one of mentoring, rather than coaching per se.

10 "Decide where action needs to be taken and

manage the situation accordingly. It's your area
of responsibility now."
The most freedom that you can give to the other person, and not generally
used without formal change of a person's job role. It's the delegation of a
strategic responsibility. This gives the other person responsibility for
defining what changes projects, tasks, analysis and decisions are necessary
for the management of a particular area of responsibility, as well as the
task or project or change itself, and how the initiative or change is to be
implemented and measured, etc. This amounts to delegating part of your
job - not just a task or project. You'd use this utmost level of delegation (for
example) when developing a successor, or as part of an intentional and
agreed plan to devolve some of your job accountability in a formal sense.

contracts - 'psychological contracts', 'emotional

contracts'
Variously called 'contracts' or 'psychological contracts' or 'emotional
contracts', these expressions describe the process of agreeing with the
other person what they should do and the expectations linked to the
responsibility. It all basically means the same, whatever you call it. The
point is that people cannot actually be held responsible for something to
which they've not agreed. The point is also that everyone is more
committed to delivering a responsibility if they've been through the process
of agreeing to do it. This implies that they might have some feelings about
the expectations attached, such as time-scale, resources, budget, etc., even
purpose and method. You must give the other person the opportunity to
discuss, question and suggest issues concerning expectations attached to a
delegated task. This is essential to the contracting process.
Certain general responsibilities of course are effectively agreed implicitly
within people's job roles or job descriptions or employment contracts, but
commonly particular tasks, projects, etc., that you need to delegate are
not, in which case specific discussion must take place to establish proper
agreement or 'contract' between you and the other person.
tuckman forming storming norming
performing model
Bruce Tuckman's 1965 Forming Storming Norming
Performing teamdevelopment model
Dr Bruce Tuckman published his Forming Storming Norming Performing
model in 1965. He added a fifth stage, Adjourning, in the 1970s. The
Forming Storming Norming Performing theory is an elegant and helpful
explanation of team development and behaviour. Similarities can be seen
with other models, such as Tannenbaum and Schmidt Continuum and
especially with Hersey and Blanchard's Situational Leadership® model,
developed about the same time.
Tuckman's model explains that as the team develops maturity and ability,
relationships establish, and the leader changes leadership style. Beginning
with a directing style, moving through coaching, then participating,
finishing delegating and almost detached. At this point the team may
produce a successor leader and the previous leader can move on to
develop a new team. This progression of team behaviour and leadership
style can be seen clearly in the Tannenbaum and Schmidt Continuum - the
authority and freedom extended by the leader to the team increases while
the control of the leader reduces. In Tuckman's Forming Storming Norming
Performing model, Hersey's and Blanchard's Situational Leadership® model
and in Tannenbaum and Schmidt's Continuum, we see the same effect,
represented in three ways.

tuckman's forming storming norming performing

four-stage model
The progression is:

1. forming
 2. storming
3. norming
4. performing

Here are the features of each phase:

forming - stage 1
High dependence on leader for guidance and direction. Little agreement on
team aims other than received from leader. Individual roles and
responsibilities are unclear. Leader must be prepared to answer lots of
questions about the team's purpose, objectives and external relationships.
Processes are often ignored. Members test tolerance of system and leader.
Leader directs (similar to Situational Leadership® 'Telling' mode).

storming - stage 2
Decisions don't come easily within group. Team members vie for position as
they attempt to establish themselves in relation to other team members
and the leader, who might receive challenges from team members. Clarity
of purpose increases but plenty of uncertainties persist. Cliques and
factions form and there may be power struggles. The team needs to be
focused on its goals to avoid becoming distracted by relationships and
emotional issues. Compromises may be required to enable progress. Leader
coaches (similar to Situational Leadership® 'Selling' mode).

norming - stage 3
Agreement and consensus is largely forms among team, who respond well
to facilitation by leader. Roles and responsibilities are clear and accepted.
Big decisions are made by group agreement. Smaller decisions may be
delegated to individuals or small teams within group. Commitment and
unity is strong. The team may engage in fun and social activities. The team
discusses and develops its processes and working style. There is general
respect for the leader and some of leadership is more shared by the team.
Leader facilitates and enables
(similar to the Situational Leadership® 'Participating' mode).

performing - stage 4
The team is more strategically aware; the team knows clearly why it is
doing what it is doing. The team has a shared vision and is able to stand on
its own feet with no interference or participation from the leader. There is
a focus on overachieving goals, and the team makes most of the decisions
against criteria agreed with the leader. The team has a high degree of
autonomy. Disagreements occur but now they are resolved within the team
positively and necessary changes to processes and structure are made by
the team. The team is able to work towards achieving the goal, and also to
attend to relationship, style and process issues along the way. team
members look after each other. The team requires delegated tasks and
projects from the leader. The team does not need to be instructed or
assisted. Team members might ask for assistance from the leader with
personal and interpersonal development. Leader delegates and oversees
(similar to the Situational Leadership® 'Delegating' mode).
tuckman's forming storming norming performing
model

Better quality
diagrams are
available as
separate files:
Tuckman
'forming
storming'
diagram (doc
format)
Tuckman
'forming
storming'
diagram (pdf
format)
(Thanks S
Doran for
suggestion.
And thanks
also C Lloyd
for pointing
out the error
in these
diagrams,
duly
 corrected
Aug 2008 -
storming and
norming
were
inverted.)

Tuckman's fifth stage - Adjourning

Bruce Tuckman refined his theory around 1975 and added a fifth stage to
the Forming Storming Norming Performing model - he called it Adjourning,
which is also referred to as Deforming and Mourning. Adjourning is
arguably more of an adjunct to the original four stage model rather than an
extension - it views the group from a perspective beyond the purpose of
the first four stages. The Adjourning phase is certainly very relevant to the
people in the group and their well-being, but not to the main task of
managing and developing a team, which is clearly central to the original
four stages.

adjourning - stage 5
Tuckman's fifth stage, Adjourning, is the break-up of the group, hopefully
when the task is completed successfully, its purpose fulfilled; everyone
can move on to new things, feeling good about what's been achieved.
From an organizational perspective, recognition of and sensitivity to
people's vulnerabilities in Tuckman's fifth stage is helpful, particularly if
members of the group have been closely bonded and feel a sense of
insecurity or threat from this change. Feelings of insecurity would be
natural for people with high 'steadiness' attributes (as regards the 'four
temperaments' or DISC model) and with strong routine and empathy style
(as regards the Benziger thinking styles model, right and left basal brain
dominance).
Hersey and Blanchard's Situational Leadership®
model

The classic Situational Leadership® model of management and leadership

style also illustrates the ideal development of a team from immaturity
(stage 1) through to maturity (stage 4) during which management an
leadership style progressively develops from relatively detached task-
directing (1), through the more managerially-involved stages of explanation
(2) and participation (3), to the final stage of relatively detached delegation
(4), at which time ideally the team is largely selfmanaging, and hopefully
contains at least one potential management/leadership successor.
The aim of the leader or manager is therefore to develop the team through
the four stages, and then to move on to another role.
Ironically this outcome is feared by many managers. However, good
organisations place an extremely high value on leaders and managers who
can achieve this.
The model also illustrates four main leadership and management styles,
which a good leader is able to switch between, depending on the sitution
(ie., the team's maturity relating to a particular task, project or challenge.)
Situational Leadership® is a trademark of the Center for Leadership Studies,
which represents the interests and products of Dr Paul Hersey. Ken
Blanchard (who incidentally wrote 'The One Minute Manager') went on to
develop the Situational Leadership® system into what he called Situational
Leadership II®, and which now covers a range of products marketed by his
organization, The Ken Blanchard Companies.
Use of material relating to Situational Leadership® and/or Situational
Leadership II® requires licence and agreement from the respective
companies.

Tannenbaum and Schmidt Continuum

The Tannenbaum and Schmidt Continuum also correlates in a way to the
models above - esentially that management style tends to offer more
freedom as the group matures.
The diagonal line loosely equates to the dotted line on the other two
models. As the team matures and becomes more self-suffient and self-
directing, so the manager's style should react accordingly, ideally becoming
more detached, more delegating, encouraging and enablung the group to
run itself, and for a successor (or if you are a good manager or a lucky one,
for more than one successor) to emerge.
See the Tannenbum and Schmidt page for more detailed notes about this
model.

This is merely an overview of the Tuckman forming storming performing

norming model - if you need to know more there are various detailed
Tuckman model pages on the web.
There is also an excellent free test at Don Clark's Big Dog site, to indicate
whether your team is forming, storming, norming or performing.
Refer also to the Johari Window model for personal and intergroup
communications and awareness development.
For an additional and useful perspective on human development see Erik
Erikson's Psychosocial Theory.
The personality models and theories section explores behaviour and style
of individuals, with obvious implications for managing groups, as does the
learning styles and multiple intelligences section.
kolb learning styles
David Kolb's learning styles model and experiential
learning theory (ELT)
Having developed the model over many years prior, David Kolb published
his learning styles model in 1984. The model gave rise to related terms such
as Kolb's experiential learning theory (ELT), and Kolb's learning styles
inventory (LSI). In his publications - notably his 1984 book 'Experiential
Learning: Experience As The Source Of Learning And Development' Kolb
acknowledges the early work on experiential learning by others in the
1900's, including Rogers, Jung, and Piaget. In turn, Kolb's learning styles
model and experiential learning theory are today acknowledged by
academics, teachers, managers and trainers as truly seminal works;
fundamental concepts towards our understanding and explaining human
learning behaviour, and towards helping others to learn. See also Gardner's
Multiple Intelligences and VAK learnings styles models, which assist in
understanding and using Kolb's learning styles concepts.
In addition to personal business interests (Kolb is founder and chairman of
Experience Based Learning Systems), David Kolb is still (at the time I write
this, 2005) Professor of
Organizational Development at Case Western Reserve
University, Cleveland, Ohio, where he teaches and researches in the fields
of learning and development, adult development, experiential learning,
learning style, and notably 'learning focused institutional development in
higher education'.

kolb's experiential learning theory (learning styles)

model
Kolb's learning theory sets out four distinct learning styles (or
preferences), which are based on a four-stage learning cycle. (which might
also be interpreted as a 'training cycle'). In this respect Kolb's model is
particularly elegant, since it offers both a way to understand individual
people's different learning styles, and also an explanation of a cycle of
experiential learning that applies to us all.
Kolb includes this 'cycle of learning' as a central principle his experiential
learning theory, typically expressed as four-stage cycle of learning, in which
'immediate or concrete experiences' provide a basis for 'observations and
reflections'. These 'observations and reflections' are assimilated and
distilled into 'abstract concepts' producing new implications for action
which can be 'actively tested' in turn creating new experiences.
Kolb says that ideally (and by inference not always) this process represents
a learning cycle or spiral where the learner 'touches all the bases', ie., a
cycle of experiencing, reflecting, thinking, and acting. Immediate or
concrete experiences lead to observations and reflections. These
reflections are then assimilated (absorbed and translated) into abstract
concepts with implications for action, which the person can actively test
and experiment with, which in turn enable the creation of new experiences.

Kolb's model therefore works on two levels - a four-stage cycle:

1. Concrete Experience - (CE)

2. Reflective Observation - (RO)
3. Abstract Conceptualization - (AC) 4. Active Experimentation -
(AE) and a four-type definition of learning styles, (each representing the
combination of two preferred styles, rather like a two-by-two matrix of
the four-stage cycle styles, as illustrated below), for which Kolb used the
terms:
1. Diverging (CE/RO)
2. Assimilating (AC/RO)
3. Converging (AC/AE)
4. Accommodating (CE/AE)
diagrams of kolb's learning styles
Here is a new improved (May 2006) free diagram illustrating Kolb's
learning cycle and learning types (MSWord). (Also as a pdf.)
Kolb diagrams also in colour (like the image below): Kolb learning styles colour
diagram MSWord, and Kolb colour diagram PDF.

(Kolb diagrams updated May 2006)

See also the personality styles and models section for help with
understanding how Kolb's theory correlates with other personality models
and psychometrics (personality testing).

learning styles
(This interpretation was amended and revised March 2006)
Kolb explains that different people naturally prefer a certain single different
learning style. Various factors influence a person's preferred style: notably
in his experiential learning theory model (ELT) Kolb defined three stages of
a person's development, and suggests that our propensity to reconcile and
successfully integrate the four different learning styles improves as we
mature through our development stages. The development stages that
Kolb identified are:
1. Acquisition - birth to adolescence - development of basic abilities and
'cognitive structures'
2. Specialization - schooling, early work and personal experiences of
adulthood - the development of a particular 'specialized learning
style' shaped by 'social, educational, and organizational socialization'
3. Integration - mid-career through to later life - expression of non-
dominant learning style in work and personal life.

Whatever influences the choice of style, the learning style preference itself
is actually the product of two pairs of variables, or two separate 'choices'
that we make, which Kolb presented as lines of axis, each with 'conflicting'
modes at either end:

Concrete Experience - CE (feeling) -----V-----Abstract Conceptualization - AC

(thinking)

Active Experimentation - AE (doing)-----V----- Reflective Observation - RO

(watching)
A typical presentation of Kolb's two continuums is that the east-west axis is
called the Processing Continuum (how we approach a task), and the north-
south axis is called the Perception Continuum (our emotional response, or
how we think or feel about it).
These learning styles are the combination of two lines of axis
(continuums) each formed between what Kolb calls 'dialectically related
modes' of 'grasping experience' (doing or watching), and 'transforming
experience' (feeling or thinking):

The word 'dialectically' is not widely understood, and yet carries an

essential meaning, namely 'conflicting' (its ancient Greek root means
'debate' - and I thank P Stern for helping clarify this precise meaning). Kolb
meant by this that we cannot do both at the same time, and to an extent
our urge to want to do both creates conflict, which we resolve through
choice when confronted with a new learning situation. We internally decide
 whether we wish to do or watch, and at the same time we decide whether
to think or feel.
The result of these two decisions produces (and helps to form throughout
our lives) the preferred learning style, hence the two-by-two matrix below.
We choose a way of 'grasping the experience', which defines our approach
to it, and we choose a way to 'transform the experience' into something
meaningful and usable, which defines our emotional response to the
experience. Our learning style is a product of these two choice decisions:

1. how to approach a task - ie., 'grasping experience' - preferring to (a)

watch or (b) do , and
2. our emotional response to the experience - ie., 'transforming
experience' - preferring to (a) think or (b) feel.

In other words we choose our approach to the task or experience

('grasping the experience') by opting for 1(a) or 1(b):
• 1(a) - though watching others involved in the experience and
reflecting on what happens ('reflective observation' - 'watching') or
• 1(b) - through 'jumping straight in' and just doing it
('active experimentation' - 'doing')

And at the same time we choose how to emotionally transform the

experience into something meaningful and useful by opting for 2(a) or 2(b):
• 2(a) - through gaining new information by thinking, analyzing, or
planning ('abstract conceptualization' - 'thinking') or
• 2(b) - through experiencing the 'concrete, tangible, felt qualities of
the world' ('concrete experience' - 'feeling')

The combination of these two choices produces a preferred learning style.

