Your team hasn't run out of ideas. They've stopped saying them.

Think of your last tense meeting, with a hard problem on the table and good people around it. Every idea offered was a safer version of something you tried last year.

Lots of leaders are unaware that, in many cases, nobody on their team stopped having ideas; they simply stopped offering them.

Under pressure, feeling anxious or fearful, people protect themselves, so they agree in the meeting and doubt in the corridor. Fear rarely looks like fear; it masquerades as alignment.

Each idea that goes unsaid makes the next one harder to say. Soon, only the safe, old choices are left. The team goes back to the old playbook, because no one gets blamed. But your hardest problems will not bend to the old playbook. They need fresh thinking. Creativity is an irreplaceable part of the brainstorming process, and it is the first thing fear and anxiety shut down.

In one hour, Louise will show you how to read that moment in your own team and make one move that brings its creative thinking back. You will leave able to do three things:

• 1Spot the signs your team has stopped creating and is only following orders, so you can step in before the ideas dry up.
• 2Make one specific move in your next meeting, so a quiet team starts offering new ideas again instead of safe, old ones.
• 3Treat creativity as a hard business skill, not a soft extra, so your team can solve the problems the old playbook cannot.