You ?need? to come to THiNKSPOT | THiNKSPOT

Posted by THiNKSPOT on Feb 6, 2012 in Collaboration, Communication, Creativity, Design Thinking, Innovation, Meeting Design, Powers of Place, Productivity | 0 comments

What are ?needs? anyway?

To keep things simple, let?s use a dictionary definition of need: ?a?lack?of?something?wanted?or?deemed?necessary?. To show why everyone needs a place like THiNKSPOT, we have to ask a guy named Maslow.

According to Maslow, humans have all sorts of needs, which are basically a series of deficiencies, or things you might ?lack but deem necessary?. This means we have conflicting notions of ?me-now? and ??the-best-me-I-can-be?, which creates a sense of purpose in meeting those needs: ?to reach our ?full potential?.

In other words, the reason we have these ?needs? is that we have a sense of our full potential being greater than where we are right now. In Maslow?s hierarchy, each category is a certain kind of deficiency, so reaching our potential just involves climbing the ladder. The important thing to remember is that we will always have needs ? they give us our sense of purpose.

Unfortunately, this means that if we spend all our time struggling with our lower needs, we will never feel like we?re meeting our potential. But, once those basic needs are met, we have an actual need to be creative, in the same way we need food when we?re hungry. At the bottom are fundamental needs like physical comfort (having food and shelter), and personal security (feeling comfortable ?being us?), and at the top you basically have ?self-improvement? needs for creative expression, problem solving, self confidence and a sense of achievement.

This is the ideal spot for your team to be in for a brainstorming or strategy session. When all of their basic needs are met, the ?need to be creative? takes over. They have an intrinsic motivation to solve the problem in the most creative way they can. In other words, at this point, your team is seeking to innovate for it?s own sake. The more time we spend in that mindset, the more successful we will be.

Believe it or not, we spend most of our time at the bottom of the hierarchy, just trying to meet basic needs of job and financial security. We?re playing catch-up on work we should have had finished yesterday, and barely staying on top of things. Our ideas are trampled on in meetings. We lose confidence in our abilities, we don?t get a sense of achievement, and we feel like we?re not meeting our potential.

The needs we aren?t meeting create a kind of ?need? vacuum, whereby not meeting our needs intrinsically make them stronger. So if people are inundated with menial work, and don?t get a chance to share their insights, this huge unrecognized need to stretch that creativity develops.

This is why you ?need? THiNKSPOT.?The fact that people are unable to stretch their creative potential, because of preoccupation, or fear of judgment, only strengthens their desire to do so. There is an intrinsic need for people in business to be better able to share their creative insights, and it?s a need that THiNKSPOT meets.

One would think that brainstorming or strategic planning meetings would be the optimal time to meet that need, but it always depends on the hierarchy of needs. Meetings, the supposed ?prime opportunity? to?reach our creative potential, can actively work against that goal, because there is a micro-hierarchy of needs within the meeting environment that is often neglected.

Physical and emotional comfort can be assaulted from the start just by having the meeting in the wrong setting. Cement bunkers do not facilitate creative thinking. Also, power dynamics can influence people?s comfort levels, and harsh responses can affect people?s need for respect, which makes them less likely, and less able, to share their creative insights.

By creating an environment that meets the other needs, it?s like removing any limits from our thinking ? we free up all this space for imagination and creativity. By meeting the needs of physical and emotional comfort, people feel a stronger sense of the personal security that is necessary for people to be willing to participate in the conversation. When everyone is on the same level,?people recognize that they ?share? certain ideas and values, and it creates a sense of ?belonging-to-a-group?. That ?belonging? further works to reinforce individual self-esteem and respect, which creates that sense of ?common purpose? that you need for effective collaboration.

That?s why we have rooms that create a neutral power balance and a sense of equality. This takes their thinking beyond??individual-focused? thinking to actually thinking as a group ? brainstorming, evaluating, improving each other?s ideas, etc. For true collaboration to happen, people have to feel comfortable sharing ideas with each other, which means hierarchies and judgment cannot exist.?That?s where the magic happens. This collaborative environment creates a sort of rock tumbler for ideas. You feed in the raw information and it bounces around between people in the conversation, and the result is a polished gem of an insight.

Going offsite to THiNKSPOT insulates the meeting from the daily grind that keeps us at the bottom of the pyramid, because it has all the tools to eliminate the deficiencies that had been preventing the creative thought. By making an effort to meet people?s primary needs, you prime them for creative thinking, which greatly increases the chances of the meeting generating an innovative and usable idea. It?s that easy. Just by taking the time to meet a few basic needs, collaboration becomes that much more effective, and creativity becomes that much more prevalent.?And that?s why you need to come to THiNKSPOT.

Ryan Jaques, THiNKSPOT?s full-time intern and part-time philosopher, adds his own unique perspective in writing about creative thinking, collaboration, leadership, and innovation.

Source: http://thinkspotburlington.com/?p=4173&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=you-need-to-come-to-thinkspot

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