A while ago, I did some work with my team thinking about what makes a team great, what kind of things we would see and hear and start to prioritise which aspects we wanted to work most on. We chose two things in particular:

1. Creativity and innovation
2. Constructively and safely challenge in meetings

I went away and had a think about some ideas that might help facilitate these aspects during meetings. I came up with an idea I’m going to share here…

Playing cards. 

I created two playing cards: a joker card and a Devil’s advocate card. Every member of the team was provided with one of each card for the meeting and could play them any time they liked during the meeting.

The rules are as follows:

Joker card:

For wild, bold, crazy (even off at a tangent) ideas that you want to explore.

When the idea strikes, you play the joker card. You share your idea to the group. There is then a period of building and developing the idea. No one is allowed to shut down the idea during the joker period-only build and develop. At the end of the joker card period, the team can decide if they want to progress the idea or not. 

Devil’s advocate card:

To safely introduce challenge.

During discussion the Devil’s advocate card may be played at any point. At that time, the player can oppose (without fear of backlash or defensiveness) an alternative or opposing point of view. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the player’s point of view…so it can allow people to already agree an idea to explore the opposing side to clarify things. At the end of the exploration, the team can decide what to do about the discussion point. 

I hope these ideas help. We’ve found them really useful…the Devil’s advocate card more so than the joker card…I think thats because my team are naturally creative and inquisitive anyway.

How do you introduce creativity or challenge into your meetings?