The Creative Gorilla On Line Archive
John Brooker has written the Creative Gorilla articles since 2004. They are much improved by the editing of Kate Brooker, correcting grammatical mistakes and tempering John’s enthusiasm for bad jokes.
In the articles you will usually find personal stories which link to topics around Facilitate, Innovate and Transform.
There are lessons and observations about how you can facilitate, innovate and transform as a creative leader. Some are thoughtful, most are practical, quite a few are humorous.
They aim to build knowledge and provoke thought, not sell.
We hope you will find them enjoyable and useful as other Creative Gorilla Troopers do. Here are comments from some of them:
- “I’ve been receiving John’s Creative Gorilla ezine since its inception. I don’t read many ezines but I continue receiving and reading John’s. His articles consistently live up to their name; they’re always creative! And he always offers clear, simple, and practical ideas backed by interesting vignettes that relate to his personal experience. He emails never fail to spark my creativity!” Steve Davis, FacilitatorU
- “Many thanks for another Creative Gorilla message. I can’t believe that you are up to 133 – all are stimulating and thought provoking.”
- “Thanks for the Creative Gorilla – I find it a really useful source of creative ideas – some are ideas I have heard of, or adaptations, and some are completely new – all remind me that there are creative ways to approach most situations if I take a step back from the traditional approach and think it through.”
- “I really love this newsletter. It’s useful, interesting and something I can easily use in the future with groups.”
- “Thanks John – these are great reading.”
- “Another excellent Gorilla! Will think about creating adaptive/radical innovation climates in my next job whatever that might be.”
- “Lovely and simple and powerful as ever John. Thank you.”
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157 WOW Help Build a Creative Climate
Yes! And… Creative Gorilla # 157 How appreciating what others do can change your life and build a creative climate “A candle loses nothing when it lights another candle.” Thomas Jefferson. 3rd President of the USA. Hi. Wouldn’t it be great if 2013 were a WOW year for you? This article could help you achieve that. For only the third time I am going to use another author to write my Creative Gorilla because I thought this article contained a simple and memorable way to improve the creative climate in your...
read more156 5 Tips For a Better Workshop
Yes! And… Creative Gorilla 156 If you want to bring out the full potential of a group in a workshop, here are five tips. “I saw the crescent. You saw the whole of the moon.” The Waterboys. Lyrics from “The Whole of the Moon.” Imagine the moon represents the potential of a group of people in a workshop. When you facilitate correctly, you are able to see the whole of the moon. If not, you see just a sliver. Recently I worked in Asia for a couple of weeks and co-facilitated four groups. It gave me time...
read more155 5 Tools to Explore Opportunities
Yes! And… Creative Gorilla # 155 If you want to explore a problem or opportunity well, here are some different tools. “Using a metaphor in front of a man as unimaginative as Ridcully was like a red flag to a bu…was like putting something very annoying in front of someone who was annoyed by it.” Terry Pratchett. Author. Lords and Ladies. Imagine that you are sitting in an exam hall with an MBA examination paper in front of you; the subject is Creativity, Innovation and Change. The examiner...
read more154 Enhance Your Meeting Facilitation
Yes! And… Creative Gorilla 154 If you want to enhance your meeting facilitation, here are some tips I provide people on my courses. “Be absolutely clear on the outcome and stay out of content. These are my two top tips.” John Brooker This week I had a note from a fellow Gorilla. He has several meetings to facilitate and asked if I could send him a copy of my “top ten tips for facilitation” that he had accidentally erased from his computer. I thought this might be the trigger for a Creative Gorilla. Unable to find a previous...
read more153 Engage People with Open Space
Yes! And… Creative Gorilla # 153 If you hold large gatherings for staff and clients, want to increase engagement and don’t want to create agendas, find speakers, obtain their presentations and run through time consuming rehearsals, Open Space might be the answer. “Float like a butterfly. Sting like a bee.” Muhammad Ali, former World Heavyweight Boxing Champion Want to create more engagement in your staff or client conferences? Recently, I was one of the organisers of the SOLWorld 2012 Conference at Oxford University. This is an...
read more152 Creative Ideas in Ten Minutes
Yes! And… Creative Gorilla # 152 An eBook that shows you how to create ideas in ten to sixty minutes How might blackberry picking be an analogy for idea generation? I am busy writing eBooks for my web site and thinking of a topic for a Creative Gorilla at the same time. So I thought “why not combine the two?” It will make a nice change for me and hopefully for you too. So this week, I will summarise the eBook and you can then link to it if you wish to. The eBook combines two older Gorilla articles in to one book, with...
read more151 Solution Focussed Post Project Review (with remote team)
Yes! And… Creative Gorilla # 151 How to run a post project review with remote teams and in a positive way “One does not have to be a mad scientist to travel in time.” Authors of research paper: “Back to the future. Temporal Perspective in the Explanation of Events.” Need to run a brief post project review including remote teams? Post Project (or phase of a project) Reviews are a regular type of meeting that organisations run. However, there can be some issues: Often, people are keen to...
read more150 Make Innovation Simpler
Yes! And… Creative Gorilla # 150 Innovation has become a complicated topic. How can we simplify it? “As innovation becomes a management discipline there is a danger that it is seen as the end, rather than the means” John Brooker Want to make innovation simple again? I was out riding my bike recently when I found I could not use any gear above number eight, so instead of twenty-four gears on three front cogs, I had just eight gears on one. I couldn’t fix it myself and didn’t have time to...
read more149 Obtain Better Advice In Client Meetings
Yes! And… Creative Gorilla # 149 How you obtain advice from clients in multi client meetings can influence how they think about you “The client workshops have been a real success.” Director of Global Strategic Marketing Need to gain advice from multiple clients? Recently, the Director of Global Strategic Marketing in a large multinational company asked me for support. Could I help them enhance a number of information gathering workshops during their annual corporate customer meeting?...
read more148 Be a Creative Guerrilla…
Yes! And… Creative Gorilla # 148 How might you succeed when facing resistance to using creative thinking and tools? “Do not to bring living hens into mountainous people’s houses.” Vietminh Recommendation How can you use guerrilla tactics to succeed? A few years ago, I tutored one of my regular MBA residential courses on Creativity and Innovation. A student was convinced that she would not be able to use creative tools in her work place; she was a solicitor in a firm of solicitors...
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