Take A Hike
…or maybe just go outside for a while. Whatever you do, don't drag your staff into that old meeting room for even one more of the stuffy same ol'.
When Sally Crawford and one of her salespeople had a problem
they couldn't solve, they decided to take it outside. Outside
the office, that is. Crawford asked the employee to accompany her
on a walk through the neighborhood in order to find a solution to
the challenging business problem. In the end, they were able to
come up with an answer. "We figured it out," she says.
"We just needed a change of pace."
Crawford, 47, is CEO of Crawford & Associates International,
a Palo Alto, California, creative-learning company with 25
employees. There's evidence that many employees would embrace
her "change of pace" idea. In a poll jointly conducted by
ABCNEWS.com and WorkingWounded.com, a Web site that offers advice
and insight to help solve many of the problems that workplaces
might have, employees were asked to describe what helps them
brainstorm effectively. Roughly 48 percent of respondents to the
survey said simply leaving the office-getting out of Dodge for a
few hours-is the best way to start generating new ideas at
work.
"A lot of meetings can fall into a learned helplessness,
where the meeting is [always] at the same time in the same place,
and that leads to boredom," says Gary Vikesland, a licensed
psychologist and certified employee-assistance counselor in
Bloomington, Minnesota. "Going to a different place can change
the rhythm of a meeting and create better ideas."
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Chris Penttila is a freelance journalist who covers workplace
issues from her home base in the Chapel Hill, North Carolina, area.
She can be reached at chris@sitting-duck.com or
through her Web site, www.sitting-duck.com.
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