What's the easiest method for less creative people to spark innovative ideas?

Simply put is called reverse brainstorming. So do this activity. One, grab a sheet of paper and divide it into three columns. In the first column, get your people to write out all of the things they can't do to solve the problem that you're trying to deal with.

So let's say for example the challenge is losing clients and say, what are all the ways that we can lose clients? So you're trying to do all of the things you're not supposed to do, right? Sounds weird. Just go with it. Once you've done that, the second thing that you do is go to the far column on the right, and down there, you write the complete opposite, the crazy opposite to each thing you said you're not supposed to do.

So if one of the ways to lose clients is to harass them by calling them or texting them every five minutes, Then the complete opposite would be something like maybe it's to send them a box, just one box, once a year with a box of goodies that has that stuff in. I'm not sure what it might be.

And you just work down, down, down, and you keep going through the extreme opposites. And then the third step after that is to go, what's something in between? What's something that we could do that kind of leans towards this absurdity, this craziness? But enables us to solve the problem. Trust me, this technique works.

And it works because most of us, especially when we're uncreative, have what's called, I guess you'd call it a mismatching gene. We are good at finding faults and mistakes. So if you lead with that as a strength, tell me all the things why we can't do this and how we make sure it won't happen again.

Then you'll find you come up with the great crazy ideas. And in between there. Hope that works. It has worked for the clients that we've worked with for the last 20 years, reverse brainstorming.