See the matrix below.
 kolb's learning styles - matrix view
It's often easier to see the construction of Kolb's learning styles in terms of
a two-by-two matrix. The diagram also highlights Kolb's terminology for the
four learning styles; diverging, assimilating, and converging,
accommodating:

doing (Active Experimentation - AE) watching (Reflective

Observation - RO)

feeling (Concrete accommodating diverging

Experience - CE) (CE/AE) (CE/RO)
thinking (Abstract converging assimilating - AC) (AC/AE)
(AC/RO)
Conceptualization

Thus, for example, a person with a dominant learning style of 'doing'

rather than 'watching' the task, and 'feeling' rather than 'thinking' about
the experience, will have a learning style which combines and represents
those processes, namely an 'Accommodating'learning style, in Kolb's
terminology.
 kolb learning styles definitions and descriptions
Knowing a person's (and your own) learning style enables learning to be
orientated according to the preferred method. That said, everyone
responds to and needs the stimulus of all types of learning styles to one
extent or another - it's a matter of using emphasis that fits best with the
given situation and a person's learning style preferences.
Here are brief descriptions of the four Kolb learning styles:

• Diverging (feeling and watching - CE/RO) - These

people are able to look at things from different perspectives. They are
sensitive. They prefer to watch rather than do, tending to gather
information and use imagination to solve problems. They are best at
viewing concrete situations several different viewpoints. Kolb called this
style 'Diverging' because these people perform better in situations that
require ideas-generation, for example, brainstorming. People with a
Diverging learning style have broad cultural interests and like to gather
information. They are interested in people, tend to be imaginative and
emotional, and tend to be strong in the arts. People with the Diverging
style prefer to work in groups, to listen with an open mind and to receive
personal feedback.
• Assimilating (watching and thinking - AC/RO) - The Assimilating
learning preference is for a concise, logical approach. Ideas and
concepts are more important than people. These people require
good clear explanation rather than practical opportunity. They excel
at understanding wide-ranging information and organising it a clear
logical format. People with an Assimilating learning style are less
focused on people and more interested in ideas and abstract
concepts. People with this style are more attracted to logically sound
theories than approaches based on practical value. These learning
style people is important for effectiveness in information and science
careers. In formal learning situations, people with this style prefer
 readings, lectures, exploring analytical models, and having time to
think things through.
• Converging (doing and thinking - AC/AE) - People with a Converging
learning style can solve problems and will use their learning to find
solutions to practical issues. They prefer technical tasks, and are less
concerned with people and interpersonal aspects. People with a
Converging learning style are best at finding practical uses for ideas
and theories. They can solve problems and make decisions by finding
solutions to questions and problems. People with a Converging
learning style are more attracted to technical tasks and problems
than social or interpersonal issues. A Converging learning style
enables specialist and technology abilities. People with a Converging
style like to experiment with new ideas, to simulate, and to work
with practical applications.
• Accommodating (doing and feeling - CE/AE) - The
Accommodating learning style is 'hands-on', and relies on intuition rather
than logic. These people use other people's analysis, and prefer to take a
practical, experiential approach. They are attracted to new challenges
and experiences, and to carrying out plans. They commonly act on 'gut'
instinct rather than logical analysis. People with an Accommodating
learning style will tend to rely on others for information than carry out
their own analysis. This learning style is prevalent and useful in roles
requiring action and initiative. People with an Accommodating learning
style prefer to work in teams to complete tasks. They set targets and
actively work in the field trying different ways to achieve an objective.

As with any behavioural model, this is a guide not a strict set of rules.
Nevertheless most people clearly exhibit clear strong preferences for a
given learning style. The ability to use or 'switch between' different styles is
not one that we should assume comes easily or naturally to many people.
Simply, people who have a clear learning style preference, for whatever
reason, will tend to learn more effectively if learning is orientated according
to their preference.
For instance - people who prefer the 'Assimilating' learning style will not be
comfortable being thrown in at the deep end without notes and
instructions.
People who like prefer to use an 'Accommodating' learning style are likely
to become frustrated if they are forced to read lots of instructions and
rules, and are unable to get hands on experience as soon as possible.

relationships between kolb and other

behavioural/personality theories
As with many behavioural and personality models, interesting correlations
exist between Kolb's theory and other concepts.
For example, Kolb says that his experiential learning theory, and therefore
the learning styles model within it, builds on Carl Jung's assertion that
learning styles result from people's preferred ways of adapting in the
world.
Among many other correlations between definitions, Kolb points out that
Jung's 'Extraversion/Introversion' dialectical dimension - (which features
and is measured in the MyersBriggs Type Indicator [MBTI]) correlates with
the 'Active/Reflective' (doing/watching) dialectic (east-west continuum) of
Kolb's model.
Also, the MBTI 'Feeling/Thinking' dimension correlates with the Kolb model
Concrete Experience/Abstract Conceptualization dimension (north-south
continuum).
honey and mumford's variation on the kolb system
Various resources (including this one in the past) refer to the terms
'activist', 'reflector', 'theorist', and 'pragmatist' (respectively representing
the four key stages or learning steps) in seeking to explain Kolb's model. In
fact, 'activist', 'reflector', 'theorist', and 'pragmatist' are from a learning
styles model developed by Honey and Mumford, which although based on
Kolb's work, is different. Arguably therefore the terms 'activist',
'reflector', 'theorist', and 'pragmatist' effectively 'belong' to the Honey and
Mumford theory.
Peter Honey and Alan Mumford developed their learning styles system as a
variation on the Kolb model while working on a project for the Chloride
corporation in the 1970's. Honey and Mumford say of their system:
"Our description of the stages in the learning cycle originated from the
work of David Kolb. Kolb uses different words to describe the stages of the
learning cycle and four learning styles..."
And, "...The similarities between his model and ours are greater than the
differences.." (Honey & Mumford)
In summary here are brief descriptions of the four H&M key stages/styles,
which incidentally are directly mutually corresponding and overlaid, as
distinct from the Kolb model in which the learning styles are a product of
combinations of the learning cycle stages. The typical presentation of these
H&M styles and stages would be respectively at north, east, south and west
on a circle or four-stage cyclical flow diagram.

1. 'Having an Experience' (stage 1), and Activists (style 1):

'here and now', gregarious, seek challenge and immediate
experience, open-minded, bored with implementation.
2. 'Reviewing the Experience' (stage 2) and Reflectors (style 2):
'stand back', gather data, ponder and analyse, delay reaching
conclusions, listen before speaking, thoughtful.
 3. 'Concluding from the Experience' (stage 3) and Theorists (style
3): think things through in logical steps, assimilate disparate facts
into coherent theories, rationally objective, reject subjectivity and
flippancy.
4. 'Planning the next steps' (stage 4) and Pragmatists (style 4): seek
and try out new ideas, practical, down-to-earth, enjoy problem
solving and decision-making quickly, bored with long discussions.

There is arguably a strong similarity between the Honey and Mumford

styles/stages and the corresponding Kolb learning styles:
• Activist = Accommodating
• Reflector = Diverging
• Theorist = Assimilating
• Pragmatist = Converging

Here are free diagrams interpreting Kolb's learning styles model. They are
all essentially the same thing with slight differences in presentation,
available each in doc or PDF file fomats:
• Basic - 'compass' diagram - Basic Kolb learning styles diagram (doc
file) or as a pdf file
• Improved diagram, emphasising cycle - Improved diagram illustrating
Kolb's learning cycle and learning types (doc) - or as a pdf
• Improved diagram, colour version - Improved colour diagram of
Kolb's learning cycle and learning styles (doc file) - or Kolb colour

diagram PDF eadership

leadership development methods and tips
Explaining and understanding the nature of good leadership is probably
easier than practising it. Good leadership requires deep human qualities,
beyond conventional notions of authority.
In the modern age good leaders are an enabling force, helping people and
organizations to perform and develop, which implies that a sophisticated
alignment be achieved - of people's needs, and the aims of the
organization.
The traditional concept of a leader being the directing chief at the top of a
hierachy is nowadays a very incomplete appreciation of what true
leadership must be.
Effective leadership does not necessarily require great technical or
intellectual capacity. These attributes might help, but they are not pivotal.
Good leadership in the modern age more importantly requires attitudes
and behaviours which characterise and relate to humanity.
Leadership is centrally concerned with people. Of course leadership
involves decisions and actions relating to all sorts of other things, but
leadership is special compared to any other role because of its unique
responsibilty for people -
i.e., the followers of the leader - in whatever context leadership is seen to
operate.
Many capabilities in life are a matter of acquiring skills and knowledge and
then applying them in a reliable way. Leadership is quite different. Good
leadership demands emotional strengths and behavioural characteristics
which can draw deeply on a leader's mental and spiritual reserves.
The leadership role is an inevitable reflection of people's needs and
challenges in modern life. Leadership is therefore a profound concept, with
increasingly complex implications, driven by an increasingly complex and
fast-changing world.
Leadership and management are commonly seen as the same thing, which
they are not. Leadership is also misunderstood to mean directing and
instructing people and making important decisions on behalf of an
organization. Effective leadership is much more than these.
 Good leaders are followed chiefly because people trust and respect them,
rather than the skills they possess. Leadership is about behaviour first, skills
second.
This is a simple way to see how leadership is different to management:
• Management is mostly about processes. Leadership is mostly about
behaviour.

We could extend this to say:

• Management relies heavily on tangible measurable capabilities such as
effective planning; the use of organizational systems; and the use of
appropriate communications methods.
• Leadership involves many management skills, but generally as a
secondary or background function of true leadership. Leadership instead
relies most strongly on less tangible and less measurable things like trust,
inspiration, attitude, decision-making, and personal character. These are
not processes or skills or even necessarily the result of experience. They
are facets of humanity, and are enabled mainly by the leader's character
and especially his/her emotional reserves.

Another way to see leadership compared with management, is that

leadership does not crucially depend on the type of management methods
and processes a leaders uses; leadership instead primarily depends on the
ways in which the leader uses management methods and processes.
Good leadership depends on attitudinal qualities, not management
processes.
Humanity is a way to describe these qualities, because this reflects the
leader's vital relationship with people.
Qualities critical for a leader's relationship with his/her people are quite
different to conventional skills and processes:
 examples of highly significant leadership qualities
• integrity
• honesty
• humility
• courage
• commitment
• sincerity
• passion
• confidence
• positivity
• wisdom
• determination
• compassion
• sensitivity

People with these sort of behaviours and attitudes tend to attract

followers. Followers are naturally drawn to people who exhibit strength
and can inspire belief in others. These qualities tend to produce a
charismatic effect. Charisma tends to result from effective leadership and
the qualities which enable effective leadership. Charisma is by itself no
guarantee of effective leadership.
Some people are born more naturally to leadership than others. Most
people don't seek to be a leader, but many more people are able to lead, in
one way or another and in one situation or another, than they realize.
People who want to be a leader can develop leadership ability. Leadership
is not the exclusive preserve of the wealthy and educated.
Leadership is a matter of personal conviction and believing strongly in a
cause or aim, whatever it is.
Leadership sometimes comes to people later in life, and this is no bad thing.
Humanity tends to be generational characteristic. There is no real obstacle
to people who seek to become leaders if leadership is approached with
proper integrity. Anyone can be a leader if he/she is suitably driven to a
particular cause.
And many qualities of effective leadership, like confidence and charisma,
continue to grow from experience in the leadership role. Even initially
surprised modest leaders can become great ones, and sometimes the
greatest ones.
Leadership can be performed with different styles. Some leaders have one
style, which is right for certain situations and wrong for others. Some
leaders can adapt and use different leadership styles for given situations.
Adaptability of style is an increasingly significant aspect of leadership,
because the world is increasingly complex and dynamic. Adaptability stems
from objectivity, which in turn stems from emotional security and
emotional maturity. Again these strengths are not dependent on wealth or
education, or skills or processes.
Good leaders typically have a keen understanding of relationships within
quite large and complex systems and networks. This may be from an
intuitive angle, or a technical/learned angle, or both.
A very useful way to explore this crucial aspect of leadership with
respect to wider relationships and systems is offered by the
Psychological Contract and how that theory relates to organizations and
leadership.
People new to leadership (and supervision and management) often feel
under pressure to lead in a particularly dominant way. Sometimes this
pressure on a new leader to impose their authority on the team comes
from above. Dominant leadership is rarely appropriate however, especially
for mature teams. Misreading this situation, and attempting to be overly
dominant, can then cause problems for a new leader. Resistance from the
team becomes a problem, and a cycle of negative behaviours and reducing
performance begins. Much of leadership is counter-intuitive. Leadership is
often more about serving than leading. Besides which, individuals and
teams tend not to resist or push against something in which they have a
strong involvement/ownership/sense of control. People tend to respond
well to thanks, encouragement, recognition, inclusiveness, etc. Tough,
overly dominant leadership gives teams a lot to push against and resist. It
also prevents a sense of ownership and self-control among the people
being led. And it also inhibits the positive rewards and incentives (thanks,
recognition, encouragement, etc) vital for teams and individuals to cope
with change, and to enjoy themselves. Leaders of course need to be able to
make tough decisions when required, but most importantly leaders should
concentrate on enabling the team to thrive, which is actually a 'serving'
role, not the dominant 'leading' role commonly associated with leadership.
Today ethical leadership is more important than ever. The world is more
transparent and connected than it has ever been. The actions and
philosophies of organisations are scrutinised by the media and the general
public as never before. This coincides with massively increased awareness
and interest among people everywhere in corporate responsibility and the
many related concepts, such as social and community responsibility (see
the ethical leadership and ethical organisations page). The modern leader
needs to understand and aspire to leading people and achieving greatness
in all these areas.
Here is (was..) an Excellent 30 minute BBC Radio 4 Discussion about
Modern Leadership - (first broadcast 2 Sept 2006, part of the 'Sound
Advice' series). Its mere existence is evidence of changed attitudes to
leadership. Such a programme would not have warranted BBC airtime a
generation ago due to lack of audience interest. Today there is huge
awareness of, and interest in, more modern leadership methods. The radio
discussion highlighted the need for effective modern leaders to have
emotional strength and sensitivity, far beyond traditional ideas of more
limited autocratic leadership styles. I'm sorry (if still) this linked item is
unavailable from the BBC website, especially if the recording is lost forever
in the BBC's archives. If you know a suitably influential executive at the
Beeb who can liberate it please contact me.
Incidentally as a quick case-study, the BBC illustrates an important aspect of
leadership, namely philosophy.

Philosophy (you could call it 'fundamental purpose') is the foundation on

which to build strategy, management, operational activities, and pretty
well everything else that happens in an organization.

Whatever the size of the organization, operational activities need to be

reconcilable with a single congruent (fitting, harmonious) philosophy.
Executives, managers, staff, customers, suppliers, stakeholders, etc., need
solid philosophical principles (another term would be a 'frame of
reference') on which to base their expectations, decisions and actions. In a
vast complex organization like the BBC, leadership will be very challenging
at the best of times due to reasons of size, diversity, political and public
interest, etc. Having a conflicting philosophy dramatically increases these
difficulties for everyone, not least the leader, because the frame of
reference is confusing.
For leadership to work well, people (employees and interested outsiders)
must be able to connect their expectations, aims and activities to a basic
purpose or philosophy of the organization. This foundational philosophy
should provide vital reference points for employees' decisions and actions -
an increasingly significant factor in modern 'empowered' organizations.
Seeing a clear philosophy and purpose is also essential for staff, customers
and outsiders in assessing crucial organizational characteristics such as
integrity, ethics, fairness, quality and performance. A clear philosophy is
vital to the 'psychological contract' - whether stated or unstated (almost
always unstated) - on which people (employees, customers or observers)
tend to judge their relationships and transactions.
The BBC is an example (it's not the only one) of an organization which has a
confusing organizational philosophy. At times it is inherently conflicting. For
example: Who are its owners? Who are its customers? What are its
priorities and obligations? Are its commercial operations a means to an
end, or an end in themselves? Is its main aim to provide commercial
mainstream entertainment, or non-commercial education and information?
Is it a public service, or is it a commercial provider? Will it one day be
privatised in part or whole? If so will this threaten me or benefit me? As an
employee am I sharing in something, or being exploited? As a customer (if
the description is apt) am I also an owner? Or am I funding somebody else's
gravy train? What are the organization's obligations to the state and to
government?
Given such uncertainties, not only is there a very unclear basic philosophy
and purpose, but also, it's very difficult to achieve consistency for
leadership messages to staff and customers. Also, how can staff and
customers align their efforts and expectations with such confusing aims and
principles?
The BBC is just an example. There are many organizations, large and small,
with conflicting and confusing fundamental aims. The lesson is that
philosophy - or underpinning purpose - is the foundation on which
leadership (for strategy, management, motivation, everything) is built. If
the foundation is not solid and viable, and is not totally congruent with
what follows, then everything built onto it is prone to wobble, and at times
can fall over completely.
Get the philosophy right - solid and in harmony with the activities - and the
foundation is strong.
Again, the Psychological Contract provides a helpful perspective for aligning
people and organizational philosopy.
This of course gives rise to the question of what to do if you find yourself
leading a team or organization which lacks clarity of fundamental
philosophy and purpose, and here lies an inescapable difference between
managing and leading: As a leader your responsibility extends beyond
leading the people. True leadership also includes - as far as your situation
allows - the responsibility to protect or refine fundamental purpose and
philosophy.
See also the notes and processes for
incorporating fundamental philosophy within strategic business
development and marketing.

allegiance and leadership

Different leaders have different ideas about leadership. For example, see
below Jack Welch's perspective, which even though quite modern
compared to many leaders, is nevertheless based on quite traditional
leadership principles.
First here is a deeper more philosophical view of effective modern
leadership which addresses the foundations of effective leadership, rather
than the styles and methods built on top, which are explained later.
A British government initiative surfaced in March 2008, which suggested
that young people should swear an oath of allegiance to 'Queen and
Country', seemingly as a means of improving national loyalty, identity, and
allegiance.
While packaged as a suggestion to address 'disaffection' among young
people, the idea was essentially concerned with leadership - or more
precisely a failing leadership.
The idea was rightly and unanimously dismissed by all sensible
commentators as foolhardy nonsense, but it does provide a wonderful
perspective by which to examine and illustrate the actual important
principles of leadership:
1. Always, when leaders say that the people are not following, it's
the leaders who are lost, not the people.
2. Leaders get lost because of isolation, delusion, arrogance, plain
stupidity, etc., but above all because they become obsessed
with imposing their authority, instead of truly leading.
3. Incidentally, leading is helping people achieve a shared vision,
not telling people what to do.
4. It is not possible for a leader to understand and lead people
when the leader's head is high in the clouds or stuck firmly up
his backside.
5. That is to say - loyalty to leadership relies on the leader having
a connection with and understanding of people's needs and
wishes and possibilities. Solutions to leadership challenges do
not lie in the leader's needs and wishes. Leadership solutions
lie in the needs and wishes of the followers.
6. The suggestion that loyalty and a following can be built by
simply asking or forcing people to be loyal is not any basis for
effective leadership.
7. Prior to expecting anyone to follow, a leader first needs to
demonstrate a vision and values worthy of a following.
8. A given type of leadership inevitably attracts the same type of
followers. Put another way, a leadership cannot behave in any
way that it asks its people not to.
9. In other words, for people to embrace and follow modern
compassionate, honest, ethical, peaceful, and fair principles,
they must see these qualities demonstrated by their
leadership.
10. People are a lot cleverer than most leaders think.
11. People have a much keener sense of truth than most leaders
think.
12. People quickly lose faith in a leader who behaves as if points
10 and 11 do not exist.
13. People generally have the answers which elude the leaders -
they just have better things to do than help the leader to lead -
like getting on with their own lives.
14. A leadership which screws up in a big way should come clean
and admit their errors. People will generally forgive mistakes
but they do not tolerate being treated like idiots by leaders.
 15. And on the question of mistakes, a mistake is an opportunity
to be better, and to show remorse and a lesson learned. This is
how civilisation progresses.
16. A leader should be brave enough to talk when lesser people
want to fight. Anyone can resort to threats and aggression.
Being aggressive is not leading. It might have been a couple of
thousand years ago, but it's not now. The nature of humankind
and civilisation is to become more civilised. Leaders should
enable not obstruct this process.

traditional leadership tips - jack welch style..

