6 minute read
Five “F” Factors
from TM Issue 15
by Mary Hester
Push yourself to think in new ways, and who knows how far you’ll go.
Irecently placed this on my Thinking Caps Facebook page: “What’s a must have word in your Dictionary of Life?”
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Reader Warwick kicked off with oxygen; Wendy followed with resilience, and Angeria added wait. I like them all: a necessity, a character trait, and a virtue.
To the list I then added Ideation – the formation of ideas and concepts. As beings, we are ideational. As teachers and learners, how, what, when and why we ideate is a wonder and can make the difference between leading quality lives or struggling in quicksand.
Each week for the past seven years I scratch my itch of ideation and design a Thinking Caps topic for radio. On the ABC in Australia, we called it Thinking Caps Brave Souls and invited brave souls to simply call in and we’d give them a topic to chat about. These days Thinking Caps is on 3AW Melbourne and we call it Reverse Talkback.
In regular talkback radio you have a topic and listeners call in because they have a thought or opinion based on the topic. In Reverse Talkback, folk call in and then we give them the topic. The notion is that everyone can think on their feet (or in their mouths) and good stories, great ideas and nifty humour will emerge. And it does.
Inventing a weekly theme is a good creativity. In the Harvard University publication The Innovator’s DNA, the theme of discovery is outlined as a necessity for innovation. I combined the discovery elements into an acronym:- “AQ1.”
The A is association. Innovation and creativity rely on recombining things or mixing two, three, four or more previously unlinked concepts together. Albert Einstein once famously said, “thinking for me is combinatory play.” The Q is questioning. Steven Jobs once asked “why do computers need a fan?” This core question led to the Apple, a quieter, smaller, more personal, computer.
The 1 represents ONE, which is an acronym for Observation, Networking and Experimenting. The design company IDEO have a mantra that says “Innovation begins with an eye” meaning innovative ideas emerge from what we notice. Educator Maria Montessori once said “that to be a good teacher you need to love learning, love children and be observant.”
The Networking aspect of ideation isn’t simply going to lots of parties with business cards in hand. It refers more to extending your curiosity by stepping into other fi elds of play. Widening your horizon by reading in areas you normally wouldn’t read, having conversations with folk in diverse industries (or who have diverse hobbies) and stretching beyond your own knowledge areas.
The Experimenting aspect is mucking about with some cardboard, paper, pens, glue, bits of string and making prototypes, building models, creating possibilities while you chat with your building buddies, muse possibilities and allow your physical experimenting to extend your mental.
One week on the radio, I associated the concept of cities with the sixth letter of the alphabet and came up with “Five F Factors” for cities.
The Fun Factor
The Friendly Factor
The Feast Factor
The Fear Factor
The Frankenstein Factor
Of course, you could also associate the Fs with your work place, your community, family and school.
The Fun Factor
On a scale of 0 to 5, what score would you give your place as a fun place to work? Why? How does the fun shape up? Is the fun within the work or after work? Is it fun because of the folk you work with or are other factors involved? What do you do to help create the fun? Is fun important as a motivator?
Sociologist Richard Florida, who wrote The Creative Class, tells us that a good pay cheque (the dollar) may attract a talented person to come to an organisation but it won’t keep them there. What will keep a talented worker is a fun environment where they work with other good people on interesting projects.
Researcher Jeffrey Pfeffer indicates that sustainable organisations’ (schools) “human factor” is responsible for good productivity and innovation. The Human Factor hugs the Fun Factor.
The Friendly Factor
This F may be essential to the F of Fun. Richard Florida writes that creative environments are tolerant of diversity and embrace some of the oddity of what makes up the human tapestry.
When I fi rst went out teaching, my principal, Glynn Watkins, would say “there is a mysterious thing in a school and classroom called a climate. You feel the climate that creates good learning environments.” Even though we had been told at teachers’ college to “not smile till Easter,” Glynn suggested good teaching required strong values, wellestablished boundaries and smiling!
How is your environment: Friendly, tolerant and welcoming of people and ideas?
The Feast Factor
For many years I ran leadership development programs, including the induction program for new partners and principals, at the international accounting fi rm Ernst & Young. In these programs we would often get some of the key senior folk in E&Y (what they referred to as “rainmakers”) to sit in small groups with the new partners/ principals and chat. The rainmakers would answer questions, reveal their thoughts, and suggest possibilities.
In one such program, a rainmaker (so BIG they called him a storm) was asked “what’s the most important thing you have learned in your years with E&Y?” He answered “to break bread with folk.”
This chap was of a similar heritage to me with his family song line travelling back to the north of Italy. To him it was a great honour to sit with folks over a long meal, sip on wine, converse, laugh and then fi nish with a stove-brewed coffee.
How do you feast at your place?
The Frankenstein Factor
In Mary Shelley’s 19th-century novel The Modern Prometheus (now titled Frankenstein) she wrote of Victor Frankenstein and his failed artifi cial life experiments creating a “monster.”
What aspects of your place have the potential to create monsters? For Melbourne, it might be how it handles traffi c congestion now and into the future. For an organisation, it might be some new paid incentive scheme that actually may create the opposite of what it intends. (Often individual rewards in team environments de-motivate folks.) For a school, it may be some lack of a thorough communication system that undoes a lot of good work. For an Iron Ore Mine it might be the lack of refreshing safety procedures that leads to complacency and injury or death.
Smart thinking incorporates looking at possibilities of ideas before they are put into thorough action. Where could this go wrong? What might stuff up? What Frankenstein Factors may emerge? By thinking them through ahead of time, you can often come up with ideas and actions that limit the risks and make your idea and action better from the start.
So, consider your Fs, form your ideas well, facilitate your actions well, and may your creativity, smarts and wisdom be in good flow.
The Fear Factor
Every environment has potential fear factors. If you are a visitor driving through Melbourne you may panic at what to do when turning right across the famous Tramlines of Melbourne. Locals know it as The Hook Turn. If you have no idea what a Hook turn looks like, it may be a Fear Factor.
My personal Fear Factor for Melbourne is going out without carrying a jacket and an umbrella. Being Western Australian born and bred, I am still unused to four seasons in every hour. What fears are in your folk? What elements of your environment are creating barriers to smart sharing? What fears are stifling creativity and learning?
