Training Creative Teams

By Geoff Zoeckler
Innovation Consultant
SEEK Company

CFO asks CEO: “What happens if we invest in developing our people and then they leave us?”

        CEO: “What happens if we don’t, and they stay?”

I’d like to share a quick story of how a series of fateful events in 2013 led to personal transformation through global experiences, a shift in focus away from facilitation and into training, and the completion of my Creative Studies masters project on “Training Creative Teams”.

When I started as an Innovation Consultant at SEEK Company in Cincinnati, OH four years ago, I was the 25th employee. For a couple of years, the company stayed right around that number. A few people left. A few people joined. However, by the end of 2012, a new strategy plan was developed that would put a focus on office expansion and would require more employees. From that point, SEEK has opened offices in San Francisco, Boston, and Philadelphia. In just 18 months, SEEK grew from 25 employees to about 60. Such rapid growth and physical expansion quickly exposed gaps in our ability to internally explain what made SEEK unique, what programs we offered to our clients, and how to gain the skills necessary to execute within our brand.

SEEK’s leadership team was quick to see the issue, and in mid 2013, they began looking for someone to create an official training program. Around that same timing, I decided that I would begin working to complete my master’s degree in Creative Studies from Buffalo State University. Additionally, I was presented with an opportunity to partner with Design Impact in Cincinnati, OH and the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensborro, NC on a 6 month long training program in Mumbai, India called Global Citizen Leaders (GCL).

This perfect storm of events landed me in a new Training Manager position at SEEK for about 60 staff and co-leader of a Design Thinking training program for 50 faculty and 250 MBS students at the WE School and iFEEL University near Mumbai, India. I used this title wave of new experience and growth to propel me forward into my Master’s Project.

While this blog is not a great place to share all my key learnings (that’s what the Master’s Paper is for), I would like to share a little bit of what you will get from reading my full project using a series of videos, pictures, screenshots, and downloadable materials.

I will show you how to apply things I learned from experiences like these:

(Session 1 at the WE School)


(Session 2 at iFEEL)

and the creation of material like these:

(One page follow-up activities related to Creative Problem Solving, Empathy, Presentation Tips, Prototyping, and Visualization Techniques)

into a series of training principles,

 

team-based activities like Frenzy and Faceoff,

 

conference room practice activities like this,

AND the testing of online training like this.

Check out my Master's Project to dig in further. Specifically you will find a summary of resources, project outcomes, key findings, and next steps related to my four focus areas of:

1) Create Training Principles
2) Design Individual And Team Training Frameworks
3) Identify Or Create Physical Materials For Training
4) Prototype An Online Training Methodology

About Geoff Zoeckler

The social entrepreneur meets engineer, I am loving life focusing on the front-end innovation. I spend my days leveraging 10 creativity principles derived from psychology/ neuroscience to drive consumer empathy, personal brilliance, & landmark innovation with the SEEK Company.

Past adventures brought me through General Mills and Birds Eye Foods where I flexed my Chemical Engineer degree as a Senior Product Developer focusing on innovation pipelines. I get my kicks by solving problems and improving the culture of innovation within corporate walls. My unquenchable curiosity and zeal for life has led me to develop many personal and professional hobbies.

I'm currently pursuing a Masters in Creativity and Change Leadership (combination of in person and online work) up at Buffalo State.

I am also moonlighting as a Social Innovation Specialist with Design Impact co-leading an effort to coach, train, and facilitate leadership and creative problem solving approaches with 45 faculty and 250 masters students at the Wellinkar School of Management (WE School) in Mumbai and Lonavala India. Students will be using the skills taught to run industry and social innovation projects within their local communities. This project is in partnership with the world’s leading leadership and creativity training organization Center for Creative Leadership (CCL).