Gary Beck says that igniting imagination comes from rubbing minds together. With all of his leadership and marketing experience (as former President of FCB Database Marketing Group and former Executive Director of Database and Infrastructure for vehicle sales and services marketing at General Motors), he ought to know.
Naturally, questions are an integral part of bringing people (and minds) together. At your next strategic planning session, consider starting with personal accumulation: asking each group member to write down all the potential solutions that they can think of to a particular question. When pens come to a rest, ask group members to share one idea, then proceed in order around the room until all potential solutions have been voiced. In doing so, everyone will get heard, and group members will listen closely so that they don't repeat an idea.
Be sure to use open-ended questions that don't point responders to your opinions or cut off potentially creative avenues.
Here are some questions you might ask:
- What is most important to the customer?
- What are clearly differentiable aspects of the product that we are trying to sell to the customer?
- How do we best communicate this particular aspect to our target customer?
- Who is our target customer?
Not all ideas will be usable, of course, or worthy of extended discussion, but don't dismiss anything initially. The biggest impediment to creativity is having critics or skeptics in the room. The group will take its cues from you, the leader/moderator. Make it clear up front that all ideas are welcome—no matter how hare-brained or obvious or radical they may first appear. Those ideas may be the ones most easily missed—and perhaps most indispensable.
