How to Create Blue Ocean Breakthroughs in your Red Ocean

From www.blueoceanstrategy.com:

As W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne demonstrated in their seminal article “Blue Ocean Strategy” (2004, Harvard Business Review), most blue ocean breakthroughs are invented inside of existing red ocean markets.

When looking at Kim and Mauborgne’s examples in hindsight, the breakthroughs seem obvious. However, when we look at our own red oceans, blue ocean opportunities are anything but obvious. If they were, we would already have had them.

For those of us who haven’t yet had a blue ocean breakthrough, what can we do to increase the probability that we will have them?

One thing is for sure: whatever we have done so far hasn’t worked to generate them. Trying harder doing what we have already tried in the past definitely won’t work. In fact, in our experience and research, “trying harder” simply freezes the brain’s creativity even more.

We already know there is a method for generating new solution ideas for existing challenges: the Bioclaris Method®. But how do we apply this method to our own “red oceans”? Especially since, when we look at our own red oceans, the challenge for creating blue ocean breakthroughs is unclear?

The answer is deceptively simple. Begin with asking the basic question: “What is our red ocean?” Describe what it looks like to you. By the way, “you” can include everyone in your company who has a perspective on your red ocean. Follow the Bioclaris® guidelines for describing “how you think about” something (Step 2 in the Bioclaris® Method).

Once you have done this,  you may realize you have more than one red ocean. Define each independently, and then choose one to start with. Then, create the following challenge statement:

How can we improve upon what we are doing best and worse in this red ocean?

Now, apply the Bioclaris® Method to this challenge statement. Fresh ideas that open up a new blue ocean for you have a good chance of emerging. Note that it’s not productive for a challenge statement to read: “What is the blue ocean in this red ocean?” We want to leverage the existing mental pathways of multiple persons to generate new connections, some of which could be new “blue ocean ideas.” There are no existing pathways for “what is the blue ocean,” therefore, there is no chance of creating fresh ideas within this question.

Good luck with your blue ocean quests and let us know if you have any questions or any feedback about your efforts. Hiring a Bioclaris consultant is a great way to kick start this initiative!

Getting a Client in the Best Possible Shape for a Teambuilding Off-Site Event

Yesterday, while meeting with a client, he described to me how he was looking forward to a weeklong “off-site” event that he has planned for his team. The off-site will piggyback onto a tradeshow event happening in three weeks, and after his team attends the tradeshow, his hope is to spend the off-site retreat brainstorming based on ideas they pick up.

He has already purchased a book that he plans to distribute to each person prior to the off-site. He wants to assemble the ideas they glean from the brainstorm into a strategy for the upcoming year. “People will be excited and I want to get all the ideas on the table.” They’ll use the stimulus from the tradeshow to create a vision, get their ideas down on paper, and then create a tangible plan to move forward. And hopefully, have some fun in the process.

I asked my client what his underlying objective is, and he said it’s to “create more of a team atmosphere within the group.” Not one to let a phrase like “team atmosphere”  pass without learning more, my probing turned up a current situation where an uncooperative spirit exists between a couple of the team members. The desire of the manager is to mend fences and get them working together again.

The desire to convene a group meeting is an excellent objective. The question lingering in my mind is: How do we get the most from the collective wisdom of these folks?

This client brought in Bioclaris for coaching on how to make this upcoming off-site most effective.  My first bit of coaching on this subject was to ask each employee for a book report of the book my client distributed. I asked them to complete the book report two weeks prior to the offsite. I have seen this strategy work in the past; it is an effective way of getting everyone on the same page, thinking in a way that will gel the team. Next, and more challenging, is the goal of changing the team dynamic. This is a delicate operation, and I know from my experience leading management teams that rifts can’t usually be repaired long-term by addressing issues publically or by decree.

I have spoken before about how many brainstorming sessions tend to center on specific, limited objectives such as “Let’s meet to solve problem Y, and by the way we expect to solve it within this certain time-frame.” Little effort is expended on the real challenge—in this case, team building. Too often, the situation being addressed is not the real or underlying situation that requires attention.

In a typical brainstorming meeting, participants tend to rely on their “First Person” default thinking modes.

Sticking to this traditional way of brainstorming means that the participants are using the same perspective they have always used to approach the problem. Therefore, they are very unlikely to uncover new ideas, instead sticking with ideas they deem “safe.” This can result in the contributors wanting to express and promote their own ideas only, with little opportunity for the meeting participants to develop new perspectives.

With the Bioclaris approach, on the other hand, we shift conversations to “Third Person” and away from the default mode of “First Person.” Drawing on our neuroscience-based insights, we optimize the probability that every participant will contribute and generate new ideas.

