The Braveheart Facilitator Creed
Nothing bores me more than a staid and ‘practical’ ideation facilitator. And lord knows no one ever bored anyone into genius. What I want is a shit disturber. A rebel. An agitator. I want to believe that by following them into the creative fray, I’ll be able to break through the bastions of my brain and discover new bounties.
For that, I need a Braveheart Facilitator.
The Braveheart Facilitator tells me, as a fact, that I can do anything
My brain and my capacity for creativity are limitless. He or she also tells me to ignore the doubters and the haters. My role, discipline or experience bears nothing on my ability to deliver ideas and I’ve only scratched the surface of my creative depths.
The Braveheart Facilitator is my champion
He or she takes no shit from those who refuse to defer judgment or follow process. This courage extends from gently reminding people that their language is counterproductive to actively walking anyone who is killing the experience for others out of the room – regardless of their seniority.
The Braveheart Facilitator is unshockable
He or she will bravely bring all kinds of potentially nasty thinking into the mix in order to stimulate new territories. He or she isn’t afraid to ask us to imagine a kid’s toy as a potential adult sex aid or to consider making a beverage taste like toilet water. Hell no! In fact, challenging us to continually subvert, pervert and revert our thinking is in their mandate and they’ll leave no funky stone unturned in pursuit of it.
The Braveheart Facilitator never lets the energy flag
Come hell or high water, he or she drags us back up to our happy places through any means necessary. Candy, music, dancing, laughing or playing are weapons in the war against tired, bored or bummed participants.
The Braveheart Facilitator does not let us settle for bullshit ideas or solutions
A flabby clarifying sentence gets sent back for tweaking and an old and tired idea gets thrown to the team for revamping. He or she is constantly asking us whether we’ve seen this solution or done this before and if so, why the hell is it being proposed yet again? Through them, we set new standards and parameters and start to embrace the uncomfortable instead of fearing it.
The Braveheart Facilitator celebrates the crap out of us
He or she reminds us that we did it all ourselves. He or she is a humble yet tireless leader who takes little credit for the end product. The reward is in seeing how the team kicked ass with just a little bit of help and focus.So, next time you decide to take that hallowed place in the front of the room and vow to squeeze every last idea out of the shiny faces you see before you, stop for a second. Mentally smear some blue paint across your face, hike up your creativity kilt and go in screaming.
