The other day I got one of my business clients to brainstorm how she and her staff could improve their small business. This is a process that I encourage my long term clients to do at least once a year.

The method I coached them in uses reversals to create insights about their company: the reversals help you to see problems from a new perspective and to encourage you to raise sensitive issues that you are usually too polite to mention.

What are the typical reversal questions?

There are five questions that I typically ask at some time on our two hour session:

1. How can you make things much worse? Look at making your existing situation worse. When you have enough ideas, reverse them to identify potential improvements.

2. How can you make yourself less useful? Find ways to waste time and resources. Exploring effectiveness in this different way shows you hidden possibilities for damaging your process, so you invert them to find improvements.

3. How can you add complications so that everything grinds to a halt? Brainstorm all the ways to make your paperwork and decision-making worse