Jack Welch, respected business leader and writer is quoted as proposing
these fundamental leadership principles (notably these principles are
expanded in his 2001 book 'Jack: Straight From The Gut'):
1. There is only one way - the straight way. It sets the tone of the
organisation.
2. Be open to the best of what everyone, everywhere, has to offer;
transfer learning across your organisation.
3. Get the right people in the right jobs - it is more important than
developing a strategy.
4. An informal atmosphere is a competitive advantage.
5. Make sure everybody counts and everybody knows they count.
6. Legitimate self-confidence is a winner - the true test of self-
confidence is the courage to be open.
7. Business has to be fun - celebrations energise and organisation.
8. Never underestimate the other guy.
9. Understand where real value is added and put your best people
there.
10.Know when to meddle and when to let go - this is pure instinct.
 As a leader, your main priority is to get the job done, whatever the job is.
Leaders make things happen by:
• knowing your objectives and having a plan how to achieve them
• building a team committed to achieving the objectives
• helping each team member to give their best efforts

As a leader you must know yourself. Know your own strengths and
weaknesses, so that you can build the best team around you.

However - always remember the philosophical platform - this ethical

platform is not a technique or a process - it's the foundation on which all
the techniques and methodologies are based.
Plan carefully, with your people where appropriate, how you will achieve
your aims. You may have to redefine or develop your own new aims and
priorities. Leadership can be daunting for many people simply because no-
one else is issuing the aims - leadership often means you have to create
your own from a blank sheet of paper. Set and agree clear standards. Keep
the right balance between 'doing' yourself and managing others 'to do'.
Build teams. Ensure you look after people and that communications and
relationships are good. Select good people and help them to develop.
Develop people via training and experience, particularly by agreeing
objectives and responsibilities that will interest and stretch them, and
always support people while they strive to improve and take on extra tasks.
Follow the rules about delegation closely - this process is crucial. Ensure
that your managers are applying the same principles. Good leadership
principles must cascade down through the whole organisation. This means
that if you are leading a large organisation you must check that the
processes for managing, communicating and developing people are in place
and working properly.
Communication is critical. Listen, consult, involve, explain why as well as
what needs to be done.
Some leaders lead by example and are very 'hands on'; others are more
distanced and let their people do it. Whatever - your example is paramount
- the way you work and conduct yourself will be the most you can possibly
expect from your people. If you set low standards you are to blame for low
standards in your people.
"... Praise loudly, blame softly." (Catherine the Great). Follow this maxim.
If you seek one singlemost important behaviour that will rapidly earn you
respect and trust among your people, this is it: Always give your people the
credit for your achievements and successes. Never take the credit yourself -
even if it's all down to you, which would be unlikely anyway. You must
however take the blame and accept responsibility for any failings or
mistakes that your people make. Never never never publicly blame another
person for a failing. Their failing is your responsibility - true leadership
offers is no hiding place for a true leader.
Take time to listen to and really understand people. Walk the job. Ask and
learn about what people do and think, and how they think improvements
can be made.
Accentuate the positive. Express things in terms of what should be done,
not what should not be done. If you accentuate the negative, people are
more likely to veer towards it. Like the mother who left her five-year-old for
a minute unsupervised in the kitchen, saying as she left the room, "...don't
you go putting those beans up your nose..."
Have faith in people to do great things - given space and air and time,
everyone can achieve more than they hope for. Provide people with
relevant interesting opportunities, with proper measures and rewards and
they will more than repay your faith.
Take difficult decisions bravely, and be truthful and sensitive when you
implement them.
Constantly seek to learn from the people around you - they will teach you
more about yourself than anything else. They will also tell you 90% of what
you need to know to achieve your business goals.
Embrace change, but not for change's sake. Begin to plan your own
succession as soon as you take up your new post, and in this regard, ensure
that the only promises you ever make are those that you can guarantee to
deliver.
Here are some processes and tips for training and developing leadership.

leadership behaviours and development of

leadership style and skills
Leadership skills are based on leadership behaviour. Skills alone do not
make leaders - style and behaviour do. If you are interested in leadership
training and development - start with leadership behaviour.
The growing awareness and demand for idealist principles in leadership are
increasing the emphasis (in terms of leadership characteristics) on business
ethics, corporate responsibility, emotional maturity, personal integrity, and
what is popularly now known as the 'triple bottom line' (abbreviated to TBL
or 3BL, representing 'profit, people, planet').
For many people (staff, customers, suppliers, investors, commentators,
visionaries, etc) these are becoming the most significant areas of
attitude/behaviour/appreciation required in modern business and
organisational leaders.
3BL (triple bottom line - profit, people, planet) also provides an excellent
multi-dimensional framework for explaining, developing and assessing
leadership potential and capability, and also links strongly with psychology
aspects if for instance psychometrics (personality testing) features in
leadership selection and development methods: each of us is more
naturally inclined to one or the other (profit, people, planet) by virtue of
our personality, which can be referenced to Jung, Myers Briggs, etc.
Much debate persists as to the validity of 'triple bottom line accounting',
since standards and measures are some way from being clearly defined and
agreed, but this does not reduce the relevance of the concept, nor the
growing public awareness of it, which effectively and continuously re-
shapes markets and therefore corporate behaviour. Accordingly leaders
need to understand and respond to such huge attitudinal trends, whether
they can be reliably accounted for or not at the moment.
Adaptability and vision - as might be demonstrated via project development
scenarios or tasks - especially involving modern communications and
knowledge technologies - are also critical for certain leadership roles, and
provide unlimited scope for leadership development processes, methods
and activities.
Cultural diversity is another topical and very relevant area requiring
leadership involvement, if not mastery. Large organisations particularly
must recognise that the marketplace, in terms of staff, customers and
suppliers, is truly global now, and leaders must be able to function and
appreciate and adapt to all aspects of cultural diversification. A leaders who
fails to relate culturally well and widely and openly inevitably condemns the
entire organisation to adopt the same narrow focus and bias exhibited by
the leader.
Bear in mind that different leadership jobs (and chairman) require different
types of leaders - Churchill was fine for war but not good for peacetime re-
building. There's a big difference between short-term return on investment
versus long-term change. Each warrants a different type of leadership style,
and actually very few leaders are able to adapt from one to the other.
(Again see the personality stylessection: short-term results and profit
require strong Jungian 'thinking' orientation, or frontal left brain
dominance; whereas long-term vision and change require 'intuition'
orientation, or frontal right brain dominance).
 If it's not clear already, leadership is without doubt mostly about behaviour,
especially towards others. People who strive for these things generally
come to be regarded and respected as a leader by their people:
• Integrity - the most important requirement; without it everything
else is for nothing.
• Having an effective appreciation and approach towards corporate
responsibility, (Triple Bottom Line, Fair Trade, etc), so that the need
to make profit is balanced with wider social and environmental
responsibilities.
• Being very grown-up - never getting emotionally negative with
people - no shouting or ranting, even if you feel very upset or angry.
• Leading by example - always be seen to be working harder and more
determinedly than anyone else.
• Helping alongside your people when they need it.
• Fairness - treating everyone equally and on merit.
• Being firm and clear in dealing with bad or unethical behaviour.
• Listening to and really understanding people, and show them that
you understand (this doesn't mean you have to agree with everyone
- understanding is different to agreeing).
• Always taking the responsibility and blame for your people's
mistakes.
• Always giving your people the credit for your successes.
• Never self-promoting.
• Backing-up and supporting your people.
• Being decisive - even if the decision is to delegate or do nothing if
appropriate - but be seen to be making fair and balanced decisions.
• Asking for people's views, but remain neutral and objective.
• Being honest but sensitive in the way that you give bad news or
criticism.
• Always doing what you say you will do - keeping your promises.
• Working hard to become expert at what you do technically, and at
understanding your people's technical abilities and challenges.
• Encouraging your people to grow, to learn and to take on as much as
they want to, at a pace they can handle.
• Always accentuating the positive (say 'do it like this', not 'don't do it
like that').
• Smiling and encouraging others to be happy and enjoy themselves.
• Relaxing - breaking down the barriers and the leadership awe - and
giving your people and yourself time to get to know and respect each
other.
• Taking notes and keeping good records.
• Planning and prioritising.
• Managing your time well and helping others to do so too.
• Involving your people in your thinking and especially in managing
change.
• Reading good books, and taking advice from good people, to help
develop your own understanding of yourself, and particularly of
other people's weaknesses (some of the best books for leadership
are not about business at all - they are about people who triumph
over adversity).
• Achieve the company tasks and objectives, while maintaining your
integrity, the trust of your people, are a balancing the corporate aims
with the needs of the world beyond.

great leadership quotes and inspirational quotes

Some of these quotes are available as free motivational posters.
"People ask the difference between a leader and a boss.... The leader works
in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads and the boss drives."
(Theodore Roosevelt)
"The marksman hitteth the target partly by pulling, partly by letting go. The
boatsman reacheth the landing partly by pulling, partly by letting go."
(Egyptian proverb)
"No man is fit to command another that cannot command himself."
(William Penn)
"It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the
credit." (President Harry S Truman)
"I not only use all the brains I have, but all I can borrow." (Woodrow
Wilson)
"What should it profit a man if he would gain the whole world yet lose his
soul." (The Holy Bible, Mark 8:36)
"A dream is just a dream. A goal is a dream with a plan and a deadline."
(Harvey Mackay)
"Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple, learn how to look after them, and
pretty soon you have a dozen." (John Steinbeck)
"I keep six honest serving-men, They taught me all I knew;
Their names are What and Why and When, And How and
Where and Who." (Rudyard Kipling, from 'Just So Stories', 1902.)
"A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than the
giant himself." (Didacus Stella, circa AD60 - and, as a matter of interest,
abridged on the edge of an English £2 coin)
"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without
integrity is dangerous and dreadful." (Samuel Johnson 1709-84)
"The most important thing in life is not to capitalise on your successes - any
fool can do that. The really important thing is to profit from your mistakes."
(William Bolitho, from 'Twelve against the Gods')
"Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank
whatever gods may be, For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of
circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud: Under the bludgeonings of
chance my head is bloody but unbowed . . . . . It matters not how strait the
gait, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I
am the captain of my soul." (WE Henley, 1849-1903, from 'Invictus')
"Everybody can get angry - that's easy. But getting angry at the right
person, with the right intensity, at the right time, for the right reason and in
the right way - that's hard." (Aristotle)
"Management means helping people to get the best out of themselves, not
organising things." (Lauren Appley)
"It's not the critic who counts, not the one who points out how the strong
man stumbled or how the doer of deeds might have done them better. The
credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is
marred with the sweat and dust and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs
and comes up short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the
great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause and who, at best
knows the triumph of high achievement and who at worst, if he fails, at
least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those
cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." (Theodore
Roosevelt.)
"Behind an able man there are always other able men." (Chinese Proverb.)
"I praise loudly. I blame softly." (Catherine the Great, 17291796.)
"Experto Credite." ("Trust one who has proved it." Virgil, 2,000 years ago.)

More leadership and inspirational quotes

See also the free motivational posters for leadership quotes.
leadership development exercises and games
The are various games and exercises on the free team building games
section that work well for demonstrating, assessing and developing
leadership. See particularly the 'leading or managing' exercise, which is a
flexible activity for illustrating the differences between managing and
leading. As regards leadership exercises for experiential development of
leadership abilities, focus on the leadership challenge of leading and
managing a team - the task itself is secondary - so virtually any team game
is suitable provided you give each leader a team of four or more people to
lead. The more people, the bigger the test of leadership. You do not need a
complicated exercise to create a leadership challenge. The leadership
challenge is produced by having to organise, plan and motivate a team of
people. In fact, if the task is too complex it will obscure the team leadership
issues, by distracting from or hampering leadership skills and qualities. For
leadership development choose exercises that includes an enjoyable and
achievable challenge - even very basic games like newspaper towers will be
a good test of leadership if you create teams of four or more for the leader
to lead. Use games that you feel will produce variety, fun and a mixture of
activities. The round tables exercise is particularly suitable to test and
develop leadership skills. Choose a mixture of exercises which encourage
the leaders think about using a different approach, and different people's
strengths, for each challenge.

leadership articles and leadership development

justification
Many articles appear in the press and trade journals about leadership; look
out for them, they can teach you a lot.
Newspaper articles - particularly those that appear in the serious press -
about leadership and management, organizational and business culture,
are an excellent source of ideas, examples and references for developing
leadership.
A journalist could have spent a week researching the subject, talking to
leading business leaders, academics and writers, and preparing useful
statistics. This is valuable material. Learn from it, use it and keep it, because
finding specific detail like this is usually quite difficult.
Serious relevant articles in the newspapers, trade press, or online
equivalent, cost little or nothing, and yet they can be invaluable in
developing your own ideas about leadership, and in providing compelling
justification to organizations and managers for the need to adopt new ideas
and different approach to leadership development.
Particularly powerful are articles which describe corporate failings, many
with huge liabilities, arising from poor leadership behaviour and decisions,
and which appear in the news virtually every week. Recent history is also
littered with all sorts of corporate disasters and scandals, and while these
high-profile examples are of a grander scale than usually applies in typical
organisations, the same principles apply - an organisation is only as good as
its leadership - at all levels.
Business disasters and failures - be their nature environmental, financial,
safety, commercial or people-related are invariably traceable back to a
failure in leadership, and so any boardroom that says "That sort of thing
wouldn't happen to us.." or "Our managers all know how to lead without
being taught.." is probably riding for a fall.
Finding specific examples of cost and return on investment relating to
leadership development is not easy (measuring leadership 'cause and
effect' is not as simple as more tangible business elements), which is why
it's useful to keep any such articles when you happen to see them.
Certain leadership development organisations are sometimes able to
provide ROI justification and/or case studies, which is another possible
source of evidence for reports and justification studies.
And given the growing significance of corporate ethics and responsibility,
we can expect to see increasing ROI data relating to 'Triple Bottom Line'
and 'Corporate Responsibility', which being strongly linked to leadership
therefore will provide a further source of evidence and justification for
leadership development.

