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How to Foster Creativity in Your Workplace

bunsundesigns July 4, 2015

I turn to the engineer who described himself as not creative. “I believe I heard that you like to cook. Tell me about it,” I ask. We are all sitting or standing in a circle in a little open area in the woods.

“Funny you should ask that,” he says. “Even though I am an engineer, I actually don’t like following recipes. I usually get into the kitchen, open the cupboards and the fridge and look at what’s there. I pull things out and play with them, trying something different.” Then he adds, “My family usually loves what comes out.”

As he is talking, I see smiles around the circle. He does too, and interrupts himself in the middle of the sentence. “What?” he asks.

“Did you hear what you just said?” someone asks.

He stands still for a very long moment, and his face changes as the new awareness slowly creeps in. “I had no idea,” he quietly says to himself.

Over the years, I have encountered many similar situations, where a person carries a deep-seated belief about what creativity is or what it is supposed to look like, and how they don’t have it. Almost always, there is a shadow of someone from the past, lurking in the psyche and whispering a message, again and again, “Don’t color outside the lines.” “This is not how you are supposed to draw.” “There is only one right way of doing it (or one right answer).” On and on, the messages repeat and reinforce each other until we start believing that only some people are born creative, that being creative and being artistic are the same thing, and that work and career – and life, for that matter – are a serious business, not to be taken lightly.

“We have the creative fire beating strong within us, a steady pulse, just waiting to be unleashed on the next obstacle, challenge, or situation.”

Contrary to what we heard from parents and teachers in our earlier years, we all have creative fire within us. We have had it since the moment we were born, when we ventured into exploring the world around us. We invented magical objects from sticks. We became dragons, unicorns, kings, queens, pirates, or space travelers, while re-enacting scenarios of adventure for hours on end. We saw shapes in clouds. We talked to ants, trees, and birds. Our creativity was alive and imagination ran our lives.

Yet, slowly, day after day, one educational system after another, one authority figure or expert after another, the fire was suppressed, caged, and contained.

Tom and David Kelley, of design firm IDEO call it “creative confidence.” Michael Gelb, an international consultant in the area of creativity, talks about the “creative mindset.” I look at it as a way of being, a way of approaching each and every situation with the attitude and belief that we have the creative fire beating strong within us, a steady pulse, just waiting to be unleashed on the next obstacle, challenge, or situation. It is the same fire we had as children, and even if we happen to have forgotten that we have it, it exists in all of us.

There are many useful and valuable tools, models, and frameworks for applying creative approaches to the challenges and problems our people and organizations are facing in our 21st century, which are characterized by the increasing pace of VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Chaos, Ambiguity). Design thinking, rapid prototyping, brainstorming, de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats, and many others all have their place and value.

The starting point of such creative endeavors must be our inner work. Without exploring the beliefs we carry about our creative capacities, the outcomes of applying any framework will be limited at best. We have to come to be present to the cages of our mind and psyche that keep our creative fire contained. Only when we have truly connected with it, identified its cages and guardians, will we realize it was merely an illusion – an outdated belief that does not serve us any more. That is when the fire is unleashed and harnessed and can be applied to our personal and professional challenges.

This is one of the areas where Applied Eco-Psychology comes into play. When we actively and intentionally step in and engage with nature, we allow ourselves to reconnect to the childlike part of us; the part that may have forgotten how to be curious, how to look upon the world with wonder, and how to approach life with what Buddhism calls a “beginner’s mind.” This part of us never doubted our creativity. It is the part within us that needs to come out, unleashing its imaginative spark towards whatever challenge or problem we face by grabbing a framework or a model and beginning the process of applying, experimenting, playing, trying and failing, and ultimately creating something new, unique, valuable, and meaningful. After all, innovation is really creativity applied, and such application will be infinitely more transformational when it is being guided by a liberated, playful, and unleashed fire of a person’s soul.

Simon is a contemporary alchemist, facilitating transformational learning experiences in organizational, group, and individual settings. His passion, experience, and continual learning are in the areas of unleashing our energies of creativity and innovation, harnessing these towards the many challenges we are facing in the world around us. Further details about Simon are here: www.SimonGoland.com

Stakeholder Capitalism / Sustainable Development
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