Crowdsourcing excellence

Recently I've heard of two ways to start a dialog about improving things in the organization that I'd love to share.

The White Sheet

First is from Ben and Rosamund Stone Zander. The White Sheet. Before rehearsals for any major performance, Ben places a pen / pencil on every chair occupied by an orchestra member and tells them that if ANY ideas for how the performance might be improved, or issues that impede the smooth performance of the music might be identified and mitigated then the orchestra are asked to write it down and submit it to him. No guarantees that the advice will be acted upon, but guaranteed that every idea is reviewed and considered

While this ran counter to the traditional "conductor as dictator" model, over time and with visible examples of taking the suggestions and acting upon them, the white sheet has become a fixture of every performance Zander conducts.

You might not conduct an orchestra, but how could you build this into your team meetings, town halls etc? Go on I dare you!

The second starts with a question

1. Give a small piece of paper to each participant - and an identical pen. Ask each to write the question what lies are we telling ourselves about… and to note their answer

2. Collect all the pieces and redistribute

3. Ask people a score that answer 1-5 (1 is strongly disagree 5 is strongly agree)

4. Collect all the pieces and redistribute

5. Collect all the pieces and redistribute

6. Collect all the pieces and redistribute

7. Make sure you have multiple scores on each "lie"

8. Have the person holding each lie on the last round count up the numbers to get a sense of the sentiment about each lie

9. Share and discuss lies and sentiment with the whole group

Now this one would take courage, but you'd spark a lively and informative discussion!