The Innovation Blog

Looking for a way to energize your team and teach them how to approach and see things differently?  How about getting them out of the office and teaching them some new skills?  Perhaps a scavenger hunt!  The same elements that ensure a successful scavenger hunt can also help companies build a more innovative culture. So when creating your scavenger hunt teams and letting them go, think about the following:

• Create diverse teams and leverage the different perspectives on the teams. Our individual experience base informs the way that we see things and solve problems.  In some cases expertise on a topic may be helpful while in others it’s the naive perspective that asks the question that will get you to a solution.  A person who’s good at seeing the big picture will get one answer, a teammate who’s good with wordplay will get the next and someone with a natural sense of direction may excel at getting the team from place to place.  The best teams quickly learn that they must use the strengths of everyone in the group.

• Continuously experiment, reward risk taking and celebrate failures – learn as you go and always move forward with the goal of solving tricky problems.  The teams that excel at the hunt are nimble thinkers and avoid the rush to judgment – they float and try many ideas and solutions without filtering themselves as they initially approach the problem.  Getting something wrong at first is ok and can be celebrated as learning on a journey of experimentation toward solving the problem at hand.

• Be true observers – see beyond the surface to the periphery, thus expanding your view of the problem and possible solutions.  You are being challenged to experience a new and innovative way of approaching a seemingly “ordinary” activity like going to a museum.  To succeed on the hunt you will need to see things differently, make new connections and reframe the problem.  Look around, explore, ask why, be playful!  

So, you can see there are things to learn about building a culture of innovation in an activity as simple and engaging as a scavenger hunt. Happy hunting!

Would love to hear if you have done something similar or if you have novel ways of getting people to approach things differently.

- Sarah Feloney