Unleashing Creativity & Leading Change An IDEAengineering storybook by SeriouslyCreative to help you unleash your creativity and become the creative leader that provokes change.
ENGINEERING
SeriouslyCreative.com
Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere. Albert Einstein
SeriouslyCreative
We have all heard about how important innovation is in business today. We know (or we should) that it is something we can manage, produce and provoke. !
But we don’t hear nearly enough about innovations cousin, creativity. If innovation is the organizational ability to turn differentiated ideas into business value then creativity is the individual source of those ideas. In other words, without creative people innovation doesn’t really happen. !
But we are not taught to be creative. Instead school and business-as-usual makes us myopic in what we value in business. Together they teach us to look to analytics, linear processes and to a “one right answer” philosophy to solve all problems. But not all problems are that simple. We need to unleash our innate ability to be creative, to use our imagination, to stretch our thinking beyond what is proven, status quo and “reasonable.” !
The great news is that you are already creative. (What? Me? No, I’m not creative.) Yeah, we hear that a lot. But we are all born creative. We just get taught to not use it. And, even better, we can rekindle our creative brain and improve our creative abilities. Think of your creative brain as a muscle. Currently you might be a creative couch potato but with a little work, some training and discipline you can be a creative Olympian. !
The only thing you need is a bit of Creative Confidence* - the willingness to say “yeah, I can be more creative with a little work.” Let us show you how. ! ! !
* Creative Confidence is a term created by hyper creative brothers Tom and David Kelley, founders of design firm IDEO. They even wrote a book about it. Check it out at the end of this story.
! !
We need to get past our fears of creativity.! The first step is to face the truth - we all have some level of fear around being creative. And like any rational person we tend to avoid those things we fear. !
There are basically four fears suffer from when it comes to being creative. We fear the Messy Front End. We are very comfortable looking at well organized data sitting in our offices. But creativity (and innovation) takes interaction with people and information that cannot easily be “spreadsheeted.” It takes dealing with ambiguity and dealing with conflicting information and this makes us uncomfortable especially when we need to explain to others the rational behind our ideas. But it is in the messiness that we find compelling insights and inspirations for creative thoughts so we need to engage with the chaos. We also fear Judgement. Tom and David Kelley say we are like teenagers who are very self conscious of what others think of us. And we want to protect our reputation as serious, capable an rational people. Suggesting new ideas that are not yet proven risks ridicule and looking stupid. But if we don’t dare to say something that challenges the status quo we will never arrive at new value.
SeriouslyCreative
We also fear Loosing Control. If you are going to work on something new you are going to have to work with other people which means that they might change our initial idea which is hard for us to accept. It also means allowing people to take risk and that scares us because it might jeopardize other things we are trying to get done. Finally, we fear Getting Started. Creativity doesn’t always have a clear starting point which makes us feel that we might be stepping on thin ice. We have been taught to seek perfection and “if a job is worth doing, do it right.” These things sound good but creative takes just getting started and finding your way from wherever you are. !
Thankfully, by taking small steps in becoming increasingly more creative while at the same time accepting that being creative is simply a matter of putting in the work to improve our chances at ideas, we can build our creative confidence. !
Let’s take the first step together. Flip the page. ! ! !
Creativity is nothing more than connecting the dots.! Creativity seems so mysterious to most. We think it is an innate skill that you are born with and that it happens by chance to a chosen few. Not true. !
Ask a great creative mind in business how they came up with their idea and they suddenly pause. They have a hard time explaining it. But when you probe them you find that what they did was take something they saw or heard about and connected it with something else to mash up something new. Basically, they connected things that most people would not try to put together. They connected the dots. !
Connecting the dots is what creativity is all about. People do not come up with new ideas without building it up on things they have seen, heard or experienced before. The connections they make might be weak and very, very stretched - but they exist. !
Getting ourselves to make these connections is called associating. As in making associations between one thing and another. And it is the core cognitive skill that we need to exercise in order to improve our creativity. The good news is that your can improve your ability to make associations that produce to creativity and that there are behaviors that help you do it. Read on to find out what you can do.
Start by asking questions.! With all the execution we are responsible for in a normal day it’s a wonder we find time we need to ask any questions at all. But highly creative leaders are constantly re-evaluating and reimagining what is possible by posing questions to themselves and others. !
When we formulate questions we trigger something in our brains to start searching for information, to be on the look out for things that might provide answers and start making connections. Questions put us in the active hunt for associations. !
But not all questions are alike. We need to ask the provocative ones like “what is the real reason customers buy our product?” or “what if we operated our business more like Disney World?” These questions don’t have one right answers and allow for creativity. As opposed to our normal business questions, “what were the financial results of last month?” !
