Janye Mansfield, CEO of RSM Global, the network of audit, consulting and tax experts with over 51,000 staff in over 123 countries and 860 offices, asked Matthew to present on the power of Reverse Brainstorming.
RSM's industry is changing beyond recognition, through digitisation, new ways of working, ESG regulation and reporting, and more. Its experts were struggling to keep up with all of it while still advising clients to the standard they expect, and the firm wanted new insights and new ways of thinking to help it build a robust and resilient 2030 plan.
"Rather than looking for solutions, people look for anti-solutions, how to make those problems worse, which they can then reverse in order to find new innovative solutions."Matthew Griffin, Virtual, September 2022
Matthew is usually booked for technologies, trends and wildcards, but he has also written several books on innovation, strategic foresight and strategy. Here RSM wanted him to go further into the power of negativity, to open people's eyes to new ways of thinking and solving problems.
Reverse Brainstorming is an ideation and innovation tool that many organisations use to crack their hardest problems. Instead of looking for solutions, people look for anti-solutions: ways to make the problem worse. They then reverse those ideas to find new, innovative answers.
It sounds counter intuitive, and Matthew's closing challenge to the audience was simple: try it on a real problem and see what comes out.
