The other day, looking at some music theory workbooks (ah, the dear old ABRSM) destined for my wife’s piano pupils led me to thinking about how it is that every four-year-old is visually, verbally and sonically hyper-inventive, and yet by the time we’re adults we’re so out of touch with innovation that we need to attend courses and read books on it. The AB workbooks were a case in point - dull, neat, and so very adult, a shame to mess them up with anything as freeform as writing… and very intolerant of mistakes.

Taking a cue from some of the facilitation work we do in team training: so much education is on the basis of “yes, but…” - Yes, but you need to write neatly now. Yes, but that’s not the way to draw a face. Yes, but you’re only allowed to put these sounds together this way. At some point thinking about technique and mechanics is essential, of course, but how would it be if this were approached in the spirit of “yes, and…”. Yes, these words aren’t in the dictionary, but what might they mean? Yes, and if you take that bunch of notes and do this then you have all these new possibilities?

Lessons here for team and corporate innovation too … next post!