Raitis Linde

From http://www.creativeuncut.com

I remember early days of my childhood, when I was able to appreciate the power of stories. Fairy tales took a large part of my free time and the tower of books was growing more and more reaching the critical height, threatening to make a big bang by falling on the ground. This was time full of reading stories that kept my attention for hours, gently leading me through an imagination path and involving me in the magical world of kings and queens.

Well, I am glad to discover that stories haven’t disappeared even in academic and professional life. Not only they have remained, they are so useful in communicating ideas. The greatest example are my inspiring teachers at Syddansk university where in each lecture examples from professional and academic fields are being actively involved in form of stories of their professional experience. I am sure that the power that non-linear information that for instance Wikipedia gives is invaluable. However, I would like to argue that good (inspiring, catching) stories is a good way in efficiently (and effectively) leading listeners into the topic. How much do you remember from your all-time most favorite teacher/hero/movie, and how much do you remember the content of the last encyclopedia you read recently?

Communicating ideas in a design team

I have experienced that it is not enough to have really great solution and idea when working in team. Actually there is not much sense of having one if I can’t communicate it in a way that other people can understand it and add to it (or argue against it). Badly communicated idea is being listened (by patient audience), then accompanied with blank eye-winks and  forgotten immediately leaving a feel of emptiness and disappointment. On the other side, telling your ideas as a fairy tale, with a lot of imagination, examples, in expressive and coherent manner can really attract people attention and share your point with them.

Jacob is explaining us a Video Card game

In a field of design, communicating ideas is an essential part of teamwork. There are a lot of ideas flying around, and there is a significant need to share these ideas so that everybody understands and can evaluate them. In hard sciences there is often one common truth (like laws of physics) and involved people understand that. While in design ideas are arguable, both designs could make a sense, but which is better?

Is storytelling just about talent?

Some people seems to have natural grasp on communicating ideas clearly, convincingly and often inspiring the audience. That includes my fellow mates at university (Smaranda among them), friends and of course – professional speakers like Robin Sharma (whose books I am reading with a great enthusiasm), powerful Gary Vaynerchuk – the wine expert, amazing/incredible/unbelievable Steve Jobs and many more.

Such people I call  good storytellers. Passioned about their topic, courageous,  imaginative, to some extent – talkative. Are you born with such skills?

Well, as some people seems to be more communicative and imaginative as other, I think it could be learned (by doing). In a high school I could die when I had to communicate my work or other ideas in public. And many people have fear of that, even a special term has been introduced to describe that. So in that time I thought that good public speech is just about losing your fear and using your natural improvisation skills. As this is true to same extent (even the best have a little bit of anxiety), there is something more. A time invested.

Good storytellers and presenters respect the audience. They have prepared their story (or know topic very well, or if not – then have reaaaly great imagination skills) and they are passioned about sharing it with audience. They are proud of their story and seems that they are seeing a story in their mind visually making their speech a reflection of that cognitive movie. They are keen on seeing audience inspired.

I wish everyone, including me, to develop such passion of sharing good ideas to others in an attractive manner. A good way to start is to watch people who are good at it. And then try it by ourselves.

Scene from a Robin Hood movie project

I had pretty much experience on teamwork while studying and working. And the practical side is much more dirty than just reading books. Understanding teamwork begins from a feeling the power of community, frustration on making decisions, having a laugh together while working, blaming each other for failures and leaving behind own ego to move forward.

Innovation – a fight between different personalities

So a teamwork is a mixure of the pleasant and the unpleasant. This system is unpredictable to some extent just like everything related to people. Some of them wants to lead, some of them doesn’t want to be lead, others have communication issues. Well, and very often – most of the team members have different characters. This is especially the case related to innovations, because innovation is most likely to happen in the mixture of different personalities and experiences. That means – a lot of arguing, crying, fighting, dealing with uncertainity, returning back, creating & trying & destroying ideas. And to actually move somewhere with ideas, everyone should be intelligent enough to understand that there are different personalities sitting around, and that disagreements shouldn’t be taken personality. Of course, there is a need also for a good leader, who can observe what is happening and put everybody on the right track again, if something goes wrong (some people are about to harm each other physically etc. ). Influence of a leader should be delicate – to much authority and creativity is limited, too much freedom and creativity flies around without a common goal. However, it is always a good idea to introduce each other in the beginning, so everybody is aware of other team member’s skills, talents, experience, personality and expecations.

But one is clear in the innovation process, team members shouldn’t afraid of constructive conflicts. These are actually quite natural (and useful) parts in giving a birth to new ideas and perspectives, in spite of that it might be exhausting to get a common sense. To get somewhere with these flying ideas, everybody should have a common understanding of what they want to achieve – do they want solve a problem, decide on concepts (of products), have a kick-start in a project … ?

Having a chance to go this stage over and over again in many projects, I learned that it is critical to learn explaining and presenting your ideas as good as possible. That could include not just story, but also quick sketches, models, mock-ups. It is important to be aware of how you are explaining your ideas, if nobody will understand the point of it, somebody else (who will present more clearly) will bring through his/her ideas.

Time to start working

Burning the brains to get innovation out

Well, after ideas have been thrown on table and common consensus has been found, it is time for actually trying out ideas. That includes building mock-ups to test on users, bulding prototypes, conducting surveys and observing users. If in the first phase there was relatively plenty of freedom and everybody were the same, then now it is a time for actually having different roles (some are good writers, some are great at listening, someone at building electronics) and responsibilities. From my experience, when there is a lack on agreement of who is doing what, then plenty of work overlays. A frustration comes out because usually the work of just one person is being chosen in such cases. And what is important, every member on team wants to feel that he/she has contributed in the success of a team.

Some personalities appear in this stage as well. There are people who prefer to work alone, and there are people who prefer to talk with other people, discuss problems etc. And of course, we can’t forget people who like to supervise everything – to worry about whole project and be sure, that everyone is doing right things.