Sit And Think: How Restrooms Can Expand Your Mindset And Lead To Innovation
Would it not be great if your colleagues always tried to expand their mindset and develop new ideas on innovation? As this does not always happen by itself, innovation leaders sometimes have to give them a little push.
And if you visit the restrooms at Novozymes, a world-leader in bio-innovations, you do not just get to sit down and do what you need to do in peace.
Their New Business Development unit wants their colleagues to capture business opportunities by looking at big trends and movements in the surrounding business world and the society.
What did they do? They developed a series of posters giving information on topics such as social innovation, green retailing, sustainable cities and life on the go.
The chosen trends are actively used in the New Business Development unit to cross link with big industries and for analysis of how different trends may influence and create needs in different markets. Then they placed the posters in the restrooms – just in front of you as you take your bio break.
As you can see in this document, Novozymes Trend Posters, the information given is of high quality and I think this helped turn the initiative into a success among the employees rather than just being a simple gimmick.
I have visited their restrooms several times and I agree. It works. It makes you think.
This is interesting. There was an idea like this in a movie years ago, I forget the name. Dana Carvey starred as a loser who somehow landed a big-dog job at a big company (I forget how), and something like this was an idea he had – and of course the president loved it while others thought he was nuts. Glad to see it made the light of day!
I love this idea, and saw a similar idea at an integrated communications firm (they had a clever bathroom-oriented title for it that I don’t remember). And many years ago, as part of an organizational development initiative focused on creative thinking, a division of Clorox took the idea into the stalls with white boards where they posed questions so that you could sit, think, and record. No word on how many of the ideas were stinky…
If it were not for the sanitation issue, why not take it further with a display and keyboard…
I’m with Rick if the hygiene issue can be overcome. This would be a great crowdsourcing initiative. While you are sitting there, you can contribute to the solution as well as brainstorm about the problem.