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Harnessing Your Creativity 165

A little while ago, with the specialist learning and communications
company Purple Works, the Campaign for Learning designed a café
experience for about 100 people from right across the UK-based energy
and telecommunications company National Grid.The purpose of the event
was to encourage individuals to share their perceptions of where the
company had come from, where it was going to, and what learning it
needed to help it become a world-class company.
Around the tables sat the chairman of the company, David Jefferies,
some of his board, some influential individuals not directly connected with
National Grid, senior staff, engineers, trade unionists, and the linesmen
who climb up the towers when storms cause trees to fall on them. On
each table there was a circular learning mat, designed to fit it like a
tablecloth. On each learning mat we placed a series of images, statements,
charts, and questions designed to stimulate dialog.The feedback from this
café-style approach was that it was far more engaging and far more
satisfying than other forms of communication that they had experienced.
It was also felt to be a genuine and realistic way for people with different
kinds of responsibility and levels of seniority to communicate with each
other.

The National Grid experience was designed as a special event.
However, for the dialog approach to be really effective, it needs to
become a way of life within an organization.
My own hunch is that there is more opportunity for creativ-
ity in dialog than in brainstorming, which has long been associated
with the generation of ideas.

What do you think? How much do you use dialog in your organization?

Moving outside your field

While it is essential to encourage a free flow of meaning within your
organization, it is equally important to have ways of encouraging a
flow of ideas from the outside.
When Neil Chambers, director of London’s Natural History
Museum, first joined the museum, he was concerned to improve the