There is a wealth of innovation underway in communities. Confronted with a range of interconnected and increasingly complex challenges, leaders from every sector are searching for new ideas and approaches. What is most surprising is that often the innovations that show the most promise are those that combine existing resources in new ways. This pattern of social innovation is often referred to as bricolage.
Learning new ways to think differently together is the capacity we need to develop in order to harness the possibility of bricolage. Fortunately this is a capacity is one that can be cultivated and accelerated using a range of facilitated thinking tools that are designed to encourage groups to cultivate their collective wisdom. Liberating Structures and Gamestorming are just two of several sites offering an array of ready-to-implement exercises for thinking differently together. One of my personal favorites, from Liberating Structures, is called TRIZ. TRIZ offers an innovative and fun way for groups to identify and stop counterproductive activities in order to make room for innovation.
Einstein wisely noted that, "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." But, who would have guessed that the most promising solutions most often arise when existing ideas and resources are recombined in new ways!
