This content is locked. Please login or become a member.
Make Room for Innovation: “From Impossible to Possible”, with Lisa Bodell, Founder and CEO, FutureThink, and author of Kill The Company
We talk a lot about barriers to change, and there’s many different ways or many different techniques that I can tell you to go about it. But one of the things I think you should consider is a tool called From Impossible to Possible. And it’s very easy for you to do and let me tell you how it works.
So, you as a leader or a manager in charge of a team should pick a certain challenge that you want to attack; that you’re having a problem with; that you’re stuck with. And all agree on it and make sure everyone is clear on what the problem is before you begin. That’s the key thing you have to align. Then what you want to do is you want to split the group in half, or if you have teams split each team in half. And what you do is you ask them on one side of the paper to write down all the things that are actually impossible or holding you back from actually solving this problem. And they should be very articulate and detailed about it. After you set the time, depending on how bad the problem is, after about 15 minutes stop and each person who has written down their Impossibles has to then swap it with another group and you have to make the impossibles that you inherit possible. And you do not stop until you have completed that.
Often what we find is you cannot solve your own problems. You cannot overcome your own barriers. But people love to solve other people’s problems – and they’re better at it. So by giving them away, you’re more likely to get better answers, more creative answers and get to the problem-solving more quickly.