negotiation skills training

negotiation techniques for sales, contracts, debts,
buying, selling and training
These negotiation techniques are primarily for sales, but apply also to other
negotiations, such as debt negotiation, contracts negotiating, buying
negotiations, salary and employment contracts negotiations, and to an
extent all other negotiating situations. Negotiation is vital for an
organization's overall effectiveness. Organizational effectiveness is a
product of activities within a system - internal and external. Negotiation is
critical to establishing the internal system (structure, people, functions,
plans, measures, etc), and the organization's relationship to the external
system (markets, suppliers, technology, etc). Negotiation is also critical to
optimising the performance of activities internally and externally
(principally through communication, by people).
Good sales negotiation - the rules of which feature below - can easily add
10% to sales revenues, which arguably goes straight to the bottom line as
incremental profit. Good purchasing negotiation can easily save 10% of the
cost of bought in products and services, which again arguably goes straight
to the bottom line as extra profit. Good negotiation by managers in dealing
with staff can easily reduce staff turnover by 5-10%, which reduces
recruitment and training costs by at least the same %, as well as improving
quality, consistency and competitive advantage, which for many companies
is the difference between ultimate success and failure. Good negotiation by
executives with regulatory and planning authorities enables opening new
markets, developing new technologies, and the choice of where the
business operates and is based, all of which individually can make the
difference between a business succeeding or failing.
Successful debt negotiation with creditors enables a business to continue
trading. Failure to negotiate debts often leads to business closure. See the
notes on debt negotiation for business creditors and personal debts such as
credit cards, in the debt negotiation article below.
Salary negotiation affects individuals and organizations, and good
negotiation skills on both sides produce positive outcomes for all. See also
the tips on asking for a salary rise, and dealing with salary increase requests
on the pay rise page.
These negotiation techniques deal mainly with sales negotiation and are
written from the point of view of the 'seller'. If you are 'buying', or want to
know how buyers tend to behave look at the note alongside the headings.
Sales negotiation is an increasingly important part of the sales process.
Negotiation starts when buyer and seller are conditionally committed to
the sale (not sooner if you are the sales person; the sooner the better if you
are the buyer). Negotiation generally results in a price compromise
between seller and buyer - ie., the seller reduces and the buyer increases
from their starting positions. Clever buyers will attempt to negotiate before
giving any kind of buying commitment. Clever sales people will resist this.
Here are the rules of sales negotiating, which imply also the rules for
successful negotiating when buying.
modern collaborative approaches to negotiating
In modern times, the aim of negotiation (and therefore in training
negotiating and negotiation role-plays) should focus on creative
collaboration, rather than traditional confrontation, or a winner-takes-all
result. The modern and ideal aim of negotiations - which should be
reinforced in training situations - is for those involved in the negotiation
process to seek and develop new ways of arriving at better collaborative
outcomes, by thinking creatively and working in cooperation with the other
side. Negotiating should develop a 'partnership' approach - not an
adversarial one. As such, negotiating teams and staff responsible for
negotiating can be encouraged to take a creative and cooperative approach
to finding better solutions than might first appear possible or have
historically been achieved in practice.
Every negotiation, when viewed creatively, entrepreneurially and
collaboratively, provides an excellent opportunity to develop and improve
synergies between and benefiting both sides, within the negotiated
outcome.
You might find it useful to refer to Sharon Drew Morgen's concepts
regarding collaborative facilitation, which although developed primarily for
front-end of the selling process, are also extremely useful for cooperative
negotiating. Each side is uniquely positioned to see how the other side can
more effectively contribute to the combined solution - it can be a strange
concept to appreciate initially, but is extremely powerful in any situation
where two people or sides seek to reach agreement to work together,
which is essentially what negotiation is all about.
That said, it is still important to understand and to master the traditional
techniques and principles of negotiation, if only to provide a defence and
strategy where the other side is firmly committed to an old-style
confrontational approach, and these techniques are explained below:
negotiation tips, techniques and principles
First and most importantly, positioning is everything in negotiation. The
way that the situation is initially approached, and when, are more
influential on outcomes than all of the other negotiating tactics and
techniques combined.
Rules 1 and 2 are absolutely critical even before you start a negotiation.

1. have an alternative - negotiate with freedom of

choice
If selling be unique, and have lots of other potential customers, and so be
able to walk away; if buying definitely be able to walk away.
Whether you are buying or selling, if you can't walk away because you need
the deal so badly or because the other side is the only game in town, then
you are at a serious disadvantage. If the other side believes you are the
only game in town then you have the advantage. No other factor is so
important: the more you need to secure the deal, the weaker your position,
so avoid negotiating when you need the business badly (for the same
reason, never find a new house and fall in love with it before you sell your
own). The same will apply to your customer, which is why buyers almost
always give you the impression that they can go somewhere else - even if
they can't or don't want to.
This also means that when selling you must create an impression that there
is no alternative comparable supplier. You have to create the impression
that your product or service is unique, and that the other person has
nowhere else to go. The way you sell yourself and your product must
convince the other person that he has nowhere else to go, and that he
cannot afford to walk away.
This positioning of uniqueness is the most important tactic, and it comes
into play before you even start to negotiate.
If your product offer is not unique remember that you are part of it. You
can still create a unique position for yourself by the way that you conduct
yourself, build trust, rapport, and empathy with the other person.
Establishing a position (or impression) of uniqueness is the singlemost
effective technique when you are selling, whereas denying uniqueness is
the most powerful tactic of the buyer.

2. negotiate when the sale is conditionally agreed,

not before (if buying the opposite applies)
Negotiate when the sale is conditionally agreed, and no sooner (buyers
tend to try to negotiate before giving you any commitment - don't let
them)
Or, put another way, don't get drawn into negotiating until you've got
agreement in principle to do business.
If you start to negotiate before receiving this commitment you'll concede
ground and the customer will attain a better starting point. This would put
pressure on you to find more concessions later, and ensure a better
finishing point for the customer.
If you are not sure that the customer is conditionally committed to the sale,
then ask (a conditional closing question), eg "If we can agree the details will
you go ahead?"
If you're buying, then the opposite applies: start to negotiate for
concessions before agreeing you want to buy (try this when you next buy
something - you'll be amazed at what you can secure without giving any
commitment in return).

3. aim high
Aim for the best outcome (buyers aim low, and they tend not to go first
either)
(If you're buying, aim very - even ridiculously - low - but do it politely.)
Whatever you're doing, your first stake in the sand sets the limit on your
best possible outcome. There's no moving it closer to where you want to
go; it'll only move the other way. Your opening position also fixes the other
person's minimum expectation, and the closer your start point is to the
eventual finishing point the more difficult it is to give the other person
concessions along the way and ultimately arrive at a win-win outcome.
Many negotiations are little more than a split-the-difference exercise. They
shouldn't be, but that's often the underlying psychology and expectation.
So it's logical that to achieve the best possible finishing position you should
start as ambitiously as you can (without losing credibility of course).
If you have the option to hear the other person's offer first, then do so. It's
a fact that whoever makes the opening offer is at a disadvantage. If you go
first, the other person can choose to disregard it and ask for a better offer.
And the other person avoids the risk of making an offer themselves that is
more beneficial than you would have been prepared to accept. It's amazing
how often a buyer is prepared to pay more than an asking price, but avoids
having to do so because they keep quiet and let the seller go first.
Vice-versa, the seller can often achieve a higher selling price than he
anticipates if he hears what the buyer is prepared to offer first.
4. let the other side go first
Try to avoid 'going first' on price if you can. (Buyers will often be trying the
same tactic.)
If you know the other person's starting point before you have to give your
own, then this is clearly an advantage to you. For example, if selling, ask the
other side if they have an 'outline budget'.
Sometimes you will be pleasantly surprised at what the other side expects
to pay (or sell at), which obviously enables you to adjust your aim. Letting
the other side go first is a simple and effective tactic that is often
overlooked.
Letting the other side go first on price or cost also enables you to use
another tactic, whereby you refuse to even accept the invitation to start
negotiating, which you should do if the price or cost point is completely
unacceptable or a 'silly offer'. This then forces the other side to 'go again' or
at least re-think their expectations or stance, which can amount to a huge
movement in your favour, before you have even started.

5. list all of the other side's requirements before

negotiating
Get the other person's full 'shopping list' before you start to negotiate
(buyers usually do the opposite - they like to pick concessions up one by
one - indefinitely)
Establish in your own mind what the other person needs, including
personal and emotional aspects. Everything that is part of or related to a
deal has a value. Everything has a cost to you or your organization, even if
it's not on the price list. Negotiation isn't just about price and discount. It's
about everything that forms the deal. It's about specification, colour, size,
lead-time, consumables, contract length, penalty payments, get-out
clauses, delivery dates, stock-holding, reorder lead-times, after-sales
support product, product training, technical back-up, breakdown service,
call-out costs, parts costs, parts availability, payment type, payment date,
payment terms. All these and more are called variables, and each one
affects the cost. Some affect the cost more than others, and buyers and
sellers nearly always place a different value on each. It's critical therefore to
know exactly what your buyer wants before you start to negotiate. Get the
full list of issues written down and commit him to it. This is vital if you are
to keep a track on the values of the deal and the eventual outcome. You
also avoid your position being eroded bit by bit by the late introduction of
concessions required.
Your buyer's personal and political requirements are important too, and the
bigger the deal the more significant these factors are. You need to
understand what they are, particularly the political and procedural needs
within the other person's organization or situation that affect the deal.
These issues will concern the way that the organizations relate to each
other; who talks to whom; how justifications and reports are prepared;
arrangements for future reviews; provision of information; product
development collaboration; issues involving intellectual property, future
mutual business opportunities, etc.
Remember that when you sell to someone in an organization or group, your
buyer is staking his personal reputation within his situation on you, and will
not do so lightly, so you need to understand all of his needs and concerns.
Only then you can begin to understand what the implications, costs and
perceived values are.

6. trade concessions - don't give them away

Never give away a concession without getting something in return (buyers
tend to resist giving any concessions at all)
This is a matter of discipline and control. It's simple. Never give anything
away without getting something in return. If you do you are not negotiating
you are simply conceding.
A commitment from the other person can be a suitable concession to get in
return for something of relatively low value. The simplest and most elegant
concession to secure is agreement to proceed with the deal now - use it to
close.

7. keep the whole picture in your mind

Keep the whole package in mind all of the time (buyers tend to divide and
erode your position, bit by bit)
The buyer's tactic will be to separate out single issues, or introduce new
ones later. If you allow this to happen your position will be eroded.
Think about the knock-on effects to the whole situation every time a
concession is requested. The overall value and profitability of a deal or
contract depends on it's component parts. When you change one element,
you change the whole, so keep the whole situation in mind - keep assessing
effects on the total arrangement, understand the effects, and explain how
each change or demand affects the whole thing.

8. prepare and keeping looking for variables

(tradable concessions for both sides)
Keep searching for variables, concessions, 'bargaining chips', incentives.
(Buyers will look for your concessions but will tend not to offer their own)

A variable or tradable is any factor that can be altered and which has a real
or perceived value. You are not a mind-reader and the other person may
not be totally open, or even fully aware of all the possible variables that are
of interest, so keep looking for them.
Prepare and estimate values of real and perceived variables before the
negotiation, and keep looking for new ones during the negotiation.
If the other side is cooperative involve them in looking for variables too -
for both sides.
The more variables you find the less you will have to give on price, and the
more added-value you can build into the deal. The buyer will not offer his
own concessions normally, so you can look for his possible concessions as
well as your own (ie variables within the buyer's situation as well as your
own).

9. keep accurate notes

Keep accurate notes, and show that you are doing it (the buyer stands to
benefit from any lack of record, and some buyers conveniently forget
things that are not in their favour, even concessions you've won from
them)
Controlling the negotiation is vital. the other person may forget,
misunderstand, or attempt to distort interpretation of what was discussed
and agreed. Keeping notes shows that you are in control, professional, can't
be out-flanked, and enables you to summarise and assess continually.

10. summarise and clarify the negotiation as you go

Summarise and confirm understanding continually (see above - it's your
loss, not the buyer's, if you allow misunderstandings to develop)
 This avoids misunderstandings developing, accidentally or otherwise.
Misunderstandings can be catastrophic, not so much because of the way
they affect the financial structure of the unfolding deal, but because they
undermine the rapport and the trust, which is critical to being able to do
business in the first place.
Getting positive agreement throughout the process also is psychologically
important; it strengthens trust and commitment, and helps to ease the
other person into an agreeable frame of mind.
After the negotiation obviously it is essential to give the other person clear
written confirmation of the deal.

negotiation - more information

These days we are much more determined to press for concessions and the
best possible price. Buyers, particularly consumers, are more confident and
financially aware.
Where competitive pressures exist, prices are driven downwards. Where
one supplier offers a certain concession or discount, customers expect all
others to follow suit.
Suppliers' prices are more visible, so customers know what's on offer
elsewhere, and they use this knowledge to secure the best possible deal.
In the face of these increasing pressures we need to have:
• very good negotiating skills
• commercial understanding (to appreciate the value and implications
of each element within a deal, and for giving justification and
explanation, etc.)
• very good communication skills - empathy - (so as to able to
communicate a commercial position whilst maintaining a good
relationship)
• a consistent corporate policy and authorisation structure covering
discounting and giving concessions

Organizations that have several points or people through which

negotiations can take place must perform well in these areas. A chain is
only as strong as its weakest link.
Organizations with inconsistent or vague negotiation practices are
vulnerable. Customers are able to find and exploit weaknesses and
precedents to drive prices down, force concessions and discount levels up,
resulting in erosion of margins for the company. This happens because the
company loses control over its starting positions (first stance), and
unwittingly provides precedents for generous finishing positions.
Negotiating a deal, whether you are buying or selling, is a strange business.
In a selling role for a company, good negotiation requires a careful
combination of empathy for the other person's situation and feelings, with
our own responsibilities to secure the best possible commercial outcome
for the company.
On occasions there can be a personal dilemma, particularly if our selling
style is one that uses a lot of relationship-building and trust. We can feel
torn between the interests of the customer - with whom it is of course
essential to build an understanding - and the needs of the company.
So it is essential to remember our fundamental responsibility as a sales
person, which helps to avoid being drawn into the dilemma territory;
remember:

You work for your company, not for the customer.

By the same token, the customer is out to secure the best possible deal for
themselves and their organization, not for your company. (Have you ever
known a customer refuse a discount or concession on the basis that it isn't
in the best interest of the supplier? Of course not.)
Another factor is our responsibility to existing customers. We undermine
our relationships with existing customers if we offer preferential terms to
new customers, just to get the deal.
Giving too much away, or referring a negotiation to a higher authority has a
demoralising, undermining effect, and customers don't respect it - they
take advantage of it. The urge to sustain a friendly, highly amenable
relationship with the customer above all else is a trap that we must be alert
to, it's human nature, but lots of customers will use it to their advantage. It
is entirely possible to maintain a friendly helpful relationship while at the
same time being very firm in negotiating the business.
Deep down we all respect someone who takes a firm approach to business,
as long as it is delivered in an understanding and empathic way, with
proper explanation and justification for the stance taken.
Good negotiating builds our own confidence and natural authority, not to
mention the fun we can have outside work, when we are the buyer.
It's extremely important to make an assessment of where the other person
is coming from; what the real and perceived issues are, and to separate the
psychological factors from the practical ones.
A person's need to feel that they've succeeded in squeezing out a good deal
is far different from the practical issue of simply whether they have enough
money to afford the transaction, or whether the timings and availability can
possibly fit together.
The purpose of negotiation is to reach a fair and reasonable compromise,
not to try to do the impossible.
If a reasonable and commercially acceptable compromise is within reach
we must use all our skills to achieve it through negotiation.
If the other person's demands are not reasonable, commercially
acceptable, or if any aspects of each side's position do not fit, negotiation is
not the answer.
 This is why at times the most important word to use in any negotiation is
'NO'.

when not to negotiate (ways of saying 'no')

People say a lots of different things when they really know the answer is
"No." "I'll see what I can do."
"I'll let you know.""
"Maybe."
"I'll ask."
"I'll find out."
"You could call head office and ask; they have more authority than me."
If the demand or request is not possible, too commercially demanding, or
not reasonable for any reason we must kill it there and then, or it will come
back to haunt you. Do not negotiate if there are unrealistic demands being
made at any stage. This is for three reasons.
• It prevents you having to concede substantial ground unnecessarily.
• It avoids raising false hopes, which would make it difficult for us later to
satisfy later.
• It stamps your personal authority and professionalism on the situation.

