Drawing a blank

I have written a few blogs now and see my blog spot coming up in my calendar for the next week. In moments of down time I find myself mulling over – What can I write about this week? ….. Hmm …. Nothing is coming to mind.  I got to thinking, I have a task to do, but how can I achieve this when I keep ‘drawing a blank’.

Following this train of thought, I began to ponder, what is the process of looking for inspiration … how can I find my lightbulb moment? This took me in the direction of thinking about others who have inspired me to think outside of the box I find myself contained within.

Many of you may associate Albert Einstein with the Theory of Relativity, however, as you may know he is also the source of many interesting and thought-provoking quotes, and this is source of my lightbulb for this blog.

When we get stuck (my problem), when I ‘draw a blank’, as I was on this occasion, it can be helpful to take a moment or two to think differently! On this occasion, for me, it was to think about the process of what I am trying to achieve. How am I actually trying to achieve this task? Is there a different way I could be doing it?

In my day to day work with teams, I find, all too often there is a clear emphasis on thinking about the team’s task too, what they are doing, with an almost complete exclusion of thinking about the process by which they complete the task. There is growing evidence that teams who look at how they do things alongside what they do are more likely to be effective and high performing, it provides us with an opportunity to think differently, and could help teams and individuals to find a more constructive way forward, in doing so, unlocking the solutions to problems.

So, whilst this week’s blog was a bit of a struggle for me, it did remind me that the next time I feel stuck with something and am ‘drawing a blank’ I’ll take a moment to think about how I am approaching the task, not just what I am doing, and whether there might be an even better way to do it. You never know it could unleash a new creative energy in me.

Amanda Clark, Senior Consultant, TWBC