How Creativity Helped a Corporate Merger

Recently, a bank in Chicago was undergoing a merger. Bank officials were concerned that their customers were going to suffer. They hired Grace McGartland and her company, Thunderbolt Thinking, to show their employees how to keep their customer service on target.

McGartland started off the day by asking the seminar participants to reflect on the best personal experience they ever had with customer service. Then she asked them to draw a picture of that experience.

"The first thing that does," says McGartland, "is to put everyone on the same level. Here's the senior vice president, all dressed prim and proper in his grey suit, and he's pulling out crayons and paper along with everyone else. The second thing is, it's fun. People get loose and let their minds go. One man drew a picture of his favorite Chinese restaurant, how he gets takeout there all the time, and how well they package the food. A woman drew a picture of her favorite dry cleaner and how the people behind the counter greeted her. We posted all the drawings on the wall and looked at where the similarities were. Lo and behold, when we started talking about the key elements that were present in all the drawings, we were able to come up with a seven-point customer service strategy for the bank. All from silly stick drawings of Chinese restaurants and dry cleaners.

"One of the reasons this approach works so well is that it creates a shift in people's behavior. They may come in with a certain attitude about their job, or about the problem at hand. I can't change their attitude. But I can influence their behavior. So if I ask them to draw pictures, I'm helping them to look at the problem from a different perspective.

"You can do this all by yourself. If you're sitting behind your desk all day, struggling to solve a problem, try standing up for awhile. Just this small shift in perspective can set you on a whole new and creative path."

The things we fear most in organizations—fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances—are the primary sources of creativity.

—Mary Wheatley,
Leadership and the New Science

Creativity can be described as letting go of certainties.

—Gail Sheehy,
writer