- Put Your Mental Energy Where it Belongs – Collaboration
Kyle Hermans
By Kyle Hermans
Kyle Hermans is the Senior Director of Innovation Capacity at Gap Inc. Global, he was head of Synecticsworld’s West Coast Division at the time of this article.
Since the late 1950s Synectics® has been researching the human dynamics of meetings; the interaction and interplay of individuals that increases or decreases the probability of the meeting being successful. In this video, Kyle Hermans shares one of the key lessons of these findings.
- We each have a certain amount of “Mental Energy” available to us to spend in a meeting.
- Our first priority is to take care of self (consciously/unconsciously).
- So, in threatening situations we often can’t get comfortable and so we are an “energy crisis” that makes us uncomfortable and anxious.
- As the climate moves towards cooperative/collaborative, we have more mental energy to invent or play with new thinking.
- There are a lot of attitudes and behaviors which have the effect of pushing a meeting to a punishing climate, and participants into a mode of safekeeping and limited meeting participation.
Synectics® tools and techniques are designed to push the climate toward collaboration. Setting ground rules which call for positive behaviors and minimize negative behaviors and have a major effect on the group’s results.
Innovative people, teams, and organizations thrive on strong collaboration, creative thinking, and an actionable process.
Click on the image to the right to download your guide into how to:
- Shift into an innovation mode of thinking, interacting, and developing ideas.
- Seek out and select high potential ideas.
- Develop breakthrough ideas that your competitors are ignoring.
