|
Rolf Smith has
spent a career thinking about how people think. Now, he is helping people at some of the world’s most powerful organizations
to generate big ideas and to rethink their whole approach to creativity. "This is not a meeting. This is not a training session.
There are no exercises. It’s all real work." declares Rolf Smith, who is standing before the Face 2005 Team -- 22 chemical
engineers, biologists, and project leaders from Procter & Gamble Co. with a mandate to develop new products that will
redefine the future of cosmetics. "This is an expedition. And there will be no whining. No sniveling. No excuses."
If Smith, 59,
speaks with military authority, that's because he spent 24 years in the U.S. Air Force. His military career has included working
with the Electronic Security Command, becoming an expert in artificial intelligence, and launching the air force's first Office
of Innovation. (Indeed, by the time Smith retired from the air force in 1987, after declining an assignment at the Pentagon,
he was known throughout the ranks as "Colonel Innovation.") But Smith doesn't just talk the military talk. He walks the walk.
Rolf Smith's job
is to help the team begin to think differently -- and to turn what can feel at times like a crushing burden into a thrilling
(if exhausting) intellectual adventure.
Through his Virtual
Thinking Expedition Co., based in Estes Park, Colorado, Smith has guided teams from some of the country's largest organizations
-- IBM, DuPont, Ford, AT&T -- on expeditions driven by the human desire for a sense of adventure in the pursuit of the
next big thing. "Americans instinctively understand the concept of an expedition," says Smith. "The history of the world is
built on one expedition after another. It is part of our makeup and our psyche."
A Thinking Expedition
combines creative problem solving with challenging outdoor experiential learning -- similar to an Outward Bound boot camp
for the mind. "It's an accelerated unlearning process," Smith explains. "The days are intense, full, and demanding. There
are no scheduled meals, no scheduled breaks. We deliberately design the expedition to push people out of their 'stupid zone'
-- a place of mental and physical normalcy -- so that they can start to think differently, explore what they don't know, and
discover answers to mission-critical problems."
p.25 The brain is a wonderful thing. It starts
having ideas as soon as you get up in the morning and doesn't stop until you get to work - Robert Frost
p.95 Eighty percent of new ideas to
improve things don't get implemented because they are shot down by nonpositive thinking or negative thinking. They
are "NIPped" in the bud. Reverse your thinking and try the PIN approach instead to make sure ideas get a chance to develop.
P- first find something positive about a new idea. I - next find something interesting about it. N - last, look for
the negatives.
p.97 The Creative Problem Solving (CPS) model:
1. Understanding the Problem 2. Generating Ideas 3. Planning for Action
p.118 The fear of not getting it right
at every stage and all the time is probably the biggest block there is to new ideas - Thinking for Dummies
|
