It’s Valentine’s Day. Let’s talk about giving your organization the gift of new blood.
New blood means new energy, new ideas. And what company couldn’t benefit from fresh ideas? Fresh ideas for your company and maybe more importantly, fresh ideas for your clients.
New blood has historically meant new people. But new people means discontinuity, inexperience, unproven factors and, well, losing older blood to make room for the new.
If you’re on the old blood side of this equation, that’s not a very exciting prospect. If you’re on the management side of the equation there are alternatives to bringing fresh thinking to the party that don’t involve discontinuity and other disruption.
Give your people a transfusion.
One way is with musical office chairs. Switch experienced people around to give them new scenery while giving their old positions new blood, all without a major corporate blood letting.
There’s this old school point of view that clients want continuity. Yeah, I suppose, some do. But how does that explain why you’re so scared of getting fired? More than continuity, clients want fresh thinking. New blood can’t help but think fresh. And, beyond keeping clients happy, it reenergizes people (even if some do grumble a little at first). And energized, motivated people are the best way to keep clients happy long term.
New ideas are at the heart of most all companies’ undertakings these days. According to a recently conducted B&A poll, with business experience comes attachment to old ways of doing things and therefore more stale thinking and less openness to new ideas.
So, beyond musical office chairs, it’s easier than you might think for experienced people to separate themselves from how things have been done in order to maintain a fresh perspective and bring genuinely new ideas to the group’s efforts.
Some people are actually able to accumulate experience within a category and yet still be able to see things objectively in order to bring new thinking when necessary. These people, however, are extremely rare.
Familiarity breed staleness.
For most people in business their degree of experience tracks with their attachment to old concepts, so they have great difficulty coming up with new ideas or even entertaining new ideas brought to them by other people or new realities.
As a creative thinking coach I have a unique perspective into the various companies I serve. These companies usually bring me and my associates in for a simple reason. Their people need to be better at maintaining a fresh perspective. I must tell you that most people in the corporate environment, whether large companies or small, whether so-called traditional industries or so-called progressive fields, once they gain experience in a category it becomes almost impossible to detach themselves from what they know to be in a position to find truly fresh ideas.
In a stagnant category attachment is not so much of a handicap. In a dynamically changing category (sound familiar?) attachment is a huge anchor that holds even the brightest and most experienced people back. In fact, that experience is often the reason for the attachment.
Did someone say Lobotomy?
The way Before & After helps experienced people maintain fresh perspective is with our creative thinking workshop The Do-it-yourself Lobotomy. This program, proven with over a quarter of a million people globally, in some of the most successful companies in the world, helps people let go of what they know - Lobotomize, as we say - long enough to entertain a new idea. Basically, when we “know,” well, we know, but when we don’t know, we wonder. And that’s when wonderful ideas emerge.
So this Valentines Day you can give your organization the gift of fresh blood by firing everyone (a gift?), by putting experienced people in new jobs (gulp!), or by helping your people maintain fresh perspectives with a nice quick Lobotomy.
The Do-it-yourself Lobotomy. The gift you give your people so they can keep giving your company the gift of fresh thinking.
