Events
 

This forum discusses the ideas of "The Myth of the Mousetrap". Contact me if you have examples to share.

July 2008

I had an interesting email recently from a business development coach Tony Wilson who works with innovative technology companies. He started by making some nice comments about the book

“I thought it was a very interesting and thoughtful discussion. I was keen to see how your ideas would apply to the selling of innovative products, and interested to note that although the more intelligent books on selling do manage to pick up on one or two of your main points, many of your ideas are new to the field, at least so far as I can see. So, there is much food for thought- thank you”

He then quite rightly pointed out a useful way of using the peer-to-peer reinforcement effect for reducing your customers’ fear of risk.

“It is to do with how potential (B2B) customers of an innovative product seek to reassure themselves about the risks of purchasing, by consulting with their peers and with others in their networks. In order to get a higher rate of adoption, the wise seller will attempt to sell his/her ideas (not necessarily their products) to the opinion leaders, so that their customers have a greater chance of encountering favourable third-party messages, and thus of perceiving a lower level of risk with the transaction.”

I quite agree with him that this is a great technique, so will include bit about this in the paperback edition. (This will be available in January 2009) Thanks Tony!

April 2008

I was recently at a great talk on the science, ethics and responses to climate change by Bob Watson, Chief Scientist at DEFRA (the UK Government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

His slides can be downloaded here (link to be inserted soon) He was very clear both about the seriousness and urgency of the threat of climate change, but also that he was optimistic about our chances for solving it…… IF we get our act together. We’ll need to make both behavioural and technological changes.

We were discussing it after the talk, and he commented that after his talks he often gets people coming up and complaining that his talk was so scary it will freeze people into inaction, while simultaneously others complain that he was too optimistic. My take on this is that this probably indicates he’d got it just right: To unfreeze people about uncomfortable new ideas, it’s important both to demonstrate that the status quo is not OK, which often means giving people a shock, but you also to give people the psychological safety to act.

Often people fail to realise that you need both, so waste their energy in arguing about which approach is best.

For an article in Green World, discussing how to unfreeze people about climate change, click here

March 2008

Mark Ridsdill-Smith sent me a copy of an interesting survey he’d done for The Climate Group on employee engagement in Climate change. He commented "I’ve been using large chunks (of The Myth of the Mousetrap) to inform my work!"

In one section of the report he explores what motivates employees to become engaged in climate change .....more...

February 2008

The other day I was giving a talk about creativity, and one of the audience asked me whether brainstorming was the only way to be creative. I thought this was a good question, because brainstorming is definitely not the only, or even always the best way to help people be creative. Different techniques work best for different people. .....more...

January 2008

The Art of Getting Ideas Adopted

If you’re creative and independent minded, the sort of person sometimes called a “Creative Maverick”, the transition from the creative freedom at university to the world of work can often feel very daunting. You have to work with people who don’t share your creative spark and who always seem to be pouring cold water on your bright ideas. It’s easy to get demoralised and frustrated, but there are some survival tricks……

For the full article, published in Transition Tradition (a website for creative people making the transition from university to employment) click here.

December 2007

To hear me discuss creativity and how to turn ideas into reality on Women's Hour on the BBC click here. This clip also features Rachel Lowe, the successful entrepreneur and inventor of the Board Game Destinations, who was refused funding on BBC2's Dragon's Den.

30 November 2007

The founder of a small electronics firm asked me whether the techniques for “unfreezing” people worked with all ideas. He clearly had an idea in mind, though didn’t say what it was.

I found his question a little difficult to answer without knowing the nature of the idea, but said that in my view the “unfreezing” techniques were particularly useful for getting people to act on difficult and uncomfortable ideas (ie Stage 2 of resistance)

He thought a bit, and then made the interesting comment that although his idea seemed to him, on the surface, to be logical and non-controversial, quite possibly it was significant that he’d been procrastinating about telling anyone about it, when normally he was very relaxed about sharing ideas with his colleagues. Maybe his unusual procrastination was a useful warning sign that he was subconsciously aware that people would be less keen on his idea than he thought, so should be careful how he told them.

See Chapter 6 for more on “unfreezing”

15 November 2007

A hypnotherapist came up to me after a recent talk and made the interesting comment that, just as when trying to break through someone’s blindness to your ideas, hypnosis only works if you can fit in with the client’s mental models.

She said that hypnotherapy is a very effective way of breaking through people’s self limiting beliefs. For example, the power of suggestion can be so strong that one client of hers was able to have a minor operation without anaesthetic, just hypnosis.

Interestingly, the secret of being a good therapist is to be able to adapt to the clients mental models and “speak their language”. For example, if they see the body as basically a biological machine, she’d use very mechanical language to describe what was going on. If the client thought in more spiritual terms, she’d adapt to that too.

I thought this was an interesting example of the way your ideas will sink into someone’s subconscious, if you can only be skilled enough in adapting the way you talk about it to fit with their mental models and language.

See chapter 4 for more on mental models and see Chapter 5 on “Speaking their language”

October 2007

I was discussing the ideas of the book with "Robert", a risk analyst in an investment bank. He said

"I so agree with you that we should use images more often. I was recently trying to get my idea across to the senior management team, in competition with a colleague who was proposing a different solution. I knew his idea wouldn't work and spent a lot of effort trying to explaining why, but I don't think the senior managers understood….

I knew I'd lost the argument when my colleague put up a slide of two athletes hurdling. Somehow I let him label his idea as the "champion" athlete and my idea as the "challenger": the athlete that was trailing behind and looking as if he was about to trip over.

Even though in reality, my idea was closer to the normal proven way of doing things, my idea was better, and my logical case was better, I lost the argument because he was MUCH better than me at using images in his presentation, reframing the debate and talking to senior managers in language they could understand."

See Chapter 5 for more on "speaking their language" and reframing, and Chapter 7 for more on images)

September 2007

The Israeli peace and human rights activist Gila Svirsky, sent me a powerful article about the way that the women's peace movement in Israel is reframing the concept of security. She said

In Israel, the concept of "security" is a powerful one, used to justify all military activity. However, for several generations, neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis have had security, not in its narrow nor in its broader sense. Both societies have lived in an ongoing state of fear and insecurity for many years.

The women's peace movement in Israel has begun to work on this problem. We call it a campaign to "reframe security" - to broaden our conception of it. We seek to demonstrate to Israelis that security is not the end-result of having a strong, aggressive army, but rather the product of a broad range of activity, which includes living in a society that cares for its poor, reduces violence, protects its natural resources, and co-exists in peace with its neighbors. Indeed, this campaign seeks to instill the understanding that "peace is the best way to promote security".

As part of this campaign, we take Israelis on "reality tours" to show them the Separation Wall. We bring them into the homes of Palestinians who are cut off from their land, jobs, and schools by the Wall, and we give Palestinians an opportunity to tell about their lives and how the Wall has changed them. For most Israelis, this is the very first time they have ever spoken to a Palestinian.……

These tours are powerful experiences…..

For the full article, see Desperately seeking security, by Gila Svirsky on www.commongroundnews.org

See Chapter 5 of The Myth of the Mousetrap for more on reframing.