How to Encourage Your Team to Think Creatively and to Improvise as Well.

In addition to the improvisation you do yourself as a grant writer, it is also important to know tools for helping your grant writing team improvise as well. Too often a lack of creative energy can be traced to the fact that various team members may be afraid of failing. With this motivation, they may be more creative inventing reasons for giving up than coming up with solutions that will make it happen. Below, I will share with you the five most important techniques I have used to help my teams improvise like jazz musicians. 

The Lion's Cage (Charlie Chaplin), Music Composed by Colin Bruce

1. Do the Right Thing

I picked up this idea from George H.W. Bush. As a vice-president and former director of the CIA, the elder Bush had a lot of experience in working with appointed and career government staff. One of his techniques was to simply ask his team: "What would we do if we wanted to do the right thing?" Of course, this seems a little funny because we assume that everyone would naturally want to do the right thing. Bush's question was an acknowledgement that international relations is an opaque business and that often it is not possible to do the right thing if it creates other disadvantages and risks. Nevertheless, I am fond of asking this question because it challenges staff to really check their own agendas and respond with high quality solutions which represent an ideal answer to a question. Once you have their innovative answers on the table, you can always scale them back and do what is most practical at the moment. 

2. Time and Plan Your Improvisation Challenges

Typically, any grant writing team has enthusiasts and doubters. Both have a role in the grant writing process. In my experience it is best to start out with the enthusiasts, they are the ones who will be most energetic and committed to making the grant happen. With them, I encourage their spontaneous comments and ask them to elaborate on their enthusiasms. It is only late in the process - after a draft or two - that I invite the doubters to take a shot at the proposal. At this stage, their negativity will point out holes in the document. Based on their comments, I will get a solid list of issues which need to be sorted out and fixed as the grant moves forward. One question I ask the doubters is "What can we do to make the grant work to your satisfaction?" 

3. Out Crazy the Crazies

One of my favorite techniques of improvisation is to run with a crazy idea and, in a sense, out crazy the craziest person in the room. For example, someone may say that we should provide free equipment to students. (Clearly impractical.) My response is to suggest that we give them free clothes, movie tickets and automobiles. The impact of this approach is that I have loosened up the thinking of the group, helped them think outside the box, and made them more comfortable with speaking their minds. This technique is really most helpful when the crazy comment is really delivered by a crazy person. You might also try the reverse crazy technique which is to suggest to the group that they do the exact opposite of what they expect. This approach helps them zero in on the merits of the project simply because extinguishing it has been placed on the table. 

4. Take Money Off the Table

Another way to open up your group to innovation is to ask "What would we do if money was no object and we were certain to succeed?" This question gives your team the freedom to dream the best possible solution. They get to shoot for the stars. This approach actually yields surprising results since some ideas of the staff and administrators may not be so expensive or risky after all. There might be ways to approximate the things they want to do by using new technology, borrowed resources, or key donations. No matter what, you will get fresh ideas and the motivation to proceed. 

5. Make it Personal

Finally, it sometimes helps to touch the heart and highest aspirations of your team by asking "What would you do if it was your own mother or daughter in this program?" The responses to this question often elicit surprisingly sensitive, thoughtful, and decisive answers. It works, in part, because it gives the team members a simpler problem to solve. They are solving the problem of their own, for their own family, without regard to the objections and concerns of non-family members. Even though their ideas might highlight their personal values, the ideas themselves will probably be at least 80% of the way to the correct solution. 

If you remember to apply these techniques when you and your team are threatened by writer's block, then you will quickly find new avenues which restore your freshness, confidence and energy. As long as what you write works for you, you should be in good shape. This is true even if you are entirely unfamiliar with the topic of your grant application.

Succeeding When the Pressure is Great: The Five Most Important Tips for Effective Improvisation

The need for improvisation in grant writing is the logical consequence of the requirement to write long, original, persuasive documents under tight deadlines about topics that are unfamiliar. Due to severe time constraints, the grant writer will never have the time to adequately research their topic. If they are afraid of improvising, then they may deny themselves and their team adequate time to review and revise the grant proposal. After all, keep in mind multiple revisions are needed and will be made to make the document perfect. Below, I list my five most important tips for effective improvisation. 

