The missing capability in social impact strategy

Breakthrough strategies for complex problems, managers need tools designed for creativity. Here’s the roadmap to doing it well. 

If you work in the for-purpose sector, you know the value of good ideas. They’re especially important when the usual way of doing things no longer works. 

Given the intractable nature of systemic challenges, being inventive can be the difference between success and failure. 

Consider the urgency of aged care for example, an ageing population and a recent Royal Commission recommending entirely new thinking for business and workforce models, governance, quality of care, innovation, and technology. It’s clear we can’t rely on analytical thinking alone to get there.

For many, being creative might feel easier said than done. Most people struggle with creative confidence. Few identify as being creative. It doesn’t help when organisations value risk aversion over imagination. 

Isn’t it funny, the creative process is so critical to our strategic success, yet how little time we give to understanding it?

As a strategic design & innovation consultant, I’ve spent years exploring the ingredients for innovative ideas. While many factors contribute, in addition to vision and purpose, I’ve found it helpful to focus on three areas:

Inspiration Insight

Finding new possibilities requires a deep understanding of the social, emotional, and behavioural needs of people. Inspiration insight is more than data; it’s an interpretation of many observations that inspires a direction for action. It provocatively reframes the situation. To get there, we spend time in real-world contexts, revealing the unspoken tensions between aspirations and reality. 

ASK YOURSELF: When designing strategy or experiences, how much time are you spending in people’s real-world contexts? Do you only learn with typical people, or do you explore around the edges?

Transdisciplinary Knowledge 

For novel approaches, we need to break through the limiting assumptions of our discipline. One way to do this is through transdisciplinary knowledge, which is generated in the ‘gaps’ between different people’s functions. People from different domains bring unique worldviews. They see things differently. We focus on creating both formal and informal interactions between different disciplines, sectors, decision levels, and demographics. 

ASK YOURSELF: When starting a strategic project, how much emphasis do you place on connecting with different types of people, in and outside of your organisation? Do the people you include always feel obvious, or do you seek perspectives from diverse domains of knowledge?

Lateral Thinking

Inspiration, insight and a transdisciplinary team isn’t always enough to land breakthrough thinking. We can still get stuck in established patterns. In fact, the more familiarity or expertise we have, the more difficult it can be to generate alternative approaches. We use creative workshops to signal a different type of space for people to suspend judgement, understand alternative perspectives, and nurture ideas that might feel counterintuitive. Through different creative methods we unlock the problem by viewing it in a new or unusual light.

ASK YOURSELF: Next time you hear an unexpected idea, observe your team’s reaction; do they quickly assess why it won’t work, or do they ask questions to understand the thinking behind it? 

So now what? The steps to innovation

Now we’ve established the ingredients for innovative ideas, let’s look at four of our tried and tested creative methods for lateral thinking. We’ve crafted these methods through years of strategic innovation, generating new services, experiences, and products for social impact.

Step 1: Flip the standard approach 

What: Flip the world on its head by reversing or removing the foundational assumptions. 

How: List the common conventions or ‘rules’ for how we normally approach a situation. Consider the most foundational, standard assumptions. Flip the assumption by asking what the opposite approach would be, or simply disregard the ‘rule’ and see what opportunities emerge. 

Why: By exploring our most concrete assumptions, those that we never question, we can uncover revolutionary ideas.

For example, if we were looking at new ways to fundraise:  

• Assumption: the NFP organisation chooses the project. 
• Flip it: What if the donor chooses the project? 
• Idea: Finish-able Subscriptions, you can donate to support a specific project for a specific period; feel a tangible impact without the commitment of signing up to donate ‘forever’. 

Step 2: Stealing principles from others 

What: Find methods and principles from parallel categories to inspire an alternative approach. 

How: List the human values, behaviours, or emotions that you want to create. Next to each, write down a place or discipline where you might observe similar experiences. Spend time in each context to observe their approach, identifying their methods that you can apply to your situation. 

Why: By exploring parallel situations, we take inspiration from the way others have resolved similar challenges. 

An example for fundraising:

• Parallel situation: a place that builds a community, like mutual co-operatives where every ‘customer’ is a ‘member’. 
• Their approach: members become a part of the organisation to which they donate. 
• Idea: peer benefits, donors become a part of a peer-donor community with benefits like access to peer expertise and organisational resources.
  

Step 3: Seeing with a different perspective 

What: Use someone else’s point of view to re-express ideas. 

How: Create a list of people with different perspectives on the world. For each person, list what they find important or their unique approach. Use the lens of the different people to think about how they would approach your situation. What would each of them do differently? 

Why: By playfully adopting an alternative point of view, we can easily detach ourselves from our normal way of thinking, to open ourselves to new approaches. 

An example for fundraising:

• Different perspective: a party DJ. 
• Their values: they blend & mix music to create a better vibe. How might we blend fundraising? 
• Idea: Fund-a-Collab, people donate to bring together their favourite organisations to support cross-sector collaborations. 

Step 4: Finding inspiration from unexpected places 

What: Use the attributes of a random object to stimulate new ideas. 

How: Find a random object that is not directly related to your situation. It can literally be anything from a song, fashion brands, a magazine, or famous quotes, etc. Try to apply whatever comes to mind inspiring a new direction and force a connection back to your challenge, however obtuse. 

Why: Novel ideas can arrive when we force connections between seemingly unrelated situations. 

An example for fundraising:

• Random song: Neil Young – Down By The River 
• Association: instead of donating when you’re ‘down’, what if people donated when they’re ‘up’? 
• Idea: Ride the Market, people can set up auto-payments from their investments, a percentage is donated whenever the market is up. It’s donating with no pain, all gain. 

Creativity is a key strategic competency, but one that’s too often left for the ‘creatives’. Proven methods like the four above can be used by anyone to think laterally, flip the standard approach, and unlock breakthrough thinking. Systemic impact requires all of us to practice creativity as a strategic capability.