A clear and honest "No, I'm afraid not," with suitable explanation and
empathy for the other person's situation is all it takes.
notes on debt negotiation
Whether debts are business or personal, these debt negotiation skills
should help you to improve your situation. Negotiation of debts for
business, or personal debts such as credit cards, or debts with other
creditors, start with one simple rule that is often overlooked: debt
negotiation skill 1:
negotiate!
Amazingly many people who find themselves confronted by personal or
business debts and pressure from creditors fail to think of negotiation as an
option. Understandably fearful or embarrassed, people and businesses with
debt problems usually fail to confront the situation until it's too late. Fear
not - most people and businesses get into serious debt at some stage in
their lives. Many of the most successful business owners and tycoons have
been bankrupt or presided over insolvent businesses at some time - getting
onto debt is part of experience and risk-taking in business, and it's part of
life in the process of growing up. You are not alone. The important thing is
what you do about it. When you know you have a problem, start
negotiating. Debtors often think there's no point, that negotiation isn't an
option, but it is, and here's why:
Creditors most fear losing their money and having to write off the debt
altogether. That's why creditors generally are very happy to begin the
negotiation process when debts have become a problem for the debtor. To
a creditor, negotiating a debt means that they have a chance of recovering
some or all of the debt. If a creditor fails to begin a debt negotiation with
the debtor, the creditor faces costs of debt recovery (solicitor's letters and
debt collection agency fees, etc), and a real risk that the debtor will for
whatever reason be unable to pay any of the debt (insolvency, bankruptcy,
deliberate avoidance, etc), which leaves the creditor no option other than
 to write off the debt, losing everything, and having to pay debt recovery
costs. Where there is negotiation there is hope of partial or complete debt
recovery, and the avoidance of debt collection costs, which is why creditors
generally welcome the offer to negotiate from a debtor in difficulty.

debt negotiation skill 2:

Seek advice and help. Whether for a personal or business debt, don't try to
do it all by yourself. Getting into debt can be a lonely and threatening
experience, so seek a friendly shoulder to cry on, someone to share your
thoughts with, and ideally someone who has a bit of experience and
wisdom, who can help you see a way forward. Try to avoid paying for this
sort of help - avoid the unknown, especially the pariahs out there who will
take advantage of your vulnerability given half a chance. If you have
personal debts such as credit cards contact an advisory service - there are
plenty who can help depending where you are in the world. If your business
has debts, contact your trade association, or local business support centre,
again there are various organizations depending on where you are. At the
very least call on a friend to help find some support and advice. Linked to
the points above and below, the creditor is often a really good source of help
and advice - remember, the creditor wants you to succeed, not fail. debt
negotiation skill 3:
The third skill is to ask the creditor for help. Options usually appear straight
away when a creditor realises there is a debt problem, because the creditor
wants to help keep the debtor solvent. Options typically extended by
creditors include:
• renegotiated credit and supply terms, enabling the business debtor to
continue to trade.
• extension of the period by which the debt has to be settled.
• price, product and supply arrangement review, to determine whether
future economies can be found for the debtor, to avoid increasing the
debt any more than absolutely unavoidable.
• debtor stock-holding review, to assess possibility of returning stock to
the creditor, and reducing the debt.
• Creative creditors may come up with more ideas - the important thing is
to talk and work together to resolve the problem constructively. debt
negotiation skill 4:
The third debt negotiation skill is about behaviour and style. Work with the
creditor. Be open and positive, and build trust with the creditor. If the
creditor trusts you and believes that you wish to resolve the debt honestly
and as fully as you can, then the creditor will be positive and flexible in
return. They want to help you work your way through the difficulties,
because if you fail, the likelihood is that the debt will have to be written off
altogether. The people negotiating for the creditors spend their lives dealing
with debtors who are dishonest, elusive, and distrustful. When a debtor
demonstrates willingness to co-operate and negotiate fairly the creditor will
respond in kind. Debts are a threat to the creditor's business too, which is
why debt recovery people can be firm and aggressive. You will reduce the
creditor's need to be aggressive if you co-operate and build trust. debt
negotiation skill 5:
Make changes. Debts build up because something has gone wrong, so
understand what it is and take steps to prevent it happening again or
continuing. Debts don't generally happen by accident, they happen because
plans are wrong, controls are too relaxed or non-existent, or because
spending isn't properly monitored and measured. Identify what's wrong
and put it right. Tell the creditor what you are doing so they they
understand you have taken steps to ensure the problem won't get worse or
re-occur. debt negotiation skill 6:
Keep smiling. Not easy, but try to keep things in perspective. Aim to honour
your commitments and obligations as best you can, but keep things in
proportion. Do your best for the creditor(s), but be fair to yourself. If you
are still reading this you'll not be the sort of person who deliberately and
maliciously gets into debt and then seeks to avoid responsibility. So try to
keep a calm detachment, and don't eat and sleep your debt difficulties. Do
what you can to resolve your debt problems, but make sure you spend time
re-fuelling your spirit and strength. Business is a bit like a game, it's a
means to an end. It's not life and death. Money is a means to an end too.
It's not life and death.

A negotiation story (light relief for negotiating

training sessions or debt negotiation meetings)
A sales-woman is driving home in the rain when she sees a little old lady
walking by the roadside, heavily laden with shopping. Being a kindly soul,
the sales-woman stops the car and invites the old lady to climb in. During
their small talk, the old lady glances surreptitiously at a brown paper bag on
the front seat between them. "If you are wondering what's in the bag,"
offers the sales-woman, "It's a bottle of wine. I got it for my husband." The
little old lady is silent for a while, nods several times, and says ........ "Good
trade."
(ack C Byrd)
cherie carter scott
cherie carter-scott's rules of life
Cherie Carter-Scott PhD is a very modern guru. Her theories explain our
attitudes and behaviour with a special clarity, and provide a practical
guide to behaviour and self development. Dr. Carter-Scott achieved her
PhD in human and organisational development and for the nearly 30 years
has been an international lecturer, consultant and author. She founded
the MMS (Motivation Management Service) Institute and has been called
a guardian angel to CEO's. Carter-Scott's book 'If Life Is A Game, These Are
The Rules' is essential reading if you are interested in behaviour,
relationships, communications, and human personality. Cherie Carter-
Scott's rules for life - also known as 'The Ten
Rules For Being Human' and referenced in her book with Jack Canfield:
'Chicken Soup For The Soul' - are a map for understanding and pursuing
personal development, and for helping others to understand and develop
too. 'If Life Is A Game, These Are The Rules' is also commonly referenced
book in the life-coaching industry.
Here is a brief summary and explanation of Cherie CarterScott's 'rules of
life'.

cherie carter-scott's rules of life

(Carter Scott references this quotation:) "Life is a succession of lessons which must
be lived to be understood." (Helen Keller)

Rule One - You will receive a body. Whether you love it or hate it, it's
yours for life, so accept it. What counts is what's inside.

Rule Two - You will be presented with lessons. Life is a constant learning
experience, which every day provides opportunities for you to learn more.
These lessons specific to you, and learning them 'is the key to discovering
and fulfilling the meaning and relevance of your own life'.
Rule Three - There are no mistakes, only lessons. Your development
towards wisdom is a process of experimentation, trial and error, so it's
inevitable things will not always go to plan or turn out how you'd want.
Compassion is the remedy for harsh judgement - of ourselves and others.
Forgiveness is not only divine - it's also 'the act of erasing an emotional
debt'. Behaving ethically, with integrity, and with humour - especially the
ability to laugh at yourself and your own mishaps - are central to the
perspective that 'mistakes' are simply lessons we must learn.

Rule Four - The lesson is repeated until learned. Lessons repeat until
learned. What manifest as problems and challenges, irritations and
frustrations are more lessons - they will repeat until you see them as such
and learn from them. Your own awareness and your ability to change are
requisites of executing this rule. Also fundamental is the acceptance that
you are not a victim of fate or circumstance - 'causality' must be
acknowledged; that is to say: things happen to you because of how you are
and what you do. To blame anyone or anything else for your misfortunes is
an escape and a denial; you yourself are responsible for you, and what
happens to you. Patience is required - change doesn't happen overnight, so
give change time to happen.

Rule Five - Learning does not end. While you are alive there are always
lessons to be learned. Surrender to the 'rhythm of life', don't struggle
against it. Commit to the process of constant learning and change - be
humble enough to always acknowledge your own weaknesses, and be
flexible enough to adapt from what you may be accustomed to, because
rigidity will deny you the freedom of new possibilities.

Rule Six - "There" is no better than "here". The other side of the hill may
be greener than your own, but being there is not the key to endless
happiness. Be grateful for and enjoy what you have, and where you are on
your journey. Appreciate the abundance of what's good in your life, rather
than measure and amass things that do not actually lead to happiness.
Living in the present helps you attain peace.
Rule Seven - Others are only mirrors of you. You love or hate something
about another person according to what love or hate about yourself. Be
tolerant; accept others as they are, and strive for clarity of self-awareness;
strive to truly understand and have an objective perception of your own
self, your thoughts and feelings. Negative experiences are opportunities to
heal the wounds that you carry. Support others, and by doing so you
support yourself. Where you are unable to support others it is a sign that
you are not adequately attending to your own needs.

Rule Eight - What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools
and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. Take
responsibility for yourself. Learn to let go when you cannot change things.
Don't get angry about things - bitter memories clutter your mind. Courage
resides in all of us - use it when you need to do what's right for you. We all
possess a strong natural power and adventurous spirit, which you should
draw on to embrace what lies ahead.

Rule Nine - Your answers lie inside of you. Trust your instincts and your
innermost feelings, whether you hear them as a little voice or a flash of
inspiration. Listen to feelings as well as sounds. Look, listen, and trust. Draw
on your natural inspiration.

Rule Ten - You will forget all this at birth. We are all born with all of these
capabilities - our early experiences lead us into a physical world, away from
our spiritual selves, so that we become doubtful, cynical and lacking belief
and confidence. The ten Rules are not commandments, they are universal
truths that apply to us all. When you lose your way, call upon them. Have
faith in the strength of your spirit. Aspire to be wise - wisdom the ultimate
path of your life, and it knows no limits other than those you impose on
yourself.

This summary is merely a brief outline and simply does not do the book
justice, nor the wisdom within it. If you are interested in making the most
of your life, and helping others do the same, buy Cherie Carter-Scott's book
'If Life Is A Game, These Are The Rules'.

Businessballs does not receive a commission for recommending these books -

buy from any bookseller you like.

if life is a game these are the rules -

cherie carterscott
Such a simple little book, with so much common
sense about how to get the best out of yourself and
life in general. In a cynical world the teachings of
books like these do much to encourage truly grown
up, giving, behaviour.

if love is a game these are the rules -

cherie carterscott
Companion book to the rules of life. As with the rules
of life book, most readers will say it changes their
outlook forever.

More information at Cherie Carter Scott's website.

'If Life Is A Game, These Are The Rules' and the structures within it are the
intellectual property of Cherie Carter-Scott. No attempt is made here to
exploit it - merely to review and inform. With thanks to Carole Byrd, who
reminded me of Cherie Carter-Scott's wonderful principles.

the four agreements - don miguel ruiz

Don Miguel Ruiz's - The Four Agreements
Don Miguel Ruiz's book, The Four Agreements was published in 1997. For
many, The Four Agreements is a life-changing book, whose ideas come
from the ancient Toltec wisdom of the native people of Southern Mexico.
The Toltec were 'people of knowledge' - scientists and artists who created a
society to explore and conserve the traditional spiritual knowledge and
practices of their ancestors. The Toltec viewed science and spirit as part of
the same entity, believing that all energy - material or ethereal - is derived
from and governed by the universe. Don Miguel Ruiz, born and raised in
rural Mexico, was brought up to follow his family's Toltec ways by his
mother, a Toltec faith healer, and grandfather, a Toltec 'nagual', a shaman.
Despite this, Don Miguel decided to pursue a conventional education,
which led him to qualify and practice for several years as a surgeon.
Following a car crash, Don Miguel Ruiz reverted to his Toltec roots during
the late 1970's, first studying and learning in depth the Toltec ways, and
then healing, teaching, lecturing and writing during the 1980's and 90's,
when he wrote The Four Agreements (published in 1997),
The Mastery of Love (1999), The Four Agreements Companion Book (2000),
and Prayers (2001). Don Miguel Ruiz survived a serious heart attack 2002,
since when his teachings have been largely channelled through seminars
and classes run by his followers, notably his sons Don Jose Luis and Don
Miguel Ruiz Junior. Like many gurus and philosophical pioneers, Ruiz has to
an extent packaged, promoted and commercialised his work, nevertheless
the simplicity and elegance of his thinking remains a source of great
enlightenment and aspiration. The simple ideas of The Four Agreements
provide an inspirational code for life; a personal development model, and a
template for personal development, behaviour, communications and
 relationships. Here is how Don Miguel Ruiz summarises 'The Four
Agreements':

the four agreements - don miguel ruiz's code for life

agreement 1
Be impeccable with your word - Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean.
Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the
power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

agreement 2
Don’t take anything personally - Nothing others do is because of you. What
others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you
are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of
needless suffering.

agreement 3
Don’t make assumptions - Find the courage to ask questions and to express
what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid
misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can
completely transform your life.

agreement 4
Always do your best - Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it
will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any
circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse
and regret.

the four agreements - don miguel ruiz

A life-changing book. Don Miguel Ruiz's simple guidance
for life. This book - the original in the series - is widely
available. Everyone should read it.

'The Four Agreements' summary is the intellectual

property of Don Miguel Ruiz. No attempt is made here to exploit it - merely
to review and inform.
More about The Four Agreements ideology, The Four Agreements book,
Don Miguel Ruiz and Toltec philosophy at Don Miguel Ruiz's website.

kaleidoscope brainstorming process

advanced brainstorming technique for problem-
solving, team-building and creative process
Brainstorming is a powerful technique for problem-solving, learning and
development, planning and team building. Brainstorming creates new
ideas, motivates and develops teams because it involves team members in
bigger management issues, and it gets the brainstorming participants
working together. Brainstorming is not a random activity; it follows a
process. See the process for basic brainstorming. Below is an more
innovative advanced method of brainstorming - called 'Silent
Brainstorming' or 'Kaleidoscope Brainstorming' - developed by Dr KRS
Murthy of Nisvara Inc, and the contribution of this model is gratefully
acknowledged. Dr Murthy also refers to the brainstorming technique as
'Multiple Mind Conferencing'. Kaleidoscope Brainstorming, Dr Murthy
suggests, not only produces vastly more ideas than conventional
brainstorming, but also acts at a deep level to build teams and harmonious
work groups.
As with the basic brainstorming process, the facilitator has a big
responsibility to manage the activity, people's involvement and
sensitivities, and then to manage the follow up actions. Use Brainstorming
well and you will see excellent results in improving the organization,
performance, and developing the team. It is useful to review the Johari
Window
concept and Johari model diagram along with this article, and when using
the process. This is because much of the value of this concept lies in
developing awareness of self, others, and what others think of oneself.

kaleidoscope brainstorming technique

Have you attended any brain storming sessions in your life? The sessions
are normally run by a facilitator, who introduces the purpose of the
session to the participants, explains the ground rules and coordinates the
process. A note taker or scribe may be used to document all the ideas
generated in the session. Generally, the session is open to any ideas.
Important guideline is that no idea is too simple, stupid or wild. See the
basic brainstorming technique if you've not already done so - it contains
fundamental brainstorming principles.
Kaleidoscope advanced brainstorming techniques are applicable to any
subject or situation, and any type of forum where people can work as a
group, including internet-based conferencing and communications.
This is a new approach to the brainstorming process, including different
variations as to its use.
Dr Murthy regards 'Kaleidoscope Brainstorming' (KBS) or Multiple Mind
Conferencing (MMC) as a "...Romantic interplay between silence and
interaction.... a heavenly marriage of thesis and antithesis.."
The process makes efficient use of silence and communication, which are
interleaved in the brainstorming session. The various degrees and modes of
silence and communication effectively use as 'tools' in the Kaleidoscope
brainstorming approach. Notably the power of silence is used to
supplement the communications-oriented parts of the session.
The technique may seem 'anti-thematic' at the first glance. However, the
intention is to make the brainstorming process more 'holistic', by exploiting
the different modes and degrees of silence, absence of communication and
a variety of communication and interaction.

the kaleidoscope brainstorming process

1 - initial ideas generation brainstorming session

The session should start with a facilitator detailing the process steps used
for the particular session. The session is conducted in a normal fashion with
the participants speaking out their ideas in a round robin or random fashion
for an agreed period. The facilitator can use any normal brainstorming
format for this session. It is a good idea to use a format that is comfortable
for the facilitator and the participants. See the example of a standard
brainstorming session if you've not done so already.

