I rarely get a jigsaw puzzle out of the closet, but when one is already out I can spend hours putting it together.  I do enjoy putting them together and I am quite good at it.

My wife gave a talk to a church group a few months back.  At each table, there was a small can of play-doh for each person, and during the talk there was a play-doh activity.  During the non-activity part of the talk, people still had the play-doh in their hands and were playing with it.  What she noticed was, everyone was very focused on the talk, because they had a mindless activity to do with their hands.  The simple act of having a child’s creative toy in their hands engaged their brain and body to be able to focus on the actual talk more closely.

I do most of my creative thinking when I am doing an unrelated mindless activity. Put me in front of a compter and shout at me to be creative and you’ll get nothing.  For me, washing dishes, folding laundry, and taking a shower work best.  These are activities where I don’t have to think about what I am doing, and I am rooted at that spot until the activity is finished.  Like the play-doh, this shuts off the rest of the world and engages the creative part of my brain.

At work next year, I have a couple of projects that require extreme creative thinking.  These are projects that if we start building too soon or too fast, it will fail.  I need to artificially slow things down, and get people to collaborate in a creative way.  

So here’s my idea. I’m going to bring a jigsaw puzzle to work with a plywood surface so I can move it easily. And I’m going to have “meetings” without any agenda whatsoever. You’ve probably heard of unschooling - this is unworking. Lately, we have driven the work process to elicit extreme productivity. We do getting-things-done to the extreme, so much so that there is no room for the creative process. This idea is designed to slow things down, and to engage that creative conversation.

I got a jigsaw puzzle for Christmas. It’s been sitting on the kitchen table, and when people need a break they sit there an do some work for a few minutes (or hours). In the evenings, the adults sit around the puzzle and talk.

Sitting at the puzzle has the same effect as showering, without the nudity and the ability for others to also participate (don’t go there, this is family blog). It roots the person in one place. It disengages the brain and allows the person to think freely. Multiple people can work on the puzzle independently and converse without requiring conversation. If something needs to be attended to, anyone can leave the puzzle at any time.

Contrast this to traditional meetings. To start, a meeting has a purpose - at the end of the meeting, that purpose must be met. Meetings have a duration and I’ve never been to a meeting that ended early. During the meeting, someone is ALWAYS talking - there is no space for thinking. Meetings have agendas, to do lists, action items, powerpoint presentations, whiteboards, etc. Don’t get me wrong, these things are important and have their place, but you cannot plan and schedule creativity - there isn’t a 7 step process that guarentees results.

Back to the puzzle. A puzzle meetings get people in the same room. The meeting doesn’t even need to be planned - if a hallway conversation or drop-by conversation needs more discussion, the conversation can be moved to the puzzle. It can even start at the puzzle to reset the mind. At the puzzle, nobody is in-charge. There isn’t an agenda except for what started the conversation, and if it evolves into something else or dissolves, so be it. At any time, any one person can leave to take action on something that was discussed without disruption. No one is critical, yet everyone is contributing. Conversation is not forced. Eye contact is unnecessary and naturally discouraged. Because of this lack of eye contact, body language and people who are uncomfortable with eye contact are not adversely effected by it. Silence is acceptable and encouraged - someone doesn’t have to be talking continuously. People won’t go to their blackberries and iphones because they are bored.

People will laugh at me for this. Some will roll their eyes when I bring in a giant puzzle. But I bet it will work. I’m not being manipulative. I’ll come right out and explain what I am doing and why I am doing it. If you want a different result, you have to do something different. I’m doing something different.