| Innovation
through The Medici Game
Last week, I was invited by Outsourcing Thailand to attend
a new workshop that teaches innovation. The Medici Game is
a three-hour Celemi Power Dialogue from Sweden based on the
bestselling book, The Medici Effect, by Frans Johansson.
This game is designed to help organisations inspire and engage
people, and to improve the conditions for breakthrough innovations.
It targets all types of organisations across industries and
people at all levels.
The workshop has four parts. Part 1 _ the world is changing
_ to trigger the need for innovation. Part 2 is The Medici
Effect, which teaches you how to create breakthrough innovations.
Part 3 is about challenging your beliefs, and Part 4 is about
applying what you've learned.
Celemi Power Dialogue is a famous learning tool that uses
a simulation game. It is similar to Monopoly but with an advanced
design that factors in several business learning points.
Medici takes its name from the famous family who used to rule
Florence, Italy 500 years ago. One of the great things they
did was to bring together people from a range of different
disciplines _ architects, sculptors, scientists, philosophers
_ from all over Europe, even as far as China. They were able
to break down barriers _ between disciplines and cultures
_ to generate what became one of the most creative times in
history, the Renaissance.
Part 1: the world is changing _ fast. Martin Aldergard, managing
partner of Outsourcing Thailand was the facilitator. He started
by raising six points designed to wake up innovations. Here
are some:
FWithin five years, products representing more than 70% of
manufacturers' sales today will be obsolete.
FEvery 26 minutes a foreign-owned factory opens in China.
It has to do with cost, but increasingly it also has to do
with competence.
FOf a study of 108 business ventures within established corporations,
14% were what you could call breakthrough innovators _ with
totally new concepts and ideas. They were 10 times more profitable
than ventures that had just applied changes to existing lines.
Part 2: The Medici Effect. Mr Aldergard introduced two terms.
The first was ''directional innovation'', or innovation in
a defined direction. For example, if you're a product manager
concerned with memory size, you go from a 10-gigabyte MP3
player to a 60GB player.
The second was ''intersectional innovation'', which occurs
at the intersection of different fields, disciplines and cultures.
He gave an example:
An architect, Mick Pearce, received a curious challenge: to
build the largest office complex in Harare, Zimbabwe, but
without air-conditioning. It can become quite hot in Zimbabwe
but A/C can be costly to run and maintain.
Mr Pearce looked at how termites build their mounds on the
African savanna. He adapted the concept into the design of
the new building. This kind of intersectional innovation saved
almost US$4 million right away, and today the Eastgate shopping
and office complex uses 90% less energy than any other building
in the area.
Then Mr Aldergard gave participants 16 unrelated pictures.
In groups of three, we paired these pictures to eight pairs
of innovations. For example, our group paired a computer picture
with a picture of colourful M&M candies. We thought that
because Apple wanted to differentiate its product from others,
the innovation should be a computer with a colourful and trendy
case.
After half an hour, we came up with eight pairs. Then the
facilitator told us what had really happened in the world
with these things. This was the core part of this workshop
where I learned how to create an innovative idea, using the
intersectional approach.
Part 3: Challenge your beliefs. This was about challenging
our assumptions. This is a difficult exercise to explain;
it needs to be experienced. The goal is to teach that innovation
would be difficult if we didn't challenge our own beliefs.
Part 4: Go for it. If participants come from the same company,
this is when they will apply The Medici Effect to achieve
real output.
At the end I told the class that I used to believe that innovation
was a special talent that only some people had. But I learned
that being innovative can be taught in a fun and practical
way.
If you want to learn more about this programme please
visit http:// www.outsourcingthailand.com
Kriengsak Niratpattanasai is the founder of TheCoach, specialising
in executive coaching in leadership and cross-cultural skills.
Copies of previous columns are available at www.thaicoach.com.
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