2 - silent brainstorming session

The silent brainstorming session stage requires all team members or
participants to stop talking, and to think of ideas, but not speak out. The
facilitator can ring a bell or use another method to indicate the start and
end of this part of the exercise. Ideas are to written down by each
brainstorming participant. In addition, the participants must guess the ideas
that others may be thinking and writing down. Ideally participants should
guess the ideas of the other participants for each person, one after the
other. For example, if the participants are A, B, C, D, E, F and G, then A
would not only write his or her her ideas, but also afterwards guess what B,
C, D, E, F, and G may have as their ideas. Participants should do this using
deep thinking, and base their guesses on the manner that other
participants answered during the first speaking part of the session.
Participants should be encouraged to think how each of the other
participants' minds are working - to empathise, to 'put themselves in the
other person's shoes' - as a method of guessing as intuitively and accurately
as possible. 'Think how the other person will be thinking' is the sort of
guidance that the facilitator can give.
At this stage what's happening is that each participant is coming up with
ideas from their own perspective of how each of the other participants is
thinking. All participants work on this stage of the session at the same time.
You can imagine the multiplicity of ideas and perspectives that this stage
produces.
Each participant should logically end up with a list of ideas alongside, or
below, the names of each participant, including themselves.
After a reasonable period, when it is clear that participants have completed
their lists, the facilitator can ring the bell again, indicating the end of the
silent brainstorming stage.
3 - presentation of brainstorming ideas session
In this session, each of of the delegates reads out or shows their own ideas
and also their best guesses of the ideas for others. The presentation made
by A would look like the following:
1. Ideas generated by A
2. Guess of ideas of B
3. Guess of ideas of C
4. Guess of ideas of D
5. Guess of ideas of E
6. Guess of ideas of F
7. Guess of ideas of G

During A's presentation, others simply listen. In turn each delegate gives a
similar presentation. It is best if there is no discussion during the
presentations. The facilitator should encourage delegates to make notes
which people can raise later.

4 - discussion of brainstorming ideas session

The presentations are followed by a detailed discussion session. In this
session, the participants may discuss why and how they guessed about
others. Each participant can also comment on the guesses of the other
participants, and validate or clarify. The highlights and conclusions resulting
from discussion should be noted by the facilitator or an appointed 'scribe'.
The individual participants can be encouraged also make their own notes,
which might for example contain their mental models and appropriate
revisions of the creative thinking process of others. In this sense the activity
helps open hidden areas of awareness (self and others), which in turn
promotes better understanding, relationships, communications, team-
building and cooperation. (See and refer to the Johari Window to help
explain these benefits).
 5 - further silent and speaking sessions - the
kaleidoscope effect
Further sessions can repeat and extend the silent session so that
participants increase the depth and complexity of their thinking still more.
Specifically participants should now think about and guess how other
delegates are thinking about the ideas of of others. This again is done
silently, together. Each delegate will be thinking in deeper levels about each
of the other participant's thinking. These complexities of thinking result, for
example:
• A is thinking and noting down of any of his/her own new ideas
• A is also (as in stage 4) thinking afresh about and noting down any
thoughts as to what B, C, D, E, F and G are thinking
• and, A is now additionally thinking of what B is thinking of A, C, D,
E, F and G, plus what C is thinking of A, B, D, E, F and G, and so on.

Obviously the exercise at this stage has expanded massively. From a simple
individual brainstorming activity involving say seven people and seven sets
of personal ideas (seven perspectives), the session has expanded to entail
seven people each considering six other people's thoughts about the ideas
of six other people's ideas (that's 242 perspectives!). Clearly it is not
reasonable to expect delegates to formulate 242 lists, so it is useful to place
certain limits on people's activities, which can include for example:
• allowing delegates to leave blanks against certain delegates names
• limiting the number of ideas required to be guessed for each
delegate
• stating a maximum number of perspectives
• allocating responsibility to each delegate to think about certain
named delegates
• and in any event giving a time limit for each stage of the activity
As with any team building or team working activity, the facilitator needs to
be able to assess progress and to adapt, adjust and give clarifying or
steadying guidelines during the activity to maintain the group's focus and
effectiveness.
At the fifth stage, all participants will in their own way be thinking in a
highly complex fashion. The participants minds are acting as mirrors
creating multiple reflections of each other, rather like the few small objects
inside a kaleidoscope creating wonderful arrays and patterns. Hence the
'Kaleidoscope Brainstorming' description.
It is easy to imagine how using this process the number of ideas generated
are many times more than when using normal brainstorming techniques.
Dr Murthy reports that typically after a number of
Kaleidoscope Brainstorming sessions a group experiences an 'asymptotic
approximation of their thinking process'. (Asymptotic refers to the
'asymptotic' effect whereby two or more things increasingly converge as if
to become joined and together, but never actually join or become one). He
says this is enabled by successive convergence and cross-fertilization among
a group or team of each members thinking process, thoughts and ideas. He
adds interestingly that groups ultimately do not need to be talking to each
other for their minds to be conferencing with each other. In fact, they can
be as far geographically apart as they need to be for their routine life, but
still efficiently conferencing and in tune with each other.
Dr Murthy adds: "The most important aspect is the discipline developed by
the silent brainstorming paradigm. Regular teams or 'virtual' teams can be
brought together to practice this technique. It is a good idea for the team
members to branch out and form new groups with new members to extend
the practice. It is also a good idea to have new members or visitors to the
Kaleidoscope Brainstorming team inducted routinely. Diversity of
backgrounds is the key to freshness of ideas. True diversity in gender, age,
ethnic background, educational levels, race, and personality types will
ensure Brainstorming teams and activities are kept as fertile as possible. It
is like any ecological system. Stability of a Kaleidoscope Brainstorming team
ecology is good, but as well, aberrations and perturbations can guarantee
long-term growth."

dr krs murthy - biography

Dr KRS Murthy graduated from high school at the age of 12 and obtained
two master degrees by the age of 20. Dr Murthy is an experienced
corporate executive, entrepreneur, inventor, speaker, author, and a poet of
some repute. He has given keynote speeches in numerous international
technology, business and management conferences around the world. He
has invented and developed a number of novel paradigms in various
disciplines encompassing science, technology, business, marketing,
corporate governance, music, poetry, other genres of literature, theatre,
social science and even the sport of cricket. His poems are taught in
universities and colleges in USA alongside legendry poets including Blake,
Emerson, Milton, and Shakespeare. Dr Murthy is now president and
chairman of Nisvara Inc., a Santa Clara, California-based leading computer
technology development organization.
If you have questions about the Kaleidoscope Brainstorming technique Dr
Murthy would welcome your enquiries to drkrsmurthy@gmail.com, or by
phone to his offices in the US: 408-464-3333.

For good order, here's a reminder of the basic brainstorming principles,

which are always worth remembering so as to keep the more advanced
Kaleidoscope Brainstorming activities from becoming too chaotic, and to
retain a sense of purpose, and focus on outcomes and actions.
conventional brainstorming process principles
1. Define and agree the objective.
2. Brainstorm ideas and suggestions having agreed a time limit.
3. Categorise/condense/combine/refine.
4. Assess/analyse effects or results.
5. Prioritise options/rank list as appropriate.
6. Agree action and timescale.
7. Control and monitor follow-up.

See the full brainstorming basic principles.

See also the guidelines for running workshops. Workshops provide good
situations for brainstorming, and brainstorming helps to make workshops
more productive, motivational and successful.
To create more structured brainstorming activities which illustrate or
address particular themes, methods, media, etc., there is a helpfulset of
reference points on the team building games section.
Unless you have special reasons for omitting control factors, ensure you
retain the the essence of the rules above, especially defining the task,
stating clear timings, organising participants and materials, and managing
the review and follow-up.
johari window
Ingham and Luft's Johari Window model diagrams
and examples - for selfawareness, personal
development,
group development and understanding
relationships
The Johari Window model is a simple and useful tool for illustrating and
improving self-awareness, and mutual understanding between individuals
within a group. The Johari Window model can also be used to assess and
improve a group's relationship with other groups. The Johari Window
model was devised by American psychologists Joseph Luft and Harry
Ingham in 1955, while researching group dynamics at the University of
California Los Angeles. The model was first published in the Proceedings of
the Western Training Laboratory in Group Development by UCLA Extension
Office in 1955, and was later expanded by Joseph Luft. Today the Johari
Window model is especially relevant due to modern emphasis on, and
influence of, 'soft' skills, behaviour, empathy, cooperation, inter-group
development and interpersonal development.
The Johari Window concept is particularly helpful to understanding
employee/employer relationships within the Psychological Contract.
Over the years, alternative Johari Window terminology has been developed
and adapted by other people - particularly leading to different descriptions
of the four regions, hence the use of different terms in this explanation.
Don't let it all confuse you - the Johari Window model is really very simple
indeed.

free johari window model diagram (pdf - landscape)

free johari window model diagram (pdf - portrait)
(The Johari Window diagram is also available in MSWord format from the
free resources section.)
Luft and Ingham called their Johari Window model 'Johari' after combining
their first names, Joe and Harry. In early publications the word appears as
'JoHari'. The Johari Window soon became a widely used model for
understanding and training self-awareness, personal development,
improving communications, interpersonal relationships, group dynamics,
team development and inter-group relationships.
The Johari Window model is also referred to as a 'disclosure/feedback
model of self awareness', and by some people an 'information processing
tool'. The Johari Window actually represents information - feelings,
experience, views, attitudes, skills, intentions, motivation, etc - within or
about a person - in relation to their group, from four perspectives, which
are described below. The Johari Window model can also be used to
represent the same information for a group in relation to other groups.
Johari Window terminology refers to 'self' and 'others': 'self' means oneself,
ie, the person subject to the Johari Window analysis. 'Others' means other
people in the person's group or team.
N.B. When the Johari Window model is used to assess and develop groups
in relation to other groups, the 'self' would be the group, and 'others'
would be other groups. However, for ease of explanation and
understanding of the Johari Window and examples in this article, think of
the model applying to an individual within a group, rather than a group
relating to other groups.
The four Johari Window perspectives are called 'regions' or 'areas' or
'quadrants'. Each of these regions contains and represents the information
- feelings, motivation, etc - known about the person, in terms of whether
the information is known or unknown by the person, and whether the
information is known or unknown by others in the group.
The Johari Window's four regions, (areas, quadrants, or perspectives) are as
follows, showing the quadrant numbers and commonly used names:

johari window four regions

1. what is known by the person about him/herself and is also known by
others - open area, open self, free area, free self, or 'the arena'
2. what is unknown by the person about him/herself but which others
know - blind area, blind self, or
'blindspot'
3. what the person knows about him/herself that others do not know -
hidden area, hidden self, avoided area, avoided self or 'facade'
4. what is unknown by the person about him/herself and is also
unknown by others - unknown area or unknown
self

johari window four regions - model diagram

Like some other behavioural models (eg, Tuckman,
Hersey/Blanchard), the Johari Window is based on a foursquare grid - the
Johari Window is like a window with four 'panes'. Here's how the Johari
Window is normally shown, with its four regions.
This is the standard
representation of the
Johari Window model,
showing each quadrant
the same size.

The Johari Window

'panes' can be changed
in size to reflect the
relevant proportions of
each type of
'knowledge'
of/about a
particular person
in a given group
or team
situation.

In new groups or
teams the open
free space for any
team member is
small (see the
Johari Window new
team member
example below)
because shared
awareness is
relatively small.

As the team
member becomes
better established
 and known, so the
size of the team
member's open free
area quadrant
increases. See the
Johari Window
established team
member example
below.

johari window model - explanation of the four

regions
Refer to the free detailed Johari Window model diagram in the free
resources section - print a copy and it will help you to understand what
follows.

johari quadrant 1 - 'open self/area' or 'free area' or

'public area', or 'arena'
Johari region 1 is also known as the 'area of free activity'. This is the
information about the person - behaviour, attitude, feelings, emotion,
knowledge, experience, skills, views, etc - known by the person ('the self')
and known by the group ('others').
The aim in any group should always be to develop the 'open area' for
every person, because when we work in this area with others we are at
our most effective and productive, and the group is at its most productive
too. The open free area, or 'the arena', can be seen as the space where
good communications and cooperation occur, free from distractions,
mistrust, confusion, conflict and misunderstanding.
Established team members logically tend to have larger open areas than
new team members. New team members start with relatively small open
areas because relatively little knowledge about the new team member is
shared. The size of the open area can be expanded horizontally into the
blind space, by seeking and actively listening to feedback from other group
members. This process is known as 'feedback solicitation'. Also, other group
members can help a team member expand their open area by offering
feedback, sensitively of course. The size of the open area can also be
expanded vertically downwards into the hidden or avoided space by the
person's disclosure of information, feelings, etc about him/herself to the
group and group members. Also, group members can help a person expand
their open area into the hidden area by asking the person about
him/herself. Managers and team leaders can play an important role in
facilitating feedback and disclosure among group members, and in directly
giving feedback to individuals about their own blind areas. Leaders also
have a big responsibility to promote a culture and expectation for open,
honest, positive, helpful, constructive, sensitive communications, and the
sharing of knowledge throughout their organization. Top performing
groups, departments, companies and organizations always tend to have a
culture of open positive communication, so encouraging the positive
development of the 'open area' or 'open self' for everyone is a simple yet
fundamental aspect of effective leadership.

johari quadrant 2 - 'blind self' or 'blind area' or

'blindspot'
Johari region 2 is what is known about a person by others in the group, but
is unknown by the person him/herself. By seeking or soliciting feedback
from others, the aim should be to reduce this area and thereby to increase
the open area (see the Johari Window diagram below), ie, to increase
selfawareness. This blind area is not an effective or productive space for
individuals or groups. This blind area could also be referred to as ignorance
about oneself, or issues in which one is deluded. A blind area could also
include issues that others are deliberately withholding from a person. We
all know how difficult it is to work well when kept in the dark. No-one
works well when subject to 'mushroom management'. People who are
'thick-skinned' tend to have a large 'blind area'.
Group members and managers can take some responsibility for helping an
individual to reduce their blind area - in turn increasing the open area - by
giving sensitive feedback and encouraging disclosure. Managers should
promote a climate of non-judgemental feedback, and group response to
individual disclosure, which reduces fear and therefore encourages both
processes to happen. The extent to which an individual seeks feedback, and
the issues on which feedback is sought, must always be at the individual's
own discretion. Some people are more resilient than others - care needs to
be taken to avoid causing emotional upset. The process of soliciting serious
and deep feedback relates to the process of 'self-actualization' described in
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs development and motivation model.

johari quadrant 3 - 'hidden self' or

'hidden area' or 'avoided self/area' or
'facade'
Johari region 3 is what is known to ourselves but kept hidden from, and
therefore unknown, to others. This hidden or avoided self represents
information, feelings, etc, anything that a person knows about him/self, but
which is not revealed or is kept hidden from others. The hidden area could
also include sensitivities, fears, hidden agendas, manipulative intentions,
secrets - anything that a person knows but does not reveal, for whatever
reason. It's natural for very personal and private information and feelings
to remain hidden, indeed, certain information, feelings and experiences
have no bearing on work, and so can and should remain hidden. However,
typically, a lot of hidden information is not very personal, it is work- or
performance-related, and so is better positioned in the open area.
Relevant hidden information and feelings, etc, should be moved into the
open area through the process of 'disclosure'. The aim should be to disclose
and expose relevant information and feelings - hence the Johari Window
terminology 'selfdisclosure' and 'exposure process', thereby increasing the
open area. By telling others how we feel and other information about
ourselves we reduce the hidden area, and increase the open area, which
enables better understanding, cooperation, trust, team-working
effectiveness and productivity. Reducing hidden areas also reduces the
potential for confusion,
misunderstanding, poor communication, etc, which all distract from and
undermine team effectiveness.
Organizational culture and working atmosphere have a major influence on
group members' preparedness to disclose their hidden selves. Most people
fear judgement or vulnerability and therefore hold back hidden information
and feelings, etc, that if moved into the open area, ie known by the group
as well, would enhance mutual understanding, and thereby improve group
awareness, enabling better individual performance and group
effectiveness.
The extent to which an individual discloses personal feelings and
information, and the issues which are disclosed, and to whom, must
always be at the individual's own discretion. Some people are more keen
and able than others to disclose. People should disclose at a pace and
depth that they find personally comfortable. As with feedback, some
people are more resilient than others - care needs to be taken to avoid
causing emotional upset. Also as with soliciting feedback, the process of
serious disclosure relates to the process of 'selfactualization' described in
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs development and motivation model.
 johari quadrant 4 - 'unknown self' or 'area of
unknown activity' or 'unknown area'
Johari region 4 contains information, feelings, latent abilities, aptitudes,
experiences etc, that are unknown to the person him/herself andunknown
to others in the group. These unknown issues take a variety of forms: they
can be feelings, behaviours, attitudes, capabilities, aptitudes, which can be
quite close to the surface, and which can be positive and useful, or they can
be deeper aspects of a person's personality, influencing his/her behaviour
to various degrees. Large unknown areas would typically be expected in
younger people, and people who lack experience or self-belief.
Examples of unknown factors are as follows, and the first example is
particularly relevant and common, especially in typical organizations and
teams:
• an ability that is under-estimated or un-tried through lack of
opportunity, encouragement, confidence or training
• a natural ability or aptitude that a person doesn't realise they
possess
• a fear or aversion that a person does not know they have
• an unknown illness
• repressed or subconscious feelings
• conditioned behaviour or attitudes from childhood

