Hack your Team's Creativity - #TXNS
The Texas Nonprofit Summit (#TXNS) is here again! Here are the tips and best practices from the sessions I attended.
First up is Francisco A. Gónima, Owner & Principal, Francisco Gónima Executive Coaching & Strategy, with his session - Hack Your Team’s Creativity: Breaking Out of the Performance Rut
Why I picked This Session
The nonprofit I work for is still fairly small staff-wise, especially when you consider our service area and annual budget. That means we all have to be super-creative, constantly thinking up new programs and ways to engage our clients, donors, prospective clients, and partners. From the office manager to the dev team, we are all working to rack our brains and come up with creative solutions. With nearly 3 years under my belt, sometimes I feel like all of my good ideas are had.
Session Summary
Does it ever feel like you and your team have run out of ideas? It's an all too common dilemma- teams that get so sucked in by the whirlwind of routine activity and operations that they end up with tunnel vision and stale ideas. Not only does this stifle innovation and adaptation when new opportunities and problems present, it also contributes to decreased morale and employee turnover. This fun and interactive session will show you how incorporating an intentional commitment to exposing yourself and those you work with to new ideas from seemingly unrelated fields translates into enhanced problem-solving, unexpected program breakthroughs, improved morale and stronger team relationships. Not only will you leave with an understanding for how to think outside the box, you'll have an action plan to break out of it!
Why I liked this Session
This entire session was driven not by the moderator, but instead the fabulous ladies I was grouped with. Perhaps I was lucky to sit in the back with some terrific ladies. From reps from Greenlights for Nonprofit Success, to Military Child Education Coalition, to the great Americorps Vistas in my circle, I thought we had great ideas. It was also a wonderful break to see creative people trying to innovate and solve
What I learned
- Creativity isn't the big idea or breakthrough, it is accessing conditions to make intuitive leaps possible
- Creativity gives rise to good ideas
- You need novelty, variety, and change to jailbreak your brain and provoke neuroplasticity
- Make creativity a default setting in your life