By Mary Ellen Vicksta
Way back in 1992, I spied a brochure for CPSI in our library at work. A few people from my department were interested. I had a lot going on at the time, so I didn’t register right away. In fact, I didn’t register until the afternoon before CPSI started using a fax machine to send in my registration information and a corporate travel agent to arrange my flight to Buffalo NY and back early since I took the 3 day Springboard program. I did the short stay since I was swamped at work.
Then CPS facilitation and training caught the eye and ear of R&D senior personnel. I transferred into R&D, got the cool title of Innovation Pioneer which eventually transformed into Creative Innovation Pioneer.
There were four of us. We stayed at the hotel rather than on campus; we wanted our creature comforts. I was pretty cynical about the whole experience. At dinner the night before everything started, we did a little check in to see how excited everyone was about the experience. Everyone else was at a 5 on a 1 to 5 scale; I was at a 2.
Then Springboard started. We were all in different Springboard sessions. I soon got into it since we had stellar leaders with Kitty, Susan, Sam, and Dennis. As the first day progressed, I got more and more excited about what I was learning and thinking about how I might use in my corporate life, life as a parent, and my personal life.
We did another check in at dinner. I was at a 5 and the others had disappointing first days. I was flying high with my mind going 90 miles an hour thinking about all the ways I might use CPS. I was loving the fact that there was Mess Finding, Problem Finding, Idea Finding, Solution Finding, and Acceptance Finding (keep in mind that this is 1992 and the model used back then). I found that in most of my corporate work there wasn’t enough time to think about Mess Finding and Problem Finding … it was get some ideas and put an action plan together. So, spending time in each step of the model was like an epiphany!
My Springboard course was coming to an end. Before I left to go to the airport, I called my boss and told him that I felt cheated. He was intrigued by that comment.
I returned home and immediately thought about how I might use this in my job. We had outside vendors coming in to lead ideation sessions, but there was some budget cutting and I put up my hand and said I could do an internal facilitation for free. That got people’s attention in my business unit. Also, my boss was an advocate of doing things for the other areas of my business unit with cross functional teams.
Soon, I got more and more requests to facilitate ideation sessions. I got together with my boss and we talked about how to change my job description so it would include Creative Problem Solving. It was that comment about being cheated that got his attention and interest. He was so interested that he came the following year, liked what he experienced, and eventually had me not only facilitate CPS sessions but also train people in our department.
Then CPS facilitation and training caught the eye and ear of R&D senior personnel. I transferred into R&D got the cool title of Innovation Pioneer which eventually transformed into Creative Innovation Pioneer. In R&D I actually had a broader reach. The facilitation continued, the classes continued, facilitator training was started, and we had a dedicated area for facilitation and training. Along with a resource area with lots of books on creativity, problem solving, team building, and supplies for hands on activities. In the facilitation space, we had tables and chairs that were on wheels that could be easily moved, rolling white boards, smart boards, and we experimented early doing virtual ideation sessions.
It was a wonderful ripple affect that influenced many, many people and projects in a very positive and productive fashion.