The processes by which this information and knowledge can be uncovered

are various, and can be prompted through selfdiscovery or observation by
others, or in certain situations through collective or mutual discovery, of
the sort of discovery experienced on outward bound courses or other deep
or intensive group work. Counselling can also uncover unknown issues, but
this would then be known to the person and by one other, rather than by a
group.
Whether unknown 'discovered' knowledge moves into the hidden, blind or
open area depends on who discovers it and what they do with the
knowledge, notably whether it is then given as feedback, or disclosed. As
with the processes of soliciting feedback and disclosure, striving to discover
information and feelings in the unknown is relates to the process of 'self-
actualization' described in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs development and
motivation model.
Again as with disclosure and soliciting feedback, the process of self
discovery is a sensitive one. The extent and depth to which an individual is
able to seek out discover their unknown feelings must always be at the
individual's own discretion. Some people are more keen and able than
others to do this.
Uncovering 'hidden talents' - that is unknown aptitudes and skills, not to be
confused with developing the Johari 'hidden area' - is another aspect of
developing the unknown area, and is not so sensitive as unknown feelings.
Providing people with the opportunity to try new things, with no great
pressure to succeed, is often a useful way to discover unknown abilities,
and thereby reduce the unknown area.
Managers and leaders can help by creating an environment that
encourages self-discovery, and to promote the processes of self discovery,
constructive observation and feedback among team members. It is a widely
accepted industrial fact that the majority of staff in any organization are at
any time working well within their potential. Creating a culture, climate and
expectation for self-discovery helps people to fulfil more of their potential
and thereby to achieve more, and to contribute more to organizational
performance.
A note of caution about Johari region 4: The unknown area could also
include repressed or subconscious feelings rooted in formative events and
traumatic past experiences, which can stay unknown for a lifetime. In a
work or organizational context the Johari Window should not be used to
address issues of a clinical nature. Useful references are Arthur Janov's
seminal book The Primal Scream (read about the book here), and
Transactional Analysis.
johari window example - increasing open area
through feedback solicitation
This Johari Window
model diagram is an
example of increasing
the open area , by
reduction of the blind
area, which would
normally be achieved
through the process of
asking for and
then receiving
feedback.

Feedback
develops the
open area by
reducing the
blind area.

The open area

can also be
developed
through the
process of
disclosure, which
reduces the
hidden area.
 The unknown area
can be reduced in
different ways: by
others'
observation (which
increases the blind
area); by self-
discovery (which
increases the
hidden area), or by
mutual
enlightenment
typically via group
experiences and
discussion - which
increases the open
area as the
unknown area
reduces.

A team which understands itself - that is, each person having a strong
mutual understanding with the team - is far more effective than a team
which does not understand each other- that is, whose members have large
hidden, blind, and/or unknown areas.
Team members - and leaders - should always be striving to increase their
open free areas, and to reduce their blind, hidden and unknown areas.
A person represented by the Johari Window example below will not
perform to their best potential, and the team will fail to make full use of
the team's potential and the person's potential too. Effort should generally
be made by the person to increase his/her open free area, by disclosing
information about his/her feelings, experience, views, motivation, etc,
which will reduce the size of the hidden area, and increase the open free
area.
Seeking feedback about the blind area will reduce the blind area, and will
increase the open free area. Discovery through sensitive communications,
active listening and experience, will reduce the unknown area, transferring
in part to the blind, hidden areas, depending on who knows what, or better
still if known by the person and others, to the open free area.

johari window model - example for new team

member or member within a new team
This Johari Window
model diagram is an
example of a
member of a new
team or a person
who is new to an
existing team.

The open free region is

small because others know
little
about the new
person.

Similarly the
blind area is
small because
others know
little about the
new person.
The hidden or
avoided issues
and feelings are
a relatively large
area.

In this particular
example the
unknown area
is the largest,
which might be
because the person
is young, or lacking
in selfknowledge or
belief.
johari window example - established team member
example
This Johari Window
model diagram is an
example of an
established member
of a team.

The open free region is

large because others
know a lot about the
person that the
person also
knows.
Through the
processes of
disclosure and
receiving
feedback the
open area has
expanded and at
the same time
reduced the sizes
of the hidden,
blind and
unknown areas.

It's helpful to compare the Johari Window model to other fourquadrant

behavioural models, notably Bruce Tuckman's Forming, Storming Norming
Performing team development model; also to a lesser but nonetheless
interesting extent, The Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership team
development and management styles model (See both here). The common
principle is that as the team matures and communications improve, so
performance improves too, as less energy is spent on internal issues and
clarifying understanding, and more effort is devoted to external aims and
productive output.
The Johari Window model also relates to emotional intelligence theory
(EQ), and one's awareness and development of emotional intelligence.
As already stated, the Johari Window relates also to Transactional Analysis
(notably understanding deeper aspects of the 'unknown' area, region 4).
The Johari Window processes of serious feedback solicitation, disclosure,
and striving to uncover one's unknown area relate to Maslow's 'self-
actualization' ideas contained in the Hierarchy of Needs.
There are several exercises and activities for Johari Window awareness
development among teams featured on the team building games section,
for example the ring tones activity.

exploring more ideas for using ingham and luft's

johari window model in training, learning and
development
The examples of exercises using the Johari Window theory on this website
which might begin to open possibilities for you. The Johari Window
obviously model provides useful background rationale and justification for
most things that you might think to do with people relating to developing
mutual and self-awareness, all of which links strongly to team effectiveness
and harmony.
There are many ways to use the Johari model in learning and development -
much as using any other theory such as Maslow's,Tuckman's, TA, NLP, etc.
It very much depends on what you want to achieve, rather than
approaching the subject from 'what are all the possible uses?' which would
be a major investigation.
This being the case, it might help you to ask yourself first what you want to
achieve in your training and development activities? And what are your
intended outputs and how will you measure that they have been achieved?
And then think about how the Johari Window theory and principles can be
used to assist this.
Researching academic papers (most typically published on university and
learning institutions websites) written about theories such as Johari is a
fertile method of exploring possibilities for concepts and models like Johari.
This approach tends to improve your in-depth understanding, instead of
simply using specific interpretations or applications 'off-the-shelf', which in
themselves might provide good ideas for a one-off session, but don't help
you much with understanding how to use the thinking at a deeper level.
Also explore the original work of Ingham and Luft, and reviews of same,
relating to the development and applications of the model.
Johari is a very elegant and potent model, and as with other powerful ideas,
simply helping people to understand is the most effective way to optimise
the value to people. Explaining the meaning of the Johari Window theory to
people, so they can really properly understand it in their own terms, then
empowers people to use the thinking in their own way, and to incorporate
the underlying principles into their future thinking and behaviour.

Relevant reading, (if you can find copies):

'Group Processes - An Introduction to Group Dynamics' by Joseph Luft, first
published in 1963; and
'Of Human Interaction: The Johari Model' by Joseph Luft, first published in
1969.
In the books Joseph Luft explains that Johari is pronounced as if it were Joe
and Harry, and that is '...just what the word means'. He explains also that
the Johari model was developed by him and Harrington V Ingham MD in
1955 during a summer laboratory session, and that the model was
published in the Proceedings of the Western Training Laboratory in Group
Development for that year by the UCLA (University of California Los
Angeles) Extension Office.

25 Useful Brainstorming Techniques

by Celes | ShareThis
This is part of the Ask Celes section where I answer readers’ questions. Feel free to send in your
questions (guidelines here).
Image ©

Caught with a problem you cannot solve? Need new ideas and solutions? The process of
brainstorming requires you to think out of the box that is keeping you in the problem.
The idea for this post was triggered by a question from a reader, who asked me on my thoughts
of the best brainstorming methods to achieve the best results. Because brainstorming is
applicable to all kinds of contexts and there is no one size fits all method, I thought it’ll be more
helpful to write a post on the different possible types of brainstorming techniques we can use
instead.
Here is a list of 25 brainstorming techniques you can use to get out of the situation you are in.
From this list, you can assess what’s the best method for the issue you are facing and apply it
accordingly.
1. Time Travel. How would you deal with this if you were in a different time period? 10
years ago? 100 years ago? 1,000 years ago? 10,000 years ago? How about in the future?
10 years later? 100 years later? 1,000 years later? 10,000 years later?
2. Teleportation: What if you were facing this problem in a different place?
Different country? Different geographic region? Different universe?
Different plane of existence? How would you handle it?
3. Attribute change. How would you think about this if you were a different gender? Age?
Race? Intellect? Height? Weight? Nationality? Your Sanity? With each attribute change,
you become exposed to a new spectrum of thinking you were subconsciously closed off
from.
4. Rolestorming. What would you do if you were someone else? Your parent? Your
teacher? Your manager? Your partner? Your best friend? Your enemy? Etc?
5. Iconic Figures. This is a spinoff of rolestorming. What if you were an iconic figure of the
past? Buddha? Jesus? Krishna? Albert Einstein? Thomas Edison? Mother Theresa?
Princess Diana? Winston Churchill?
Adolf Hitler? How about the present? Barack Obama? Steve Jobs? Bill Gates? Warren
Buffet? Steven Spielberg? Etc? How would you think about your situation?
6. Superpowers. This is another spinoff of rolestorming. What if you suddenly have
superpowers? Superman? Spiderman? Wonderwoman? XMen? The Hulk? One of the
Fantastic Four? What would you do?
7. Gap Filling. Identify your current spot – Point A – and your end goal –
Point B. What is the gap that exists between A and B? What are all the things you need
to fill up this gap? List them down and find out what it takes to get them.
8. Group Ideation. Have a group brainstorming session! Get a group of people and start
ideating together. More brains are better than one! Let the creative juices flow
together!
9. Mind Map. Great tool to work out as many ideas as you can in hierarchical tree and
cluster format. Start off with your goal in the center, branch out into the major sub-
topics, continue to branch out into as many sub-sub-topics as needed. Source Forgeis a
great open-source mindmapping software that I use and highly recommend.
10. Medici Effect. Medici Effect refers to how ideas in seemingly unrelated topics/fields
intersect. Put your goal alongside similar goals in different areas/contexts and identify
parallel themes/solutions. For example, if your goal is to be an award winning artist,
look at award winning musicians, educators, game developers, computer makers,
businessmen, etc. Are there any commonalities that lie among all of them that you can
apply to your situation? What worked for each of them that you can adopt?
11. SWOT Analysis. Do a SWOT of your situation – What are the Strengths? Weaknesses?
Opportunities? Threats? The analysis will open you up to ideas you may not be aware
before.
12. Brain Writing. Get a group of people and have them write their ideas on their own
sheet of paper. After 10 minutes, rotate the sheets to different people and build off
what the others wrote on their paper. Continue until everyone has written on everyone
else’s sheet.
13. Trigger Method. Brainstorm on as many ideas as possible. Then select the best ones and
brainstorm on those ideas as ‘triggers’ for more ideas. Repeat until you find the best
solution.
14. Variable Brainstorming. First, identify the variable in the end outcome you look to
achieve. For example, if your goal is to achieve X visitors to your website, the variable is
# of visitors. Second, list down all the possibilities for that variable. Different variations
 of visitors are gender/age/race/nationality/occupation/interests/etc. Think about the
question with each different variable. For example, for Genre: How can you get more
females to your website? How can you get more males to your website? For age: How
can you get more teenagers to your website? How can you get more adults to your
website? And so on.
15. Niche. This is the next level of variable brainstorming method. From the variations of
the variable you have listed, mix and match them in different ways and brainstorm
against those niches. For example, using the example in #14, how can you get more
male teenagers to your website? (Gender & Age) How can you get more American
female adults to your website? (Nationality, Gender & Age)
16. Challenger. List down all the assumptions in your situation and challenge them. For
example, your goal is to brainstorm on a list of ideas for your romance novel which you
want to get published. There are several assumptions you are operating in here. #1:
Genre to write: Romance. Why must it be that romance? Can it be a different genre?
Another assumption is for a novel. #2: Length of the story: Novel. Why must it be a
novel? Can it be a short story? A series of books? #3:
Medium: Book. Why must be it a book? Can it be an ebook? Mp3? Video?
And so on.
17. Escape Thinking. This is a variation of Challenger method. Look at the assumptions
behind the goal you are trying to achieve, then flip that assumption around and look at
your goal from that new angle. For example, you want to earn more income from selling
books. Your assumption may be ‘People buy books for themselves’. Flip the assumption
around such that ‘People do NOT buy books for reading’. What will this lead to? You
may end up with people buy books as gifts, for collection purposes, etc. Another
assumption may be ‘People read books’. The flip side of this assumption may be people
look at books (drawings). Escaping from these assumptions will bring you to a different
realm of thought on how to achieve your goal.
18. Reverse Thinking. Think about what everyone will typically do in your situation. Then do
the opposite.
19. Counteraction Busting. What counteracting forces are you facing in your scenario? For
example, if you want to increase traffic to your website, two counteracting forces may
be the number of ads you put and the page views of your site. The more ads you put,
the more users will likely be annoyed and surf away. What can you do such that the
counteraction no longer exists or the counteraction is no longer an issue? Some
solutions may be 1) Get ads that are closely related to the theme of your site 2) Get
contextual ads that are part of your content rather than separate, and so on.
 20. Resource Availability. What if money, time, people, supplies are not issues at all? What
if you can ask for whatever you want and have it happen? What will you do?
21. Drivers Analysis. What are the forces that help drive you forward in your situation?
What are the forces that are acting against you? Think about how you can magnify the
former and reduce/eliminate the latter.
22. Exaggeration. Exaggerate your goal and see how you will deal with it now. Enlarge it:
What if it is 10 times its current size? 100 times? 1000 times? Shrink it: What if it is 1/10
its current size? 1/100?
1/1000? Multiply it: What if you have 10 of these goals now? 100?
1000?
23. Get Random Input. Get a random stimuli and try to see how you can fit it into your
situation. Get a random word/image from a
dictionary/webpage/book/magazine/newspaper/TV/etc, a random object from your
room/house/workplace/neighborhood/etc and so on.
24. Meditation. Focus on your key question such as ‘How can I solve XX problem?’ or ‘How
can I achieve XX goal?’ and meditate on it in a quiet place. Have a pen and paper in front
of you so you can write immediately whatever comes to mind. Do this for 30 minutes or
as long as it takes.
25. Write a list of 101 ideas. Open your word processor and write a laundry list of at least
101 ideas to deal with your situation. Go wild and write whatever you can think of
without restricting yourself. Do not stop until you have at least 101.

Brainstorming is by far the most widely used tool to stimulate

creative thinking. It was developed in the 1940s by the American
advertising executive Alex Osborn who believed that anyone could
learn to generate creative solutions for a wide variety of problems.
Following Osborn’s beliefs, below are some tips that will help you
have brainstorming sessions that generate results.

1. When scheduling the meeting, be sure to include a brief

explanation of the problem and its history. This will help
participants prepare mentally for the session and focus on the
particular issue. The more specific and focused a session, the
better the results will be.
2. When inviting individuals to the session, consider people with
different backgrounds and degrees of expertise. Sometimes a fresh
outlook comes from someone who isn't considered an expert or
close to the problem. However, be careful about mixing
management levels. Often in the presence of a seniorlevel
manager, people either will be reluctant to participate or will
completely overdo it.

3. Distribute a copy of the rules of brainstorming before the session

begins. The rules are:

Criticism of ideas isn't allowed

All ideas, no matter how wild, are encouraged
The more ideas, the better
Every participant should try to build on or combine the ideas of
others

4. When scheduling the brainstorming session, the meeting shouldn't

last longer than 30 or 40 minutes. Brainstorming sessions can be
tiring and if you
haven’t discovered a satisfactory idea after 40 minutes then it’s
best to adjourn the meeting. Let the participants leave with the
understanding that there will be another session. They can think
about the problem because great ideas can come anytime and
anywhere – in the shower, in the car or in the park.