A key to success is using “how each of us thinks about the challenge” as a powerful stimulus to generate new ideas by guiding participants to function in Third Person mode.  We enable each participant to capture ideas as they emerge after this stimulus, versus trying to generate ideas “on demand” at a specific time or within a limited timeframe.

Using the Bioclaris approach, it is impossible for one person to dominate a meeting and necessary for everyone to be heard and participate fully and equally. Our method makes this easy for all participants. What my Bioclaris partner Bob Lanier and I find intriguing about facilitating these meetings is when we overhear conversations like “Gee, I never knew how you felt about that,” or “It’s refreshing to learn how you think about this issue. In many ways, we have a similar approach.”

These are the gut feelings and the discovery outcomes that produce strong teams.

Truly understanding how other people approach a problem and what motivates them builds camaraderie. It can strengthen a team in far more meaningful ways than playing “teambuilding” games. Instead, we learn useful information that we can put to use immediately just by being present in the moment for the other participants and by truly listening to the others’ perspectives.

Management researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have found that collaborative groups who converse easily with equal participation are more efficient at completing sets of given tasks — and produce better results — than groups dominated by individuals.

The verdict is in: group collaboration beats individual intelligence. Natural teambuilding is a benefit and an outcome that Bob and I have come to expect when handling offsite meetings.

Got questions?  Contact us today.
Michael Whatmore

Persistent Unsatisfactory Conditions Are Actually Solvable Problems

Human behaviors fascinate me. Earlier this morning I attending a business meeting.

Each person was asked to speak about their position on a particular matter using a theme presented by the leader. The theme for the meeting had been a surprise, and it concerned a dilemma that the group is currently facing. The leader opened the meeting with the directive “Let’s see if we can keep our conversations within this theme.”

The result, of course, was to restrict the ability of the participant communications. This approach not only shrinks the participants’ thought processes, it severely narrows the scope of thinking and any opportunities to find good solutions to the problem at hand. Any preparation that the participants may have made prior to the meeting ends up being curbed. More specifically, what might have been possible in terms of fixing the problem is now severely negated by the restrictions placed on the meeting by the leader.

The way I experienced this situation, it appeared that the leader had good intentions, but fell short of giving positive direction. She had spent considerable time thinking about the situation and had come to some conclusions before the meeting even started. In her haste to close the issue, not one fresh idea was sought from the group. So much for engaging group dynamics in solving the dilemma. It seemed as though her motivation to get the group together was not to garner fresh perspectives but to get their agreement on a decision that had already been made.

Self-talk is a powerful motivator for us.

We tend sometimes to think things like:

  • This situation is too complicated to change.
  • So many different groups in our company are involved, and there is no way we can get everyone to align on how to resolve this problem
  • It’s not a good situation, but it’s a result of our culture/management style and therefore there is nothing we can do.

Getting executives to listen to this sort of self-talk—from their own mouths as well as from others—represents a challenge when it comes to engaging with others. From Bioclaris’s perspective, every challenge is solvable. The greatest challenge of all is often just learning to truly listen. Opening the communications pipeline and hearing how others think about a situation is the key.

This perspective has been proven time and again when we apply the Bioclaris Method to our client work—especially with challenges that appear to our clients as so persistent that they become intractable, things that simply feel like a “fact of life.” In our work with management groups, we have found nothing that can’t be solved  with a more open approach to meetings. Using the Bioclaris Method of solving problems works every time!

What would you like to have happen in your company? Contact us today for a free consultation.

Third Person Listening

Understanding the underlying personal motivations of the people we work with can be compelling for team development.

But unfortunately, all too often, we work with people in a department—often even on the same projects—but are rarely afforded the opportunity to understand how our co-workers think.

My partner Bob Lanier and I have recognized one offshoot that occurs when a group working together can learn to practice “Third Person Listening” in order to discover how their co-workers tick. When this happens, groups learn to listen to each other clearly for the first time. At Bioclaris, we are always impressed with how people who have worked together, often for years, finally begin to listen to each other and be present in the moment during conversations. Time and again we’ve witnessed similar outcomes, where people come together as a solid team after applying the Bioclaris Method.

The cooperation that begins flowing as a result of “third person listening” can lead a company to overcome some of their most confounding challenges. When co-workers and leaders learn to communicate and hear how others think for the first time, it makes a huge difference—especially when it comes to building stronger teams.

We frequently see demonstrations of teamwork when people finally put aside their personal biases and begin absorbing the differences that exist between their current outlook and that of their coworkers.

