50 Stories & Snippets for Conference & Workshop Presentations.
The Artist Inventor
As a creative genius, the Italian
artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci was always attuned to possibility
wherever he happened to be. Just one example shows how new ideas can come from
accident, from being attuned to nature, and from combining unlikely elements to
create something entirely new.
Taking a walk in the open air, Leonardo was idly throwing stones in a well, watching the ripples moving out from the centre of the splash, when he heard a church bell ringing in the distance. Leonardo was struck by an association between what he was seeing and what he heard.
He later wrote in his journal: 'The stone where it strikes the surface of the water causes circles around it which spread until they are lost; and in the same the air, struck by a voice, also has a circular motion, so he who is nearest hears the best and he who is most distant cannot hear it.'
For Leonardo, a breakthrough occurred the moment he realised that sound travels in waves, like the ripples spreading out from the stone.
Using the story
Dynamic individuals
and organizations will be constantly searching for imaginative approaches,
different encounters and new ways of thinking. They know that a creative
environment keeps their work fresh and imaginative. Changing that environment
often, seeking out new ways of looking at things, being open to possibility,
being ready to make unexpected associations - all help the creative process and
encourage innovation.
Use this story to show how creative ideas can come from observations and connections you may make with the world around you.
The Big Black Door
A much-feared general in the
revolutionary war had the unsettling custom of giving condemned criminals a
choice between the firing squad and 'the big black door'. Most people chose the
firing squad and died in a hail of bullets. What lay beyond the big, black
door?
Freedom.
But only a few people were brave
enough to take the risk and choose the big, black door.
Our best opportunities
may stand behind the scary-looking door of the great unknown.
'When
you get to the end of all the light you know and it’s time to step into the
darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen:
either you will be given something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how
to fly.'
Edward
Teller, Hungarian/US nuclear physicist (b.1908)
Using the story
When change is
proposed or a new venture is contemplated a typical response is resistance. This
may come from vested interests, a fear of the unknown, or may simply emerge
from a natural reluctance to disturb the status quo. All change means movement,
and movement creates friction.
Use this story to show how people
often miss opportunities because they fear the unknown. The key to overcoming
resistance is often to recognize the horrors people are imagining behind 'the
big black door' of change, listen carefully to those fears, work on allaying them,
and offer an alternative scenario of fresh possibility beyond the threshold.
More extracts to come, but if you can't wait or you want them all in one published collection you can download the book to your Kindle or Nook.
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