These more open ended questions, “what is” that helps us explore the current state to understand better and “what if” that helps us imagine new things, force us to see what we are ignoring, help us see what has always been in front of us but that we overlook and creates the loose connections between what we already know. And, when used well, they help us reframe the problem so that we are solving what we really need to solve.
”
“The formulation of a question is often more important that it’s solution.” Albert Einstein
Write them down - it sounds so simple but is one of the most powerful things you can do. Simple write them down. By hand on paper is best but however you need to capture them is fine. And review them often. !
Using Questions to provoke associations. So, what can you do to improve your ability to use questioning to produce creative connections? Here’s a few key things that innovation driven leaders do.
If I have an idea and share it with you there a good change you will have a great idea too.
Segment your questions- questions help us most in two areas of business the most: understanding what is happening and why it is happening and helping us imagine new ways of doing things. Crete a list of WHAT IS… and WHAT IF…. questions to capture the two. !
Go For Diversity - The more diverse your questions the more creative your ideas. Once you have what is and what if questions start crafting questions that start with how might we…, what might we…, if we were X other company what would we… Make them provocative in order to get the creativity brewing. !
Collect them from others - Get others to share their questions around a specific challenge with you. Maybe their question in the one that ignites your creativity. !
Start interviewing people that matter - Ok, so this can get uncomfortable but it is necessary. We need to start getting used to asking questions of consumers - live and face to face. Go out and ask your consumers their thoughts. !
Use Constraints - Craft questions that constrain how you approach the challenge either by eliminating a barrier “what if we had all the technology to execute this, what would we do?” or removing comfort zone options “What if we could only sell our services online?” By using constraints we force ourselves outside of our comfort zone and allow ourselves to see the challenge through a new frame. !
Dig Down with 5 Whys - Sometimes what we most need is to understand what the real challenges are. Take a challenge and ask why it happens. Then ask why what you said happens. Do it 5 times to see if you can discover the root cause. Think of this as being the annoying child that constantly asks “why?” !
Go out an observe.! Asking questions is great but it isn’t enough. Observing - people’s interactions, processes, how other industries work, how new systems function gives us new perspective and often reveals things we always saw but did not process. It helps us see the real challenges or see them in new ways and gives insight into how to solve them. !
Observing is at it’s basic simply being more aware of what is around us. At its more advanced it means actively going out and purposefully observing something like a stalker. Human centric companies - organizations that focus on understanding consumers needs - use observation all the time to learn more from what people do than just what they say. But simply researching online how another industry does something is also observation. !
Looking for the job to be done is a great framework to use. It simple says that people are always looking for jobs to be done by a brand, product, service and that by understanding what they are trying to accomplish, and not just what you designed to provide, you observe new opportunity. Importing is another way to look at things where we observe something while we actively ask what can we learn and use in our own situations.
”
“Observing is the big game changer in our company.” Scott Cook, founder of Intuit
Get some practice - Just start watching interactions between people or systems in your everyday life. For example, watch what happens in the grocery line. What are the interactions? What do people do? what is working well, badly, inefficiently? Does anything surprise you? The more you do it the more natural a behavior it becomes. !
Observing to provoke associations. Observing is more than just looking. It’s about looking with fresh and wide open eyes. Think of it as Vuja De - seeing the same things but looking at it as if it is the first time. Here is what you can do.
Observe Consumers in the Wild - After getting some practice start watching what your real customers do. What how they use your service or product? You can also listen in to consumer calls to your service centers? Yes, even this is a form of observing. Keep a list of what you have seen and why you think people are doing what they do in the way they do it. !
Go from Concrete to Emotional- Look at any interaction and start with the concrete things you can verifiably see - the what. They assess the how - in what way are people doing it - are they happy, frustrated, doing it because they have to? Then take a leap and make some assumptions on the emotional reasons - the why - why do you think people are doing it that way. !
Observe Systems and Other Organizations - In addition to observing people you can observe organizations. Go out and observe how some system works and take notes. For example, observe how a bakery works or a coffee shop. What do people do, when, how? What do they use? What comes first, second, last? You can create a timeline out of the interactions. The value of this is that what you observe from one system might give you ideas on how your system might be changed. !
If I have an idea and share it with you there a good change you will have a great idea too.
Combine Questioning and Observing to Create Personas - Business as usual has a love affair with the analytical rigor of focus groups and demographic surveys. But those tools don’t tell you much about what to do next. Start creating personas fictional people that represent a specific type of consumer with specific motivations. Create details - give the person a name, attribute a quote to them, summarize what they feel and think about the need they have that your business is most interested in. Hand it up - this is who you work for. !
