Some of you must be old enough to remember those cheesy Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup commercials: “Hey you got peanut butter on my chocolate! You got chocolate in my peanut butter!”
Yes, the serendipitous
collision (and who walks down the street eating peanut butter, by the way?) created “two great tastes that go great together” and serves as a reminder that innovative ideas are often born when worlds unexpectedly collide.
A team of management researchers intentionally made worlds collide when they recruited hundreds of tradespeople and inline skaters and asked them all
to give ideas about how to get employees in other fields to wear safety gear, gear which many employees often spurned because they said it was too uncomfortable.
What they found is that nearly everyone was far better at coming up with redesign suggestions for equipment that was not directly in their field!
This is yet another great reminder that when we ask people outside our area of expertise they very often come up with fresh insights and innovative ideas because they don’t have any baggage or preconceived notions about how things are “supposed” to work.
So, consider bringing outside ringers into your
brainstorming meetings. And don’t be afraid to ask your customers, family members, children, brand new employees, or people from completely different worlds for ideas.
Mike's Fun at Work Tip
Tomorrow, June 19, is Recess at Work Day! It's your annual reminder to inject a little playful fun into your workplace and your chance to hold a paper airplane flying contest, a silent disco, an enthusiastic round of rock, paper, scissors, a game of Simon Says, or an impromptu "Stupid Human
Tricks" contest!
Quote of the Week
“When you slip on a banana peel people laugh at you. But when you tell people you slipped on a banana peel, it's your laugh.”
Nora Ephron
Funny Business
As seen on a school sign just in the time for the start of the summer season:
If you are serious about upping your leadership legacy and/or creating the kind of collaborative, innovative, humane, and fun
workplace culture that create a truly want to kind of workplace, then this book is for you AND your team! Order your Kindle, hard copy, or audio version here!
"In what is probably his best work to date, Michael Kerr provides a blueprint for tomorrow’s best leaders that will bring any organization new levels of success. This should be required reading in every post-secondary business program."
