How to think of new ideas and inspire yourself with options – Kirk Vallis

June 19, 2021June 9, 2022 badmintonandy

This post is extracted and links to a UkCoaching.org podcast

After listening to it I was inspired to share the ideas presented by Kirk

Many of the discussions and tips offered could help you as a coach or coach developer

Kirk Vallis, Head of Creative Capability at Google shares with us his principles for creative problem-solving

In this discussion, Kirk shares five scenarios that people who support coaches might encounter and explores a range of ways for creating “one more option”.

They run through a series of scenarios that face coach developers and mentors working at different levels.

Kirk challenges you and asks these questions that might help you frame your thinking:

Where are you when you do your best thinking and what are you doing?
Do you create space in your organisation for people to be themselves?
How can you design moments into your practice or workshop, rather than just designing content?

Where does risk live in your organisation and how do you embrace failure and mistakes?
Do you have a space where you can try out ideas, where they are safe to fail?
Do you have an opportunity to test the premise of new ideas?

What mode of thinking do you find yourself in when someone comes to you with an idea?
Are you able to offer time and care to new ideas?
Do you create an environment to be playful and ask, “what if”?
Are you able to frame your meetings and interactions with people, signalling what you want from others?

Do you have an opportunity in your organisation to completely reinvent the way you do things, or is incremental innovation important?
How do you challenge your thinking for new ideas?
Who in your network might be able to support you to see an idea or approach from a different perspective?
What do the problems you face look like if they were exaggerated? Would this help you think differently about how you approach the problem?