Unlocking creativity

I use this forum to journal my thoughts. I hope my musings will inspire others. I encourage you to share your experiences. I also encourage you to dispute (preferably debate) anything you disagree with.?

I am a Creative. I am creative. I am a creative thinker.

I wonder if I would feel confident in writing this statement if I was in finance, procurement, operations, sales, or customer service.?

This is a question that I always wonder before collaborating with a new team. Will people allow their role to define their potential for creativity? Many do. They believe that they aren’t a Creative or are creative.?

Creativity v productivity

Organisational cultures are generally designed to measure the performance of productivity and efficiency. This leaves little room for creative thinking. Ironically, according to a study conducted by IBM creativity is rated as the top leadership quality valued by CEO’s.

If creativity is really valued by the c-suite as this study suggests then organisations would more commonly measure metrics that demonstrate creativity, innovation, entrepreneurial, experimental, and iterative mindsets. See more in Eric Ries book “The Startup Way”.

The endorsement for creativity has to start from the top. Leadership has to demonstrate sustained and visible support to make an environment where it is safe to fail and to play. This isn’t an easy task for a CEO especially with the pressures of appeasing the board and keeping the company working. We’ve witnessed this first hand with clients. The results are epic. The process, not as glamorous.?

What is creativity?

Creative thinking is intelligence having fun – Albert Einstein

I love this quote because to me it conjures mischievousness. I am all for mischievousness. For asking forgiveness over permission. For thinking and being different.

To me creativity is about being. It is about a way of thinking, feeling, seeing and engaging in the world in a brighter and more colourful way. It is about seeing signals amidst the noise. It is having a curiosity to learn, to understand and absorb different points of view and ways of working.?Then make new connections in an interesting way.

This philosophy is shared by music supremo Rick Rubin, who in his discussion with Andrew Huberman believes that creativity is about your ability to stay present and pay attention.

Serious play

The (main) focus of my creativity is to unlock creativity in others (very meta). To lead them to new frontiers by unlocking their ability for imagination and innovation.?

This isn’t straightforward. Designing for others to be creative is a complex beast. You come up against things like bias, systems, process (the words get less colourful and more pointy). Plus people’s own vulnerabilities. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to share an idea to a group with the knowledge that other people may not be as enthusiastic.

After a recent Ideation Workshop I posed the question to a design thinking forum I am part of:

I am posting to get other peoples thoughts and insights on creativity and play. I am trying to understand is if it is:

A superpower that only a select few have?

Something that can be taught?

Something that we start with and most slowly lose it over time?

People responded as if this was a request for tools and tips. All of which felt quite functional. My goal was to spark a deeper more philosophical conversation on why even with permission people struggle to be creative. The philosopher Alan Watts sees that there are two types of people, prickly and gooey people. My quest is to make people more Gooey?

How we get people to dream and be more ‘Gooey’?

In business terms, this means busting organisational norms such as starting projects with a solution mindset, eg, “we need an app?”? From my experience creativity is only as good as the conditions you set and the people you involve:?

• The conditions you set – providing a 'safe space' through trust and psychological safety where people have the confidence to contribute.?
• The people you involve – including a healthy mix of people directly impacted or that influence the situation. This includes internals, suppliers, and if possible consumers. I can't stress enough the value of co-creating with consumers.?

From a bigger picture point of view if a company wants their people to be creative thinkers they need to invest the time to embed this mindset into the culture. In a recent discussion with a peer we articulated this as building literacy. The framework and associated tools of human centered design is a practical way to do this. This way of working enables people to connect the intangible acts of thinking and behaving differently by acting differently.?

How we measure the impact of creativity

We believe that it is difficult to have a conversation about creativity without including innovation.

?Creativity is thinking up new things, innovation is doing new things – Theodore Levitt, a former professor at the Harvard Business School

Innovation (evolutionary/revolutionary) is the evidence of new ways of acting, doing, thinking that add value to an organisation.

When working with organisations our innovation dashboard is influenced by Google’s HEART system. We have created measures to understand the impact of new and innovative ways of working to problem seek and solve.

What you can do today

• Build literacy – this can be as simple as investing in books. Check out the reading list we created from our Future of Now series. Also provide your people access to training programs and webinars.
• Create a safe space – don’t just celebrate wins. Provide forums to share failures. Use these gatherings as opportunities to share learnings that will help propel the company. Also set up multidisciplinary team guilds to share ideas and insights.
• Demonstrate the impact?– creativity and new ways of thinking shouldn’t just stay within the confines of a whiteboard, room, or team. If you run innovation programs or use new ways of working to solve challenges then demonstrate the outcomes and outputs. Host Show and Tells by inviting leaders to see the results of efforts. Ask them to contribute with feedback. Educate people and lower the bar.?

I'd love to learn how you inspire creativity in your organisation. Please share in the comments.?

My name is Dan, I run an innovation and strategy consultancy called?More Space For Light.

Our mission is to unlock an organisation’s ability for imagination and innovation. So their people are better equipped to tackle big problems. So they feel empowered to create new solutions, and then the confidence to put them in motion. Human-Centered Design (HCD) and Design Thinking is at the core of what we do, and it is our superpower.

Get in touch for help with a challenge related to strategy, a product or service experience, or how to connect with your customers and stakeholders.?

Let’s start by scheduling a 30 min call to discuss.