When we’re looking to find the source of a problem, or generate alternative solutions to innovation problems, we default to “what is the core purpose?”. In this illustration, what is the core purpose of a hotel?

While many of us default to brainstorming as an ideation technique, it’s arguably loaded with bias and limiting in the concepts it generates. Instead, consider Brainwriting.

Challenging Assumptions Team Exercise:

1. Ask your group to list every assumption we typically make about the concept of a garden.

2. Play the video.

3. Break group into small teams and challenge them with generating ideas…

While the internet gives us access to almost limitless information, the decision architecture created by algorithmic nudges leads us to experience fewer and fewer perspectives and sources. To innovate, or to see different perspectives, we have to outflank the architecture of the technology stacks.

Deploying a “yes, and” mindset can be generative and generous to team members as you find new ideas to solve legacy and emerging problems. As much a way of living as a leadership tool, Lucy walks through the attributes of a “yes-ander” and finds a rather familiar stranger to volunteer to try the improv tool for shifting from closed to open thinking.

80% of the ideas we generate don’t have a chance of making it to the shortlist of workable ideas. We need to generate as many options as possible to increase the pool of options for decision-makers to stretch their perspectives and find the optimal solution. If leaders of St Louis had limited the options they’d consider, we’d have a knock-off of Paris’ Arc de Triomphe instead of Saarinen’s Gateway Arch. Go for scale. Embrace the ridiculous. Give yourself options.

Why do we have ideas in the shower? The slight distraction of ambient noise. Thinking directly “at” a problem rarely generates creative solutions. Better to approach the challenge indirectly by providing a degree of distraction, allowing your mind to take alternative approaches to solutions. Whether walking, dancing, or paddleboarding… finding a distracted path to a solution can be more effective than taking a challenge head-on.

When reinventing a product, service, or organization, it’s important to challenge assumptions and embrace ideas from the past as well as present: the latest tech trend isn’t always where the customer need is.

Here, Ace starts afresh thinking what a ride-share (Uber, Lyft) service might look like if it were designed for the traveler of today.