Innovation Mindset
Get your team thinking like innovators
Great ideas don’t come from a suggestion box, they come from teams that feel free to experiment, challenge the obvious and build on each other. This Growth day sparks that innovative thinking through hands-on challenges, then turns it into a habit back at work.
Choose your activity
Four team building activities built for innovative thinking
Each one gives the team a real challenge to work through together, then we wrap the same guided reflection around it. Pick the one that fits your group, or ask us to recommend.
Cardboard Boat Building
The Cardboard Boat Building Challenge is a high-stakes test of creativity and resourcefulness where teams must engineer a seaworthy vessel using nothing but cardboard and packing tape. With a strict one-hour deadline, participants are forced to move quickly from design to construction, relying on rapid prototyping and collective problem-solving to ensure their boat survives the final race. This hands-on activity builds team synergy by requiring participants to leverage every member’s unique skills while adapting to extreme resource constraints. Success is measured not just by aesthetic design, but by the functional reality of staying afloat, making it a powerful metaphor for productivity and resilience under pressure.
Chain Reaction
A high-stakes engineering mission where teams must design and construct an intricate “topple paradise” using a diverse kit of dominoes, levers, and pipes. Success hinges on a single, flawless execution where every segment must trigger the next in a seamless, one-take performance. This hands-on activity demands strategic delegation and precise communication, as participants must align their individual sections to meet strict structural and aesthetic requirements. By blending creative building with technical problem-solving, the experience serves as a powerful metaphor for organizational workflow, proving that while the smallest oversight can break the chain, perfect team coordination leads to a spectacular, unified victory.
We can sell it
We Can Sell It is a high-energy game show where teams compete to create and pitch the most compelling advertising ideas. Each team brainstorms and presents three marketing pitches across three channels. A catchy print ad, a persuasive radio monologue and a live TV-style commercial, while refining their storytelling, presentation and collaboration under time pressure. Teams then vote on the most original, best-presented pitch, making it a brilliant, fun way to sharpen how a team communicates, persuades and presents as one.
Shark Tank
Shark Tank is a workshop on transforming Idea Generation and Innovation into a memorable experience. The program incorporates the well-known Shark Tank format to create friendly competition between teams, which is an excellent way to gamify an ideation or innovation session. The program instils a sense of competition by inviting teams to pitch their ground-breaking ideas to a panel of judges, simulating the exhilarating atmosphere of the popular TV show. This exciting environment challenges participants to think on their feet, evaluate the feasibility of their ideas, address challenging questions, and negotiate effectively.
Not sure which fits? Tell us your group size & preferred date and we’ll recommend the best activity for the innovation mindset outcome.
who is this growth day for
For teams stuck doing it the usual way
If any of these sound familiar, an innovation day gets your team thinking differently again.
Fear of failure keeps the team playing it safe
Facing a challenge the old playbook just can’t solve
The same few solutions get recycled for every problem
People wait to be told what to do rather than try something new
New ideas quietly fade when they don’t fit the usual way of doing things
ideas that go further
What your team
walks away with
Through hands-on challenges and guided reflection, the team practises thinking creatively and testing ideas fast, then carries that mindset into everyday problems.
Challenge the obvious
Question assumptions and look past the first, easy answer.
Think in possibilities
Generate plenty of ideas before settling on one to run with.
Experiment fast
Try, learn and adjust instead of waiting for the perfect plan.
Build on each other
Turn one person’s spark into the whole team’s idea.
Make failure safe
Treat a flopped idea as a lesson, not a black mark.
Turn ideas into action
Move promising ideas from talk to a real next step.
How a growth day works
The activity changes. The method doesn’t.
Whichever activity you choose, we wrap it in the same Frame → Pause → Commit method, so the day stays fun, but the innovation lessons actually stick.
Deep, hands-on facilitation. Facilitators draw out the learning at every step.
1
Pre-frame
Set the mindset for the day: be focused, curious, present and open to being vulnerable.
2
Targeted outcome
Facilitated discussion with videos & slides to name the one thing the team will focus on in the activity.
3
The activity
Run the experience with that focus front of mind, so the lesson plays out in real time.
4
Guided reflection
What did you notice? What went well? Were you able to hold the focus? Facilitators turn the experience into insight.
5
Moving forward
Build a concrete action plan for putting the learning to work back in the office.
A worksheet runs through every step, from pre-frame to forming the action plan at the end.
Frequently Asked Questions, answered
Who is this growth day for?
Teams that keep producing the same ideas. New problems get old answers, people wait to be told what to do rather than trying something, and ideas that don’t fit the usual process quietly fade away. Usually it traces back to a fear of getting it wrong.
What will be different afterwards?
People challenge the obvious answer and build on each other’s half formed ideas rather than picking holes in them. Experiments get run quickly and cheaply, failure stops being career limiting, and ideas turn into real next steps rather than staying in a document.
Why these activities?
We have four activities, and all of them reward a team that tries something over one that deliberates. Cardboard Boat Building gives teams one hour and only cardboard and tape to engineer a boat that has to stay afloat, and Chain Reaction challenges them to build an intricate topple setup that has to work in one flawless take. We Can Sell It and Shark Tank make teams pitch an idea and then face the questions, with Shark Tank adding a panel of judges in the style of the TV show.
How is it different from Psychological Safety?
Innovation is about generating and testing ideas, while psychological safety is the condition that makes that possible. If your team has ideas but won’t voice them, start with psychological safety and the ideas will follow.
Let’s design your teams growth day
Tell us the outcome you’re chasing and the team you’re bringing. We’ll shape a day that delivers it and is genuinely good fun along the way.
