How do we formally generate genuinely new and original ideas in response to our clients’ requests? It’s the process known as Ideation that we apply whether consciously aware of it or not. Ideation (outside the psychiatric definition) is “the thought process where an individual or a team develops an abundance of ideas to solve a problem,” says Idris Mootee, CEO, Idea Couture. Brainstorming is one familiar divergent thinking strategy for Ideation through a group sharing as many ideas as possible, freely without judgment, and from these ideas select one for further development; think Post-it Notes.
Ideation therefore is what the foodservice consulting business is all about and what our clients expect from their engagement with the consulting team. They expect the team to apply their combined experience to resolve the issues that they have engaged the consultant to deliver; not to rely on plugging in the problem into a Midjourney or Dalle3 AI program and “Hey presto!” out pop some solutions. They could do that for themselves.
Harnessing the five Cs
If the practice is pitching their combined experience, it then assumes the development of a team approach to the initial stages of projects or assignments, so what makes an effective team. Attributes that form a successful and engaged team are variously defined (refer to Tannenbaum & Salas: 2020). They are often defined by a range of attributes or tenets (4 four Ps; five Ps etc) but the one that engages me most comes from ‘True Sport’ – the five Cs: Communicate, Camaraderie, Commitment, Confidence, and Coachability.
Mentoring and coaching are effective personal and professional development tools and essential to the success of both the individual and the team in ideation. But while mentoring is designed to provide, generally one on one, individual guidance on long term career development, coaching is a structured relationship to help an individual or a group, in this case a team, to achieve short term goals by applying targeted assistance to accelerate progress to a specific outcome; in sport: to win.
In business, team performance coaching is used to drive continuous improvement through goal setting, feedback and motivation. In the case of a foodservice consulting team, that goal is to respond to the client brief by delivering an innovative outcome. Which leads us back to ideation and brainstorming.
In both cases the approach is to generate as many ideas as possible and the to select from them the one that best responds to the brief and develop that. But what if during the formal process of generating and recording (on Post-it Notes) the list of ideas the ideas, in fact during the process locks out possibilities to harness the energy flowing in the team that flows on to even more ideas.
Improvise the project brief outcome
This is where the technique known as improv comes in. Improve is a performance art form made famous by the hit comedy series – Whose Line Is It Anyway in which unrehearsed 3–4-minute scenes are created on the spot by participants, using audience suggestions, to feed off each other.
In this case the team becomes and ensemble, it is never about one member standing out. In improv, the team; ensemble; are coached to take the other 4Cs, Communicate, Camaraderie, Commitment and Confidence to improvise the project brief outcome by continuously playing off each other’s previously expressed thoughts. To achieve this, ensemble members must be:
Brave and unafraid: in responding; being spontaneous and taking risks without worrying about if it’s right or wrong.
Never think “no” or “but”: in response to the previous line, rather follow on with “Yes, and…” . This has to be practiced for Improv to work against a natural critical instinct.
Team vs. ensemble: a team is made up of individuals; the ensemble is a single unit in which improvisors learn to perform together as a unit and learn to support the others and make them look good.
Safe space: in Improv, spontaneity may result in improvisers feeling vulnerable through spontaneous responses. The ensemble must be free of judgements and biases and so it requires a lot of empathy from and towards each other to ensures safe place.
Playfulness: Improv lets the ideas flow through by playful gamifying to add humour and by not taking each other or the process too seriously. Engaging in a play on words and even emotions, allows ideas to flow.
Now to applying improv to consulting innovation
For the consultant or designer using improv to engage with the brief will require the individuals of the team to put aside their individuality and practice as a cast, or as an ensemble. The ensemble is given a scenario (brief) to instinctively respond to with an opening idea.
Rather than setting it down and moving on to the next idea, the story contained in the opening idea moves forward with an instinctive response from a cast member. Improv therefore requires a oach as a director with a light touch to ensure the goals are initially set, but most importantly to ensure the momentum is kept going and playfulness embraced to encourage creativity, reduce stress and foster a positive environment.
The office meeting room has now become a stage where the ensemble of players can act out the idea, with each reacting and responding to the flow; to which the Director may have to intervene to keep on track but in doing so not interrupt the overall enthusiasm or playfulness. During the playing out of the “performance”, a recorder (script writer) will be noting the progress of the ideas and at some point, the “production” will have achieved the goal of an original idea; and done so far more enjoyably than instructing an AI algorithm.
The potential benefits of applying the improv approach go far beyond a process of idea generation. It can also be very effective in the development of individual leadership skills as well as a useful exercise in the bonding of the team far more so than attending an event together: and then again, much more fun than on a screen reacting to an AI algorithm.
Further details:
I started my improv journey using following sources, and recommend following them up:
- Ankur Sardana, design and research leader, improv coach
- Priyanka Shinda, Silicon Valley leadership coach
Tim Smallwood FFCSI
