It is a technique by Edward de Bono (no relation), a creativity expert who invented the provocation technique to come up with surprising ideas (his words).
Suppose you want to get rid of all the meetings (this has already been quite successful during the corona crisis, but think ahead). Then first propose to abolish all meetings. Of course that is not the solution, but by provoking you challenge someone else to think back to an idea that is workable.
A company sent an email to all employees on a Friday morning telling them that they would not be allowed to have meetings the following week. Because they communicated so late, employees did not have time to reschedule their meetings. The meeting rooms were locked and everyone had to be very creative that week to realize their meeting work in a different way.
During the evaluation of the experiment it turned out that the guest list of a meeting was looked at more selectively and some meetings were cancelled altogether. Thinking back resulted in halving the israel telegram data time of meetings or standing meetings. In this way you can really provoke many fixed patterns in your organization.
So look at your work content differently and provoke, adapt but keep changing. You don't have to wait for a signal from your manager or CEO to change. These lessons are applicable to everyone and it also works contagiously.
Working method
This part of the wheel requires the use of the brain. De Boe believes that in classical organizations, the brains of employees are often underused. Rules and controls should be replaced by trust and letting go.
Also read: Jan Tjerk Boonstra: “If you can make your employees flourish, you are doing great”
It is always motivating when you can do something yourself, just ask a child. Moreover, creative ideas do not always come from thinking hard. Did you know that these ideas often come about unconsciously? The unconscious has a capacity that is 200,000 times greater than the conscious. The conscious cannot retain that much information. The unconscious can, and you tap into that source when you give it rest.