The premise of Third Person Listening is simple: whatever my initial reaction to a situation, there is probably another view worth understanding and weighing. But, I have to know how to look for it. Just learning how to recognize and understand the other person’s perspective helps tremendously. Now, this doesn’t mean that I will always agree with the other person’s point of view, but it allows for my own view to be incorporated into a greater picture of how other people think.

In doing our work with clients, Bob and I often overhear conversations like, “I never knew how you felt about our situation,” or “It’s refreshing to learn your thinking on this issue.” These gut-reactions to Third Person Listening produce strong teams. Truly understanding how the other person approaches a problem and what motivates them builds camaraderie and strengthens a work-unit in far more meaningful ways than simply playing team-building games ever could.

Under these evolved circumstances, we learn useful information that we can put to use immediately just by being present in the moment and truly listening to the other person’s perspective!

Questions? Contact us today.

How Bioclaris Brings Clarity of Thought to Engineering Problems

In 2010, Steve (the engineering manager of a facility in San Diego) was perplexed by a very difficult problem.

The engineers on his team had made nine failed attempts over eleven months to solve a particular problem: attempting to increase the yield for an important product. Sometimes they even complained about waking up in the middle of the night grappling for a solution. They were stumped.

The engineering team was in a quandary and regaining a competitive advantage was vital for company survival. Nine failed attempts, and Steve knew they were stuck. Variations on old solutions they had already tried – simply added to the failure. No fresh new fresh ideas were surfacing. Feeling stymied and limited by their creativity, their prospects were really miserable and the competitiveness of their company (or lack of) was on the line.

Desperate for a better outcome, Steve contacted Bioclaris, and after only a few hours of working together, we helped them restructure how they defined this challenge. In just one group meeting, we showed them how to easily generate new ideas.

Within a week of the Bioclaris intervention, the engineering team successfully solved their manufacturing problem after eleven months of failure. The result of overcoming this challenge has since netted several hundreds of thousands in savings. Moreover, their product is now far more competitive in the marketplace than they could have imagined.

Two years have passed, and Steve has taken steps to embed the Bioclaris® Method into all engineering problem-solving meetings, including ones that incorporate the standard DOE and Fishbone methodologies. Steve’s actions, utilizing Bioclaris technology, have led his team to be responsible for generating millions in annual savings for their company.

This new way of solving problems has also had a positive effect on team attitudes, reinforcing confidence in their own capability when it comes to real problem solving, and their sense of teamwork. They are experiencing significant ongoing increases in productivity, especially when dealing with difficult problems.

These days, Steve is saying that problem solving in his organization has become an activity that each member of his engineering team looks forward to with confidence. What was once the toughest part of their jobs is now the most enjoyable, and the team continues to  improve the process!

Want to learn more?

Increasing Creativity in Problem Solving Meetings

The Process

The Bioclaris® Method can be easily embedded into a company’s regular problem solving meetings to significantly increase the number and quality of ideas generated by the meeting attendees. All types of problems benefit from Bioclaris®: technical, sales, operations, management, HR, etc.

Once executives and employees start using The Bioclaris® Method, they realize the enormous potential in structuring their interactions with others in a way that takes advantage of how everyone’s mind generates new ideas. This potential already exists—and can be directly tapped through how they structure and interact in their problem solving meetings.

And, they experience their own capacity for generating fresh ideas increasing every time they meet in this manner.

Pre-meeting preparation

The first step for embedding Bioclaris® is clearly defining the problem in advance of the meeting. The definition should include envisioning what it will be like after the problem is solved, and the metrics for successfully solving it.  Here’s the key: agreement on this definition between meeting attendees must happen well before the meeting. 

After the problem is defined, the participants are asked to prepare “how they think about the problem” in advance of the meeting. Since it is not traditional to prepare one’s thoughts in this manner, specific guidelines are provided by Bioclaris®  to help everyone prepare easily and thoroughly.

The meeting leader asks the attendees keep their preparations private, since it is an important part of our process that each attendee is allowed to tap into their own thought patterns without being influenced by others. The attendees are then asked to send their material to the meeting leader before the meeting so that everyone is equally prepared. Copies are made to distribute in the meeting.

The first segment of the meeting

The meeting takes place in two segments, with the first segment happening the afternoon of one day, and the second segment happening the morning of the next day. At the beginning of both segments, the participants are asked to turn off their phones and put them on the table. Checking email and any other type of tasking or distraction is highly counterproductive for either segment.  Laptops are also not allowed.

