We hosted WIN NYC’s August event, “Mindfully Innovative: Consciously Cultivating Behaviors that Help Innovation Thrive,” in partnership with Sullivan, a brand engagement firm. The event focused on bringing self-awareness, mindfulness, and reflection to the practice of innovation.

Part-instructive, part-workshop (in typical WIN fashion), the event kicked off with an informative presentation from WIN Ambassador, Chief Marketing Officer and Managing Director of Sullivan, Lauren Ptak. After, we broke out into groups to practice what we learned, honing the behaviors that bother help and hinder innovation.

A few key takeaways for everyone to keep in mind in their next brainstorm:

Facilitators of innovation:

• Asking and answering questions as a group

• Building on other people’s ideas

• Helping others flesh their ideas out

• Hypothesizing with the group

• Being open to new ideas

• Encouraging people in the group to speak up

• Being inclusive of different knowledge/backgrounds

• Defining the task at hand and adding constraints

• Not worrying about “bad ideas”

• Having someone dedicated to capturing ideas

• Banning all laptops/distractions

• Approaching each idea equally

• Setting up a process and prompts to move the conversation along

• Setting up the environment for success

• Allowing time for individual brainstorming

Barriers of innovation:

• Describing ideas as “silly”

• Having too much white space (not enough constraints)

• Getting stuck in the “real world”

• Not having a clear objective to go back to

• Forgetting the objective, going down a rabbit hole

• Feeling anchored to sharpie on paper (over something editable)

Written by Emma Anderson, Tina Haertel, Katie Burwick, Sascha Donn, and Katie Oberwager

Photos by May Shek and Katie Burwick

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