Lotte Dars?: Why you need to Check-in and Check-out when innovating

Why is it so challenging for people to create innovation in groups? According to my 20 years’ of research and practice one of the main reasons is lack of trust. Already in my PhD research from 2001, I found that creating relations of trust and respect is the basis for good group work and, in particular, for successful innovation.

This knowledge has been the basis for the learning approach of the LAICS Master (Leadership and Innovation in Complex Systems), a collaboration between Aarhus University and Copenhagen Business School (www.laics.net). As the program director of LAICS, I introduce several research based methods for creating trust and respect. In fact, we create a learning community the very first time we meet and we keep this alive by using check-in and check-out every time we meet.

Check-in

What do we do? We sit in a circle and after welcoming everyone and having introduced the program for the 3? day seminar, we take a round, where everyone will speak to the question: “What is on my mind right now?” We use a talking piece (a toy animal, a rock, an apple, any small item will do), and only the person, who holds the talking piece, can speak.

Why is this important and what does this do to the group?

1. It is a way of arriving, leaving everything else behind, and bring attention to the group and the seminar
2. It is a way of becoming present in and with the group
3. It is a way of getting to know more about each other
4. It is a way of knowing what is going on in the other participants’ lives
5. It is a way of avoiding misinterpretations of behavior

Let me explain each of these:

1.     Busy People

People are busy with (often extreme) workloads. Most participants have families and some have small children. As well as many other challenges. When people arrive, their heads are full of stuff and no learning can take place unless they can leave the outside ‘world’ behind, just for a few days.

2.     Becoming present

Becoming present means to close mobile phones and be ‘out-of-office’ on email. And focus on the group and the learning process. To really be there.

3.     Getting to know each other

Getting to know each other is more important than most people would think. A famous saying from the South African Truth Commission is “You can’t hate a person whose story you know”. The more we get to know each other, the higher the probability of understanding each other, liking each other and if not liking, at least respecting each other.

4.     Sharing and caring

Following each other ‘through thick and thin’ makes a group more cohesive. Sometimes things are working well at work and at home, sometimes there are problems. To share that in a community brings about vulnerability and trust. People begin to help each other; they become emphatic and can often bring new perspectives and solutions to the table. Caring for each other is a very powerful group ingredient.

5.     How to avoid conflicts

For group work, avoiding misunderstandings of behavior is important, as that is a normal way to get conflicts. If a person explains that s/he will need to take phone calls, because someone is sick at home, the kitchen is being redone with artisans, or there is a firing round in the company, everybody will understand. Also, if a person explains that s/he has a headache or a back problem, their behavior will be understood. If people do not know, these persons may behave in ways that cause misinterpretations, such as: this person is not interested in what I have to say! Why does this person not respect the ‘no phone agreement’ that we have? Etc.

Check-Out

As for the Check-Out, our usual question is: What do I take with me from this seminar?

This is a way of seminar closure, where each person reflects on what was important for him or her. It can be a lecture, a discussion, an exercise, a dialogue or simply gratitude for being together with the group and sharing experience and practice.

Try it

My suggestion is that you try it in your group. It does not take a lot of time. One minute per person. The challenge will probably be that people will think it is a waste of time. So try it out on a small scale first. When you have experienced that it really works, you can say convincingly that you know it works and ask people to trust you and to please be open to trying it. They will then, hopefully, find out for themselves that this is an effective way of creating community and for maintaining group cohesion, which is highly valuable for teamwork, collaboration and productivity.

More

You can find several other methods, models, examples and theoretical underpinnings in my book: Innovationsp?dagogik – Kunsten at Fremelske Innovationskompetence from 2011. You can read the first chapter here: https://pure.au.dk/portal/files/36334796/Dars_Innovationsp_dagogik_kapitel_1.pdf