The positive benefits of negative lists
I've just been listening to a fantastic BBC 'In Business' podcast interview with Tim Smit of the Eden Project.
If you have even a passing interest in how successful organisations become successful, you should listen to this. And read this article for a quick overview of some of the great ideas about how to build and manage an effective working environment for groups of people.
Why is this relevant to ThinkFold? Well, I guess a few reasons. Firstly, I think people who are interested in ThinkFold are the type of people who are open to ideas, like 'thinking about thinking' and would be interested in the broader issues around working effectively within groups.
Secondly, at the end of the podcast, I heard a really powerful idea - the Eden team occasionally spend time listing 10 things that they could do, right now, to destroy the company!
Of course, as soon as you take the time to reflect on the list you create, it becomes clear that the organisation is already doing at least 5 of those things, and so it's obvious what should change. But the act of creating and sharing the list also creates a powerful opportunity to generate a conversation around those issues, and what could be done to prevent or fix stuff.
This 'negative list' is a brainstorming technique outlined by Edward De Bono (I first heard about it when reading PeopleWare). It turns out it's pretty easy, if you're stuck trying to figure out what to do, to' go negative', and list all the things you shouldn't do.
It's a brilliant way to use ThinkFold - kick a simple 'negative list' off in an outline, share it with your team, maybe during a Skype call, triggering much debate, which should be captured in the outline itself.
Unlike a Word doc, wiki page, or mindmap, where the different ideas and conversations are in one big flat document, the structure and 'foldability' of an outline prevents people from becoming overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of ideas produced, enabling people to focus on a single idea at a time, and the ensuing conversation as it emerged.
So, if you're stuck, or need to challenge conventional thinking, create and share a 'negative outline' with your team and see how they react.