One Friday night, I forced myself to leave the office. (This is more impressive than it might seem, at first: you entrepreneurs will know what I’m talking about.) I’d made my way to the couch and was parked there, watching Jeff Lynne's ELO: Wembley or Bust on Showtime.
(And yes, most of the songs were, in fact, from the soundtrack of my youth.)
For the closing song, the group played their version of Chuck Berry's Roll Over, Beethoven. Truth be told, the result was rather pedestrian-sounding. But here’s the beauty of Chuck Berry's guitar licks: when you put them into a song, no matter how lame the performer, they create excitement.
As I watched, something occurred to me for the first time.
When I started playing guitar, back in high school, I ordered a guide featuring the blues scale. The incredible thing—at least to a very inexperienced guitarist who’d had years of piano lessons, where wrong notes were violently evident—was that with a blues scale, I could play any note after another note, and it would sound great.
Imagine the freedom: here’s your instrument; go. Know that anything you choose, anything at all, will work. It was a perfectionist and an innovator's dream: I WILL BE MISTAKE-FREE NO MATTER WHAT I DO!
I’m guessing that this all came together for me right then because I had been pitching a new client in partnership with an advertising agency. I explained to them that no matter who we bring into an in-person Brainzooming workshop, we design the questions and exercises so that EVERYONE will be successful participating. There’s pretty much no way they can make a mistake, so long as they’re participating.
Brainzooming as the blues scale of strategy, innovation, and branding? It's like the secret to creative success for everyone! I like the concept, a lot. It’s the perfect analogy for what we do—and what we teach our clients to do.
If you want to collaboratively engage your team (or multiple teams) in a strategic and creative thinking process in which any of them can discover the secret to creative success, then it’s time to contact us. We’d love to work with you so each of your team members can contribute and all work well together!
And if you want to get your team members going within days on enhancing their creative success, get them copies of our book: Idea Magnets - 7 Strategies for Cultivating & Attracting Creative Business Leaders. It's the guidebook for immediately generating inspiration and encouraging people and ideas! – Mike Brown