"Big Bear Lake Scene," oil on canvas 18" x 24" by John C. Drew, Ph.D.

1. Trust Yourself

In an emergency situation, it always makes sense to begin by trusting your own gut instincts. Often the program managers at your charity may have no clue how to organize their work either. Your best guess at the way to proceed may actually win the team over and impress the funder. Plus, if you are sincerely happy with what you are writing then you are probably at least 80% of the way toward identifying the ideal elements of a winning grant proposal including the needs statement, the program solution, and the evaluation measures. Regardless, the key is to keep writing no matter what. When you read what you have written the next day you may be surprised by the quality of your work and the internal coherence of your arguments. 

2. Play the Worst, Average, Best Game

If I am stuck about the best course to follow as I'm writing a grant, I like to play a little game called Worst, Average and Best. I begin by thinking about a serious issue and then ask myself what the absolute worst solution would be. I don't know why, but imagining the absolutely worst solution, the solution that would make things much worse tends to clear my mind and gives me a foundation on which to build. I then ask myself what would be an average solution to the problem. Here, my brain generates traditional answers to immediate questions. I have found that this question tends to trigger my existing memory and pull up ideas and procedures or thoughts which I hadn't previously considered. The next step, however, is what makes this game so satisfying. I ask myself what would be the best possible solution to the problem? Out of this question, I have often found surprising solutions that appear in my mind. These are ideas that are grounded in the literature and are simple, effective, and creative. Even if my idea is off base, however, I still go with it. The staff of the agency or its leadership may or may not agree with my take, but - at the very least - I have done my duty by providing them with my best original insight. In times of crisis, I have found that playing the Worst, Average, and Best game has often led me to powerful solutions that make me feel quite confident about what I am writing or doing for a client or for workshop participants. 

3. Reverse Conventional Wisdom

One of the best improvisational techniques in my repertoire comes from my graduate school mentor, the late, Theodore J. Lowi. He taught me that it was frequently useful to take an idea and then explore the practicality of its complete opposite. For example, one of the truisms of grant writing is that the best pathway to winning is to follow the funder's directions. It would be folly to ignore this advice. Yet, we can imagine the creative ideas that might emerge if we reversed this saying and thought instead, the best pathway to winning is NOT to follow the funder's directions. How might that be true? As I ask myself the question it occurs to me that the best way to win grants, in reality, is to know a board or staff member of the foundation and have them recommend you to the funder. Some funders expressly ask you not to do this. Nevertheless, this is one sure way to win grants. This idea might not have occurred to me if I did not experiment with reversing the original shibboleth. 

4. Makeup Facts and Figures Just to Keep Writing

The only practical solution is to recognize your own strengths and weaknesses and do your best at improvising when you run across mainly unfamiliar matters. Whatever inadequacies this creates are relatively minor since other readers on your team should be able to revise the document and make it more realistic. This is why, in my seminars, I recommend that you write a draft of the whole grant first and then do the research for the document. 

5. Google It

The internet has been one of the greatest blessings for grant writers in a hurry. If I am stuck on something, I am usually pleasantly surprised when a quick Google search of keywords or a name brings up a Wikipedia article or some other resources which fill me in on the topic. The Wikipedia entries are particularly useful when they contain recent footnotes. Even so, I and you need to check those links. Too often the source cited in the Wikipedia article is no longer available, at least in its original form. When I bump up against paywalls, I usually just make do with the article summary and rely on the agency staff to verify my take on the article in question. My associate grant writers are particularly adept at finding key information on the internet. In one case, an associate grant writer found step-by-step directions for creating fish ponds. We were able to use this document in our draft grant proposal and the client, who built fish ponds himself, seemed perfectly okay with what was submitted.