Problem
Business organizations are frequently non-conducive places for collaborative work. Employees have narrow scope and few grounds to step back and look at what they do above the task level. The hierarchy constrains and discourages innovation.
Solution
Be sure you create a free space where participants have multiple opportunities to look beyond their own daily tasks.
· Provide opportunities for participants to look at their challenges, roles, jobs, communication from unusual angles or through different lenses than normal.
· Create an apolitical space where ideas matter, not who proposes them. Divorce ideas from people. Challenge them to be hard on the model, but not on each other.
· Let participants discover the truth—don’t tell them your opinion of it or allow others to do so. Have groups work particular challenges in parallel. Give participants things to read or do and discover what they need to find inside. They will value and hold dear what they have sweated and worked to create.
“Children learn best when they are helped to discover the underlying meaning for themselves.” --Peter Kline, The Everyday Genius