Breakthrough Creativity Training

The first hour of the morning was spent reviewing the results of the Breakthrough Creativity Profile. Since the participants had all read the material in the Participant Guide beforehand, they were familiar with the talents and their own profiles. In addition to going over all the talents so everyone was familiar with all eight – not just their own – we were also able to spend a few minutes integrating the results of the Profile with those of the Predictive Index, which all of the participants had taken within the past several years. In the second half of the morning, we discussed the results of their Team Profile, which I had been able to generate prior to our session.

Over lunch we completed the final agenda item of the day: working on the department’s mission statement. Much to everyone’s surprise we were able to come to agreement on a pretty, final version.

The session proved to be a smashing success! The department’s HR rep also attended the workshop as an observer. At the end of our time together, she commented on how well the session had gone and how much everyone had participated (which had not been necessarily expected, given some of the personalities in the room). When my client, the head of the department, commented on how pleased she was with the mission statement draft, the HR rep remarked that she didn’t think it would have been such a successful day without the morning session on the Breakthrough Creativity framework.

The Results

We talked about why she thought that was so and came up with the following answers:

1. The Breakthrough Creativity Profile helped build more self-awareness.
2. The department head was very open with sharing her results and thus set the stage for the rest of the participants to feel comfortable sharing.
3. The Team Profile really opened up the conversation. We not only discussed the actual results but also diverged into other relevant topics. The open and honest discussion that ensued addressed some issues that were critical to the team’s performance.
4. There was a lot of laughter during the conversations in the morning, which probably added to the success of the session.  The hormones released through laughter loosened everyone up and allowed for even more creative thinking.
5. Although not everyone had been willing or eager to contribute in the first couple of hours of the session, by the time we got to lunch everyone was pretty relaxed and fully engaged.
6. The Breakthrough Creativity framework, the talents, and the team profile all seemed to oil the hinges and allow ideas to flow, camaraderie to be heightened, and creative juices to run!

What has been your experience with mission statement exercises? Have they been as successful as this one was? See how the Breakthrough Creativity Profile can help you in your work efforts in my webinar, Breakthrough Creativity: How to Use Your Talents for More Creative Leadership.