In the first segment, each participant is asked to present “how s/he thinks about the challenge” and is encouraged to use their preparation notes. During each 5-10 minute presentation, the other participants are asked to take handwritten notes to focus them on learning how the presenter thinks about the challenge. Their goal is to activate new mental pathways based on how each attendee sees the problem. There are specific techniques used to naturally maximize the strength of the new mental pathways being formed.

The first segment does NOT include sharing any solutions. However, each attendee has a uniquely colored sticky pad for capturing any ideas that have occurred to them (one idea per sheet) since the problem definition effort. If solutions occur to them during this meeting they should capture them on a sticky and then return to taking notes.

Between segments

At the end of the first segment, participants are encouraged to spend that subsequent evening relaxing, and to re-read their notes and the preparation materials before they go to sleep. Relaxation makes them more aware of ideas emerging, and reviewing the notes helps focus their minds on the topic during their sleep.

Again, the participants are instructed to be ready to recognize new ideas when they emerge and to note them down on a colored sticky—one idea per sticky. There is no predictable time or pattern in which these ideas might emerge. If they have no ideas before the second segment starts, that is absolutely fine. Everyone’s mind operates in a unique manner. We do not produce ideas on demand.

The second segment of the meeting

The purpose of the second segment is to share any solution ideas that any participant has had. Each person stands up in front of a large board or blank wall, explains each idea they have captured on a sticky, and then places the sticky under one of the categories that the group has established for ideas. These categories help organize the ideas.

While each person is presenting their solution ideas, the others are asked to listen with the intention of understanding how the presenter is thinking. As additional ideas occur to the listeners, they note them down on their sticky pads.

While the ideas are being presented, a meeting scribe is capturing them all into an online system that will be used for voting on the ideas. This enables the group to efficiently prioritize all of the ideas they generate before the second segment is over. Attendees rarely argue with the priorities generated by the group.

Once all ideas have been presented and captured in the online system, a break is called and each attendee is given the task of cleaning up the ideas in one of the categories. Duplicates are removed, wording is cleaned up, and ideas that have been incorrectly categorized are moved as needed.

The voting is organized by category. Once the voting process begins, discussion can occur before voting to clarify understanding. The voting is anonymous to provide maximum freedom of expression and includes every meeting attendee. The voting results are immediate and the group decides on a cutoff point so that a second round of voting can happen with a smaller subset of ideas, to further refine the priorities.

At the end of all the voting, the group has a small list of ideas that provide a starting point for implementation. Volunteers for implementing the top ideas can be secured at this point (or soon thereafter), and implementation is under way.

Implementation and continued idea capture

The online system helps the group manage implementation, flesh out detailed steps needed to implement, and provide awareness about and support for any barriers to implementation that arise. Note that Bioclaris® structured meetings can be called when implementation barriers persist.

As ideas are successfully implemented, additional ideas can be selected for implementation. They are drawn from the prioritized list of ideas that was generated in the two meetings just described. Additional ideas continue to be captured in the system and are periodically voted on. These ideas are also candidates for implementation.

 

How Can Your Company Be Like the Octopus?

In a recent NPR interview with Guy Razon on All Things Considered, Rafe Sagarin observed how post-911 workers on Capitol Hill dealt with strict new security measures by finding ways to thwart the system in order to save themselves time getting into the building. The conclusions Sagarin drew from watching the Capital Hill employees “get around the system” were that terrorists would eventually be able to do the same. A Marin biologist, Sagarin got to thinking about adaptable organisms—for instance, the octopus. He wrote a book called Learning From the Octopus that proposes new ways of thinking in order to improve our human systems.

In his book, Sagarin talks about what can be learned from nature’s other organisms to improve our human reactions to obstacles that obstruct our way. Sagarin focuses on the octopus because it is a great example of an animal with a fully functioning adaptable system. The octopus is a “decentralized organism,” composed of a bunch of independent parts that are allowed to sense and respond to the environment unique from each other. The octopus doesn’t use its brain to direct each arm or to change its color as it sways through the seas. Rather, its millions of cells, spread across its entire body, respond individually to environmental changes and then give camouflage to the octopus as a whole. This blend of reactions comprises the whole of an octopus.

We can use the octopus analogy when talking about executives who lead organizations. When a leader recognizes that the sum of the parts are greater than the whole, much can be accomplished in a relatively short period of time. Allow me to share the following story.

In February 2010 the CEO of Tec Labs, Steve Smith, contacted Bioclaris with a big problem: “I’m tired of no sales growth over the past three years.” The problem was making him ill, and so far there seemed to be no clear road out of this mess. Smith wanted to establish an objective of doubling company revenues in five years. He was sure it could be done—but he didn’t know exactly how it would get done.

