Put the Think Wrong Practices into Action.
Our Think Wrong Drills provide step-by-step guidance for imagining, building, and executing status quo-busting solutions to your challenges and opportunities—big or small.
We’ve developed over 150 Think Wrong Drills to give you countermoves to the most common and tenacious biological and cultural challenges. Each drill belongs to one of our six Think Wrong Practices and will help you to imagine, generate, and explore new possibilities to your most wicked challenges and opportunities.
These drills have been successfully implemented by everyone from the young designers who gave birth to PieLab in Belfast, Maine, to senior leaders at the White House, and teams of intrapreneurs disrupting the Global 1000 from the inside out.
You can use the Think Wrong Drills individually—or in bunches—when you want to depart from the predictable solution path. We’ve been known to run as many as 15 in a day of Think Wrong Blitzing—intense, immersive, multi-day events designed to help organizations think wrong about a big challenge they are facing.
How to use
Each Think Wrong Drill offers the following information for Wrong Thinkers to design, produce, and successfully run any drill or combination of drills from our Think Wrong Drill library.
Basic Drill Information
Name of Drill
These vary from descriptive to playful—to evoke the nature of the drill and have a little fun i.e., Moonshot.
When to use
Describes the moment and the motivation you might have for running the drill.
Think Right
Predicts typical biological and cultural responses you might encounter.
Think Wrong
Provides you with a counterpunch to Right Thinkers.
Outcomes
Identifies the big outcome you can expect from the drill.
When to use
Use when you need to escape the biases, orthodoxies, and assumptions that define the status quo—and that limit the impact you might have.
Think Right
Operate within the status quo pursuing incremental improvement and risk mitigation tactics, such as market research and adoption of best practices.
Think Wrong
Boldly seek challenges and opportunities that exist beyond the limitations of the status quo. Imagine impact others would never dare to.
Outcomes
Elevated impact
Shared vision of impact
Aspirational goals
Reasons to believe
Instructions
Step-by-step instructions teach you how to run every Think Wrong Drill and tips provide insight and examples for how to keep Wrong Thinkers on the bold path while generating ideas for the challenges to their greatest challenges and opportunities.
Step 5
Have teams generate ideas for how their new brand owner might solve the challenge.
Tips
Prompt teams to use all assets associated with the brand that has taken over their organization.
For example: The Lego product line includes amusement parks, animated programming, characters, games, apps, education products, discovery centers, and partnerships with major entertainment brands. These are now all at their disposal for solving the challenge.
Step 1
Prior to the Blitz use the Brand Takeover Tool to set up the brands you want to use.
Step 2
Introduce the Brand Takeover Drill.
Step 3
Assign each team a brand from the Brand Board.
Step 4
Announce that the brand they’ve selected has taken over their organization. The good news: the new leadership thinks the work you’re doing is vital.
Set up for success
Prepare and have the right tools for the job. This matters even more when you are asking people to step out of their comfort zone. Pre-printed posters, online resources and plentiful supplies provide reassurance, allow everyone to focus on the drill, and make it easier to capture and report the results.
Materials
The list of basic materials and drill supplies that are necessary to facilitate the drill i.e.: Post-its, Sharpies, and dots for dot-voting.
Related Drills
Drills that pair well with or are required before or after a specific drill for best results and desired outcomes.
Attribution
The inspiration or credit owed to each drill.
Drill Timer
Start, pause, and reset your drill timer.
Participation Type
Whether the drill is typically run in a group, team, duo, or solo.
Tools
Tools that are required to run the drill, including drill posters and inspiration boards, specific to the drill.
Related Drills
Pairs Well With
It’s Imperative
Dead Cat
Waypoints 3 Year Plan
Attribution
A Future Original
How-to Videos
Follow along with how-to videos that instruct When to use, How to Introduce, and Tips for Facilitating the drill.
When to use the Drill
How to introduce the Drill
Tips for facilitating the Drill
Picture it
View photo galleries of each drill that illustrate what it looks like in action.These images will also help with facilitation, give a better idea of how to use the space you are in, and capture your own Think Wrong Blitz.
Ready to try a drill?
Access our library of Think Wrong Drills to run your own Think Wrong Blitz or select a few to use during your next meeting, or anytime that you feel stuck.