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Boost your staff's creativity
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July 19, 2000: 4:34 p.m. ET
Ever thought Play-Doh could be useful at a company meeting? Well, it works
By Jane Applegate
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Want to encourage creative thinking around your business? Try passing out Play-Doh at your next brainstorming session, and ask employees to make a shape representing your company.
"It's not about the Play-Doh or the toy itself, it's about what you do when you engage people in that kind of playful behavior," says Grace McGartland, president of Thunderbolt Thinking Inc., a consulting, coaching and research firm based in Murrysville, Pa. Making shapes with clay, drawing with crayons, and dressing like the Lone Ranger are all exercises McGartland uses to shake up traditional ways of thinking.
Companies hire creativity consultants like McGartland when they are ready for big changes.
"We needed a new company mission statement, and we needed to break down some barriers so top executives and lower level employees could be on the same platform," said Howison Schroeder, vice president of Schroeder Industries, a holding company with 160 employees based in Pittsburgh.
Zany hats to bridge the distance
McGartland made some employees wear zany hats with yellow lightning bolts sticking out as a way of removing the distance between management and employees.
"Everybody is going to do something stupid or say something silly when you're trying to generate creativity," said Schroeder. "The funny hats put us all on a common level."
McGartland, who conducted an intensive one-and-a-half day seminar for the firm, had employees participate in a contest to help draft the company's mission statement.
"By the time Grace came in to work with us, we already had the creative responses ready -- it was just a matter of distilling our ideas and figuring out what our company values really are," said Schroeder.
According to McGartland, creativity is often blocked because we've been trained to come up with one right answer.
"Bosses want the 'answer' by Monday," said McGartland, adding that most people spend their time at work in a mindless state. She calls her company "Thunderbolt Thinking Inc." to get people thinking about how they think.
Drawing a vision of the future
To stimulate "thunderbolt" thinking, McGartland asks her clients to draw a picture of how they see the company's future. Then, she posts the drawings, and asks the group to look for similarities among the pictures. Then, she asks the artists to explain their vision.
"I don't talk about the differences, because what I'm trying to create is a shared vision," said McGartland. "I try to instigate conversation about what the company's values look like as images."
 Part of unblocking creative thinking requires eliminating any negative attitudes, said McGartland, who recommends tossing Styrofoam fish at negative individuals during a meeting.
"It works really well -- now each of our general managers have adopted fish for our own meetings," said John Bitzer, president of Abarta Inc., a holding company based in Pittsburgh.
Although Bitzer didn't participate in any of the creativity boot camps McGartland conducted, he did dress up as a backwoodsman in the snow in a video parody of the low-budget thriller, the "Blair Witch Project."
"We needed something to break the ice," said Bitzer. "I did it so people would realize that this should be fun and interesting; we weren't going to use our conventional thinking with this."
Bitzer, who will spend about $75,000 with McGartland's firm, says he hasn't seen results yet, but his employees raved about McGartland's workshop. Anyone looking for something a little less expensive can take a two-day workshop with McGartland and her team -- ranging between $15,000 to $20,000.
If you can't afford McGartland's consulting services, you can get some good ideas from her new book: "Thunderbolt Thinking: Electrifying Ideas for Building an Innovative Workplace." (Bard Press). Thunderbolt thinking toys can be purchased on her company's Web site.
McGartland admits she's had a few company executives scoff at her creative ideas, but says those companies probably aren't interested in her services, anyway.
"I've learned over the years that you have to meet people where they're at," said McGartland. "If they're not willing to try something a little absurd, then we find that out soon enough."
-- Reporting by Julie Neal
(Jane Applegate, a syndicated columnist and author of 201 Great Ideas for Your Small Business, covers small business for CNNfn. "Succeeding in Small Business" appears on CNNfn.com on Wednesdays.)
COPYRIGHT 2000 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC. 
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