Change the environment, change the thinking

I recently ran a workshop in Regent’s Park under a tree.

Blankets. Sketchbooks. Shoes off. People lying around drawing ideas in dappled sunlight. It was as lovely as it sounds and, importantly, it wasn't just because I fancied having a nice day in the park.

We were working with an established business trying to imagine something genuinely different.

And I didn’t want them in the office.

The office is full of cues about how things currently work. There is the meeting room where you normally discuss budgets. The people walking past who need something. Your laptop. Teams. The same chairs, same language, same dynamics and all the invisible constraints that come with being inside the machine every day.

Then somebody says, “Imagine there were no constraints.”

But there are literally constraints everywhere.

I think environment affects what feels possible.

Put somebody in a boardroom with a PowerPoint and you are quite likely to get boardroom-shaped thinking.

Put them somewhere unfamiliar, give them a sketchbook rather than a template and ask what the customer would want if nothing stood in the way, and something changes.

Obviously I’m not suggesting every strategic problem can be solved by taking your shoes off in a park. February alone makes this impractical in Britain.

But I do think if you want people to think differently, it helps to change some of the conditions in which they are thinking.

Sometimes getting outside the business needs to be literal.