Think Time Thursday: Finding Group Flow

I have been trying to think creatively lately. We are well into the routine of a new school year now; back into the routine of meetings, roommate mediation conversations, meetings, training sessions, meetings, conduct meetings, more meetings and then a couple more meetings. While routine provides stability and anchors us in many ways, it can also detract from the freedom some of us feel we need in order to think creatively.

I wrote about creativity in Student Affairs back in July and have tried to incorporate ways that we can think about things differently in our department. One of our attempts is "Think Time Thursday." I scheduled an hour at 3pm on every other Thursday throughout the semester that is set aside as purely "thinking time" - time for my staff to put our brains together to think about a problem in a new way, to generate ideas and to then turn those ideas into actionable items. Free of agendas, free of demands, free of phone calls and text messages - this is time for our brains to kick into high gear TOGETHER.

We've had one "Think Time Thursday" already and it was a success despite some early hesitation from my staff. I purposely didn't tell them too much about the plan. We showed up at the meeting space and moved tables away from the whiteboard so that it was a stand up meeting. Stand up meetings are a part of many corporate cultures and I think they have tremendous value. I like this blog post by Martin Fowler about stand up meetings. Fowler outlines a few essentials to the stand up meeting.

1. To help start the day well. (We did this in the afternoon.. but oh well)
2. To support improvement. (We chose a topic from a brainstorm and the only rule was to come up with things that we wanted to be better at doing).
3. To reinforce focus on the right things. (We narrowed our focus to the things that were most important at this moment for the team and the department).
4. To reinforce a sense of team. (These are solution-oriented group conversations. Teamwork!)
5. To communicate what is going on. (Again, focusing on the most pressing needs of the department at the moment and hear everyone's ideas).

We started with a silent brainstorm to come up with ideas for things we wanted to improve in terms of a service or function in our department. We then sorted those post-it note ideas into "short term" and "long term." We latched onto a couple short-term ideas and put the long-term ideas in the parking lot until later. Our energy increased as we jumped into making an action plan for the three items we chose - our decision process was focused, our intent was positive and our willingness to self-select tasks was high.

Our Think Time whiteboard full of ideas:

Our hesitations and barriers to starting were rooted in the fact that the staff wasn't really sure what was about to happen. That was intentional, but caused some hesitancy for the first 5 minutes. Another roadblock? We didn't want to stand. It was unnatural and felt like extra work (and some group members chose to take a seat after the first 15 minutes and I think it slowed our conversation), but for the most part it kept us moving and on task.

We have chosen a couple potential topics for future Think Time Thursday sessions and I am now anticipating these meetings more than any other meeting I have/get to attend. Creativity in a team setting - finding "group flow"- is a powerful thing.

So how are you building time into your routine to be creative? This question may feel counter-intuitive. For lots of us, creativity isn't something we can build into a calendar. It's a whim, a muse, an inspirational moment that allows us to put pen to paper (or click away at a keyboard) or draw on a whiteboard and think about things differently. And you know what? Sometimes we do our best work when we're tired, so building time into an already taxing routine can actually be a good thing.

How are you getting your colleagues involved in the creative process? Your team has great ideas - utilize them!