5. At the beginning of the session, explain the meaning of Killer

Phrases and emphasize that they won’t be permitted. You might
provide two cards for each participant as they enter the room. One
has a green circle on it, the other a red circle. Like traffic lights,
when the flow of ideas is positive, participants hold up the green
cards. If someone mentions a Killer Phrase, all of the other
participants must hold up the red cards. This helps the group
identify its "killer" behavior and lets participants know when they
should be more supportive of others’ input.
6. If more than ten participants have been invited to the session,
break the group into teams of five or six people and have each
team brainstorm the issue. Smaller teams remove some of the
formality and make people more at ease. And feeling comfortable
means sharing more ideas.

7. Write the objective of the session where everyone in the room can
see it. Put it in a question form, starting with either "How can
we…?" or "What can be done to…?" For example, "How can we
better understand the needs of our customers?" or "What can be
done to improve the quality of this product?"

8. Be sure to capture all of the group’s ideas. An interactive

whiteboard is ideal for brainstorming since ideas are displayed on
the whiteboard surface (which can stimulate additional ideas),
easily edited and saved to a computer file. Whichever tool you use
to record your ideas, be sure that they’re saved for future
reference. After all, what good is generating ideas if nobody
remembers them after the session ends?

9. If the flow of ideas begins to fizzle, the leader should step in. Some
ideas:

Re-read every third idea. This may spark additional ideas.

Ask a participant to select an idea and give reasons why he likes it.
This will generate conversation around the idea and provide an
opportunity to build on it.

If you’re the session leader, keep an idea or two to yourself. When

the conversation dies, share these ideas to initiate more discussion.
Brainstorming
What this handout is about
This handout discusses techniques that will help you start writing a paper and continue writing
through the challenges of the revising process. Brainstorming can help you choose a topic,
develop an approach to a topic, or deepen your understanding of the topic's potential.

Introduction
If you consciously take advantage of your natural thinking processes by gathering your brain's
energies into a "storm," you can transform these energies into written words or diagrams that
will lead to lively, vibrant writing. Below you will find a brief discussion of what brainstorming is,
why you might brainstorm, and suggestions for how you might brainstorm.

Whether you are starting with too much information or not enough, brainstorming can help you
to put a new writing task in motion or revive a project that hasn't reached completion. Let's take
a look at each case:

When you've got nothing: You might need a storm to approach when you feel "blank" about the
topic, devoid of inspiration, full of anxiety about the topic, or just too tired to craft an orderly
outline. In this case, brainstorming stirs up the dust, whips some air into our stilled pools of
thought, and gets the breeze of inspiration moving again.
When you've got too much: There are times when you have too much chaos in your brain and
need to bring in some conscious order. In this case, brainstorming forces the mental chaos and
random thoughts to rain out onto the page, giving you some concrete words or schemas that
you can then arrange according to their logical relations. top

Brainstorming techniques
What follows are great ideas on how to brainstorm—ideas from professional writers, novice
writers, people who would rather avoid writing, and people who spend a lot of time
brainstorming about…well, how to brainstorm.

Try out several of these options and challenge yourself to vary the techniques you rely on; some
techniques might suit a particular writer, academic discipline, or assignment better than others.
If the technique you try first doesn't seem to help you, move right along and try some others. top
Freewriting

When you freewrite, you let your thoughts flow as they will, putting pen to paper and writing
down whatever comes into your mind. You don't judge the quality of what you write and you
don't worry about style or any surface-level issues, like spelling, grammar, or punctuation. If you
can't think of what to say, you write that down—really. The advantage of this technique is that
you free up your internal critic and allow yourself to write things you might not write if you were
being too self-conscious.

When you freewrite you can set a time limit ("I'll write for 15 minutes!") and even use a kitchen
timer or alarm clock or you can set a space limit ("I'll write until I fill four full notebook pages, no
matter what tries to interrupt me!") and just write until you reach that goal. You might do this
on the computer or on paper, and you can even try it with your eyes shut or the monitor off,
which encourages speed and freedom of thought.
The crucial point is that you keep on writing even if you believe you are saying nothing. Word
must follow word, no matter the relevance. Your freewriting might even look like this:

"This paper is supposed to be on the politics of tobacco production but even though I went to all
the lectures and read the book I can't think of what to say and I've felt this way for four minutes
now and I have 11 minutes left and I wonder if I'll keep thinking nothing during every minute but
I'm not sure if it matters that I am babbling and I don't know what else to say about this topic
and it is rainy today and I never noticed the number of cracks in that wall before and those
cracks remind me of the walls in my grandfather's study and he smoked and he farmed and I
wonder why he didn't farm tobacco..."

When you're done with your set number of minutes or have reached your page goal, read back
over the text. Yes, there will be a lot of filler and unusable thoughts but there also will be little
gems, discoveries, and insights. When you find these gems, highlight them or cut and paste
them into your draft or onto an "ideas" sheet so you can use them in your paper. Even if you
don't find any diamonds in there, you will have either quieted some of the noisy chaos or
greased the writing gears so that you can now face the assigned paper topic. top

Break down the topic into levels

Once you have a course assignment in front of you, you might brainstorm:

• the general topic, like "The relationship between tropical fruits and colonial powers"
 • a specific subtopic or required question, like "How did the availability of multiple tropical
fruits influence competition amongst colonial powers trading from the larger Caribbean
islands during the 19th century?"
• a single term or phrase that you sense you're overusing in the paper. For example: If you
see that you've written "increased the competition" about a dozen times in your
"tropical fruits" paper, you could brainstorm variations on the phrase itself or on each of
the main terms: "increased" and "competition." top

Listing/bulleting

In this technique you jot down lists of words or phrases under a particular topic. Try this one by
basing your list either

• on the general topic

• on one or more words from your particular thesis claim, or

• on a word or idea that is the complete opposite of your original word or idea.

For example, if your general assignment is to write about the changes in inventions over time,
and your specific thesis claims that "the 20th century presented a large number of inventions to
advance US society by improving upon the status of 19th-century society," you could brainstorm
two different lists to ensure you are covering the topic thoroughly and that your thesis will be
easy to prove.

The first list might be based on your thesis; you would jot down as many 20thcentury inventions
as you could, as long as you know of their positive effects on society. The second list might be
based on the opposite claim and you would instead jot down inventions that you associate with
a decline in that society's quality. You could do the same two lists for 19th-century inventions
and then compare the evidence from all four lists.

Using multiple lists will help you to gather more perspective on the topic and ensure that, sure
enough, your thesis is solid as a rock, or, …uh oh, your thesis is full of holes and you'd better
alter your claim to one you can prove.

top

3 perspectives
Looking at something from different perspectives helps you see it more completely—or at least
in a completely different way, sort of like laying on the floor makes your desk look very different
to you. To use this strategy, answer the questions for each of the three perspectives, then look
for interesting relationships or mismatches you can explore.
1. Describe it: Describe your subject in detail. What is your topic? What are its
components? What are its interesting and distinguishing features? What are its puzzles?
Distinguish your subject from those that are similar to it. How is your subject unlike
others?

2. Trace it: What is the history of your subject? How has it changed over time? Why? What
are the significant events that have influenced your subject?
3. Map it: What is your subject related to? What is it influenced by? How? What does it
influence? How? Who has a stake in your topic? Why? What fields do you draw on for
the study of your subject? Why? How has your subject been approached by others?
How is their work related to yours?

top

Cubing

Cubing enables you to consider your topic from six different directions; just as a cube is six-
sided, your cubing brainstorming will result in six "sides" or approaches to the topic. Take a
sheet of paper, consider your topic, and respond to these six commands.

1. Describe it.

2. Compare it.
3. Associate it.
4. Analyze it.
5. Apply it.
6. Argue for and against it.

Look over what you've written. Do any of the responses suggest anything new about your
topic? What interactions do you notice among the "sides"? That is, do you see patterns
repeating, or a theme emerging that you could use to approach the topic or draft a thesis?
Does one side seem particularly fruitful in getting your brain moving? Could that one side help
you draft your thesis statement? Use this technique in a way that serves your topic. It should,
at least, give you a broader awareness of the topic's complexities, if not a sharper focus on
what you will do with it. top
Similes
In this technique, complete the following sentence:

____________________ is/was/are/were like _____________________.

In the first blank put one of the terms or concepts your paper centers on. Then try to brainstorm
as many answers as possible for the second blank, writing them down as you come up with
them.

After you have produced a list of options, look over your ideas. What kinds of ideas come

forward? What patterns or associations do you find? top

Clustering/mapping/webbing:

The general idea:

This technique has three (or more) different names, according to how you describe the activity
itself or what the end product looks like. In short, you will write a lot of different terms and
phrases onto a sheet of paper in a random fashion and later go back to link the words together
into a sort of "map" or "web" that forms groups from the separate parts. Allow yourself to start
with chaos. After the chaos subsides, you will be able to create some order out of it.

To really let yourself go in this brainstorming technique, use a large piece of paper or tape two
pieces together. You could also use a blackboard if you are working with a group of people. This
big vertical space allows all members room to "storm" at the same time, but you might have to
copy down the results onto paper later. If you don't have big paper at the moment, don't worry.
You can do this on an 8 ½ by 11 as well.

How to do it:

1. Take your sheet(s) of paper and write your main topic in the center, using a word or two
or three.

2. Moving out from the center and filling in the open space any way you are driven to fill it,
start to write down, fast, as many related concepts or terms as you can associate with
the central topic. Jot them quickly, move into another space, jot some more down,
move to another blank, and just keep moving around and jotting. If you run out of
 similar concepts, jot down opposites, jot down things that are only slightly related, or jot
down your grandpa's name, but try to keep moving and associating. Don't worry about
the (lack of) sense of what you write, for you can chose to keep or toss out these ideas
when the activity is over.
3. Once the storm has subsided and you are faced with a hail of terms and phrases, you
can start to cluster. Circle terms that seem related and then draw a line connecting the
circles. Find some more and circle them and draw more lines to connect them with what
you think is closely related. When you run out of terms that associate, start with
another term. Look for concepts and terms that might relate to that term. Circle them
and then link them with a connecting line. Continue this process until you have found all
the associated terms. Some of the terms might end up uncircled, but these "loners" can
also be useful to you. (Note: You can use different colored pens/pencils/chalk for this
part, if you like. If that's not possible, try to vary the kind of line you use to encircle the
topics; use a wavy line, a straight line, a dashed line, a dotted line, a zigzaggy line, etc. in
order to see what goes with what.)
4. There! When you stand back and survey your work, you should see a set of clusters, or a
big web, or a sort of map: hence the names for this activity. At this point you can start to
form conclusions about how to approach your topic. There are about as many possible
results to this activity as there are stars in the night sky, so what you do from here will
depend on your particular results. Let's take an example or two in order to illustrate
how you might form some logical relationships between the clusters and loners you've
decided to keep. At the end of the day, what you do with the particular "map" or
"cluster set" or "web" that you produce depends on what you need. What does this
map or web tell you to do? Explore an option or two and get your draft going!

top

Relationship between the parts

In this technique, begin by writing the following pairs of terms on opposite margins of one sheet
of paper:
Looking over these four groups of pairs, start to fill in your ideas below each heading. Keep going
down through as many levels as you can. Now, look at the various parts that comprise the parts
of your whole concept. What sorts of conclusions can you draw according to the patterns, or
lack of patterns, that you see?

top

Journalistic questions

In this technique you would use the "big six" questions that journalists rely on to thoroughly
research a story. The six are: Who?, What?, When?, Where?, Why?, and How?. Write each
question word on a sheet of paper, leaving space between them. Then, write out some
sentences or phrases in answer, as they fit your particular topic. You might also answer into a
tape recorder if you'd rather talk out your ideas.

Now look over your batch of responses. Do you see that you have more to say about one or two
of the questions? Or, are your answers for each question pretty well balanced in depth and
content? Was there one question that you had absolutely no answer for? How might this
awareness help you to decide how to frame your thesis claim or to organize your paper? Or,
how might it reveal what you must work on further, doing library research or interviews or
further notetaking?

For example, if your answers reveal that you know a lot more about "where" and "why"
something happened than you know about "what" and "when," how could you use this lack of
balance to direct your research or to shape your paper?
How might you organize your paper so that it emphasizes the known versus the unknown

aspects of evidence in the field of study? What else might you do with your results? top
Thinking outside the box

Even when you are writing within a particular academic discipline, you can take advantage of
your semesters of experience in other courses from other departments. Let's say you are writing
a paper for an English course. You could ask yourself, "Hmmm, if I were writing about this very
same topic in a biology course or using this term in a history course, how might I see or
understand it differently? Are there varying definitions for this concept within, say, philosophy
or physics, that might encourage me to think about this term from a new, richer point of view?"

For example, when discussing "culture" in your English 101, communications, or cultural studies
course, you could incorporate the definition of "culture" that is frequently used in the biological
sciences. Remember those little Petri dishes from your lab experiments in high school? Those
dishes are used to "culture" substances for bacterial growth and analysis, right? How might it
help you write your paper if you thought of "culture" as a medium upon which certain things will
grow, will develop in new ways or will even flourish beyond expectations, but upon which the
growth of other things might be retarded, significantly altered, or stopped altogether? top

Using charts or shapes

If you are more visually inclined, you might create charts, graphs, or tables in lieu of word lists or
phrases as you try to shape or explore an idea. You could use the same phrases or words that
are central to your topic and try different ways to arrange them spatially, say in a graph, on a
grid, or in a table or chart. You might even try the trusty old flow chart. The important thing
here is to get out of the realm of words alone and see how different spatial representations
might help you see the relationships among your ideas. If you can't imagine the shape of a chart
at first, just put down the words on the page and then draw lines between or around them. Or
think of a shape. Do your ideas most easily form a triangle? square? umbrella? Can you put
some ideas in parallel formation? In a line? top

Consider purpose and audience

Think about the parts of communication involved in any writing or speaking event act: purpose
and audience.

What is your purpose? What are you trying to do? What verb captures your intent? Are you
trying to inform? Convince? Describe? Each purpose will lead you to a different set of
information and help you shape material to include and exclude in a draft. Write about why you
are writing this draft in this form.
Who is your audience? Who are you communicating with beyond the grader? What does that
audience need to know? What do they already know? What information does that audience
need first, second, third? Write about who you are writing to and what they need. top

Dictionaries, thesauruses, encyclopedias

When all else fails…this is a tried and true method, loved for centuries by writers of all stripe.
Visit the library reference areas or stop by the Writing Center to browse various dictionaries,
thesauruses (or other guide books and reference texts), encyclopedias or surf their online
counterparts. Sometimes these basic steps are the best ones. It is almost guaranteed that you'll
learn several things you did not know.

If you're looking at a hard copy reference, turn to your most important terms and see what sort
of variety you find in the definitions. The obscure or archaic definition might help you to
appreciate the term's breadth or realize how much its meaning has changed as the language
changed. Could that realization be built into your paper somehow?
If you go to online sources, use their own search functions to find your key terms and see what
suggestions they offer. For example, if you plug "good" into a thesaurus search, you will be given
14 different entries. Whew! If you were analyzing the film Good Will Hunting, imagine how you
could enrich your paper by addressed the six or seven ways that "good" could be interpreted
according to how the scenes, lighting, editing, music, etc., emphasized various aspects of
"good."

An encyclopedia is sometimes a valuable resource if you need to clarify facts, get quick

background, or get a broader context for an event or item. If you are stuck because you have a
vague sense of a seemingly important issue, do a quick check with this reference and you may

be able to move forward with your ideas. top

Closing
Armed with a full quiver of brainstorming techniques and facing sheets of jotted ideas, bulleted
subtopics, or spidery webs relating to your paper, what do you do now?

Take the next step and start to write your first draft, or fill in those gaps you've been
brainstorming about to complete your "almost ready" paper. If you're a fan of outlining, prepare
one that incorporates as much of your brainstorming data as seems logical to you. If you're not a
fan, don't make one. Instead, start to write out some larger chunks (large groups of sentences or
full paragraphs) to expand upon your smaller clusters and phrases. Keep building from there
into larger sections of your paper. You don't have to start at the beginning of the draft. Start
writing the section that comes together most easily. You can always go back to write the
introduction later.

We also have helpful handouts on some of the next steps in your writing process, such as
organization and argument.

Remember, once you've begun the paper, you can stop and try another brainstorming technique
whenever you feel stuck. Keep the energy moving and try several techniques to find what suits
you or the particular project you are working on.