Third Person Thinking

Bioclaris was invited to intervene, and we prepared to facilitate a meeting of executives by asking each to prepare a short presentation on their views of this problem. During this meeting, each person took turns presenting while the other players took notes. Presentations were based on what they had done in the past to solve the problem, including what hadn’t worked.

At Bioclaris, we call this method of problem solving the “Third Person” method. In our experience, it positively influences “true listening” and results in participants being able to really hear each other and appreciate each other’s thinking as never before. The result: a genuine breakthrough!

Today, CEO Steve Smith says that “Tec Labs is tearing it up.” Through the use of the Bioclaris process, Steve discovered that he does not have to be the only “ideas person” in the company. Steve’s discovery ties in nicely with Rafe Sagarin’s Learning from the Octopus because the octopus is a superb example of a fully functioning adaptable system. What would it be like for you if your company functioned at such a level?

Managing Technical Challenges So They Don’t Threaten Your Company’s Survival

We recently learned about a company situation we thought you might find helpful.

It concerns a major new product release for a small technology company that has been in existence for 5 years. The Chief Engineer kept delaying the Bill of Materials (BOM) due to technical concerns. The other executives in the company, not being as technical, felt they couldn’t force their Chief Engineer to release the BOM before he was ready. Delays piled on delays, and the release was now over a year late. The impact on the company was nearly fatal, and may still prove to be so. This situation is repeated far too often—not just with technical issues, but within any functional area of a company. It’s very difficult to influence what the experts in each area of a company consider appropriate.

From our perspective at Bioclaris, any situation like this one can be nipped in the bud very early without negative consequences if handled with appropriate expertise. That’s where Bioclaris comes in.

The first step, of course, is to recognize the situation as early as possible and to reframe it as a challenge for an appropriate group to address. The second important step to resolving the issue is that the group needs to have a method that enables them to meet and systematically generate new solutions for resolving the challenge, prioritize the best solution ideas, implement these ideas, and rapidly evaluate results in order to make appropriate adjustments.

It is very straightforward to make this activity transparent and non-threatening to the individual who is having the challenge. With the Bioclaris approach, every challenge is actually enjoyable to identify and resolve, for everyone in the company.

Brainstorming Vs. the Bioclaris Method

I am often asked the question “What is the difference between running our own brainstorming retreat and working with Bioclaris?” This is an excellent opening to share some vital differences between traditional brainstorming and the Bioclaris Method™.

Brainstorming approach:

Most traditional brainstorming sessions center on answering a question that like “How can we solve problem X?”

Under these conditions, brainstorming participants tend to use their “First Person” (default) brains. We find that often, in brainstorming groups, the facilitator has a hidden motive: they want to win acceptance of the group.

Naturally, what occurs next is that one person strikes on an idea and begins to promote it. Depending on their ability to sell the idea to the rest of the group, some of the  participants may buy in and begin suggesting ways to implement this idea before others have had a reasonable opportunity to put forward alternate solutions. The result can be that implementation is well underway  before everyone has been heard.

Under such circumstances, “personal positions” can get heated because not everyone has had their say. Because of this restraint, the ideas put forward in brainstorming meetings are rarely original. This happens because the default mode of our brain draws from only our own personal experiences. As humans, we tend to draw on our proven “winning strategies,” which may or may not be appropriate for the problem at hand, and in any event are limited simply to our own existing experiences.

We refer to this dilemma as “Premature Ideation.”

Bioclaris approach:

Bioclaris’s approach brings a significantly different and far and away more productive perspective. First, we shift the conversation from the default human “First Person” mode to “Third Person,” where new ideas can be considered by the entire group.

The methods we employ to facilitate meetings guide participants to function in Third Person mode and contribute to the process at a much higher level. We sometimes refer to them as “interventions,” because the structure of our meetings causes participants to learn how to function in the more productive Third Person mode.

Ultimately, Bioclaris purges the notion that one person can dominate a meeting agenda. Everyone is heard, and all tend to participate equally.

Further, we are independent facilitators. This means that we assist you with identifying the real challenge your company or team is facing, and we get participants to contribute their thoughts in advance of our initial team meeting. With your end goal in mind, our focus is to bring forward truly unique solution ideas that would not otherwise have been discovered under the old brainstorming paradigm.

Bioclaris Breakdown: Tiba Medical

Michael Whatmore and Bob Lanier of Bioclaris showcase one client success story. Tiba Medical from Portland Oregon experienced a huge turnaround after a 5-year-struggle, thanks to bringing in Bioclaris to leverage their existing brain power resources.

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