We open the damn blinds, overfill the coffee grains and scarf down the too-crumbly breakfast bar.

We lock the front door, throw our bag in the front seat, run back to get the laptop charger and back out of the driveway four minutes late. 

We half run up the backstairs, only tripping once. We hear the jingle of *good mornings* as we turn on our monitors. We surround ourselves with the brains of our coworkers and kick off the production meeting; all five senses are alive. 

We are a group of people with a purpose. We strive to organize an army of co-conspirators who share a common vision and a common Monday morning. We unite, we collaborate, we believe.

We dive deep, swing wide, disrupt the status quo and inspire actions that drive impact. 

 We take detours. We experiment. We find out what works. We operate on the edge of what’s happening now to drive what happens next.

Together, we shock, we awe and we wake up every Monday morning in a better place than we did the week before.

But we’re human. We are capable of writer’s block, of unfruitful brainstorms, of middle-of-the-road, of the conventional, of overusing and underwhelming. 

So we turn to the sheep next to us and ask them to expect the most of us—to inspire us. Every Monday morning, like a ritual we look to to refresh our brains, we ask a member of the flock to come to the table with a piece of inspiration. Oftentimes, inspiration comes in the form of a TED Talk, a few pages from a book, a poem, a quote or a game. We’ve even been known to fill in a few coloring books.

Every Monday morning from now on, a sheep from the flock will be sharing their weekly inspiration with you.
Welcome to the Black Sheep show: This is Sheepspo.

We’ve turned to each other for inspiration for seven years.

#SHEEPSPO

We’ve turned to each other for inspiration for seven years. Now, we’d like to share that inspiration with you, to give you a snapshot of what greases our gears and fuels our creativity every Monday morning.

Condensed

At Black Sheep, much like any other creative hub, we have to do a lot of brainstorming. Cocktail glasses clinking, pizza boxes piled, brains colliding, problems to solve, ideas to muster. One of the most exciting aspects of creativity is the ability to encourage and feed off of other perspectives and—as a result—our greatest ideas are often concepted in these group settings. 

The week’s inspiration is about putting our thinking caps on in a strategic way, thanks to The de Bono Group’s collaborative concept called Six Thinking Hats.

This concept of putting on more than one type of thinking cap is defined as “a simple, effective parallel thinking process that helps people be more productive, focused and mindfully involved.”

So, who wears which thinking cap and what do the six hats mean?

White Hat: Information that is known or needed. Insert history, facts, data. 

Yellow Hat: Optimism while exploring positive possibilities, value and benefits. The opposite of Black Hat. 

Black Hat: (Obviously our favorite.) Play the devil’s advocate. 

Red Hat: Gimme those feels, hunches and intuition. This is where emotions come into play.

Blue Hat: Manages the thinking process of the other five hats. Mama hat.  

Thoughts from The de Bono Group: “You and your team members can learn how to separate thinking into six clear functions and roles. By mentally wearing and switching ‘hats,’ you can easily focus or redirect thoughts, the conversation, or the meeting.” Freaking snazzy. 

Most Black Sheep brainstorms are driven by a series of goals and a ticking clock. Each person comes to the table with a specific set of skills, personal experiences and perspective that allow us to work together, weave in and out of each other’s lanes and create some pretty epic sh*t. 

Putting this whole concept to the test, I put on my Black Hat and realize that the only crippling aspect of this method is the fact that human brains are funny and I am more likely to come up with answers for the person sitting next to me than I am to fill ideas under my own hat.

In lieu of this discovery, I put on my sparkling Green Hat and make an amendment to the Six Thinking Hats method. After all, what is a concept without a little Black Sheep disruption?

If you come up with a fact, idea or opinion that should go under another person’s hat, you have the choice to trade one-for-one. For example, if Yellow answers a Black, Black has to answer a Yellow.

Using the Six Hats Method means we’re creating structure without boundaries—organizing the chaos. Brainstorming is a soft science that can result in a lot of hard value for clients. So, creating a structure around a free-spirited process without limiting the potential outcome is essential. The Six Hats Method helps us do just that.

“Brainstorm with me for a second.” — said every person in #agencylife ever.

Thinking Caps + Lightbulb Moments