Is your organization going through a breakdown?

Roegger from Pixabay.

OK, now things are even more complicated. You’re striving to continue delivering services and products at a similar level to that of pre-Covid – with fewer staff hours – as well as deal with the “next” normal not yet knowing what the “new” normal looks like.  This is about as close to a breakdown as you can get.

My advice?

Embrace the breakdown because it inevitably leads to a breakthrough. Think of a time in your life when you were really unhappy. When you got through it, did you reflect on the lesson? You probably did. Was it a breakthrough for you? It probably was.

The combination of operating during a pandemic and the imperative to actively promote social justice is the perfect incentive to go inward in order to respond outward. Who are we as an organization? What do we want our impact to be? What do we want our contribution to the future to look like?

Disruption is beautiful

Although it feels like the exact opposite of what you should be doing, I encourage this kind of disruption because it can lead to beautiful, creative solutions. I say this as someone who has helped all different kinds of organizations discover solutions that they would never have expected.

Case study

I worked with a technical college in London, for example, that had a serious issue with student absenteeism. They thought the problem was how to convince students to come to school. They discovered in Phase 1 (Planning) of the Light Bulb Thinking™ framework that the problem was very different – it was staff availability for students. Once they identified this, the outcomes from Phases 2, 3 and 4 (brainstorming, choosing the solution, and implementing) felt right. They realized they had to accept the breakdown of student “revolt” before they could find the breakthrough: staff support for students.

What’s the “breakdown” in your organization, and what’s the impact?


I’m hired by visionary leaders to bring serious fun and creative problem-solving to the workplace. Using Light Bulb Thinking™, we disrupt “business as usual” and create a culture of innovation.

Would you like to see what tapping into creative potential could look like for your team or organization? Arrange an exploratory call - email me at Ellia@ThePotentialCenter.com.

With the right support, any organization, team, and individual can learn creative ways to solve problems. The mission of The Potential Center™ is to simplify the creative problem-solving and innovation process to address urgent, pervasive and expensive problems. All while building stronger teams.

The Light Bulb Thinking™ framework demystifies and simplifies the creative problem-solving and innovation processes that open the door to fresh ideas and creative strategic solutions.

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