Network with people and things.! No, we’re not talking about”that” kind of networking where you go out and meet potential clients, future employers, hob nob with the boss so he knows what you are doing. Networking to improve your creativity and fuel associations is all about seeking out ideas, broadening our perspective and learning new things outside our area of expertise. It is how creative leaders assure that they are not depending on their own knowledge but also broadening what they know. !
Networkers accept that they don’t know everything and, in fact, they are not expected too. Real leadership is about constantly learning and discovering (and encouraging it in others) which is exactly what networking is all about. !
Think of it as getting out of your own box and looking around in other boxes. Great networkers push themselves outside of their comfort zone. They have conversations with people who do very differently things from them. They read things that are not part of their industry. They consciously collect new information. !
By exposing yourself to very new things - new information, new business models, etc - you improve your chances of making new connections. ! ! !
”
““What a person does on his own, without being stimulated by the thoughts of others, is even in the best of cases rather paltry and monotonous.” Albert Einstein
Start Small and Talk to Someone in the Office - There are 5 week day lunches you could fill by having lunch with someone you don’t often talk with. Invite someone to lunch. Find out about what they do. It may not be totally different from your experience but it’s a start. !
Networking to gather new Start Watching New Things- Documentaries are a great place to look for new to explore. But there are also great “different content” sites like TED.com information to “boxes” or videos that come out of the SXSW convention. Start watching these varied talks by genius thinkers to fill in new brain data. create new Go to New Events - There is a great story of a city planner who stops in to a event about bees and is inspired to rethink the way public transport is associations. museum organized. Talk your self to something new where you can learn something. Get an Out of the Ordinary Subscription - Get a subscription to a magazine or journal that is not directly connected to your industry. Find something that is of interest to you and start reading it. !
!
Networking to learn new things does take some time. And it can feel very unproductive sitting down listening to someone talk about the science of bee hives. But all the you put in your head thatand “eureka” If I helps havecreate an idea moment your looking for. share it with you there a
good change you will have a great idea too.
!
Start Talk to New People- Where ever you go start up conversations. Ask questions about what people do, how they do it and you might pick up that one bit of information that inspires new thinking for you. !
Be Purposeful in Your Networking- The book Never Eat Alone says you have to be purposeful in your networking. So make a list of people you might talk with, places you might go, things you will read, stuff you might watch. Make it your mission to seek out new stimulus and just start doing it. ! ! !
Experiment with new ideas & possibilities.! Experimenting is the single most powerful trait of innovators as per the study lead by Harvard and BYU. Experimenting is the skill set of trying new things in order to get perspective on how new ideas might work. !
When we think of experimenting we often see that mental image of scientist in a laboratory. And that is part of what it is all about - trying things out. It is both about prototyping and piloting new things as well as you trying new experiences and about people taking things apart to see how they work - either physically like Michael Dell taking part his first computer or mentally like Einstein deconstructing models in his head. !
Where Questioning, Observing and Networking help you get a grasp on the current situation, Experimenting helps you predict how an idea might work in the future. Think of it as a way of inspiring informed premonitions. The other great thing about experimenting is that it helps us get past that knowing-doing gap - that moment where we know something is wrong but we don’t do anything about it. It helps us take smarter risks which in turns gives permission to take risk in risk adverse cultures. ! ! !
”
“The only way to know how a complex system will behave - after you have modified it - is to modify it and see how it behaves.” - American Statistical Association
Do Something New - Think of how the argon filled ski jacket was inspired by a tropical vacation and a scuba class. By doing something new your mind starts “experimenting” with the new information. So immerse yourself in an activity - maybe a new hobby - and see what happens. Maybe a cooking class, a day trip somewhere something where you must do something.
Experimenting Travel - Living abroad for even just 3 months has shown to increase a business leaders probability of championing an innovative and changing making idea by some 35%. So to inform how maybe you can’t go on sabbatical but traveling is always fun. So book your next holiday but go somewhere different - maybe exotic, maybe stimulating but definitely connections somewhere that is outside your normal routine. Start noticing how people do this. Just Do It - In order to better understand the challenges of wheel chair citizens a city might work. council decided to navigate the city via wheel chair for a week. What can you do to learn how people not like you experience something. In business it may mean !
!
Experimenting can be doing prototypes, doing something new that you haven’t done before or deconstructing something to learn from it. There are natural overlaps with what we do in networking or even observing but experimenting is more intentional and focused on helping us take I have an idea risk by doing test and runs.
If share it with you there a good change you will have a great idea too.
pretending to be the customer at your own business. Or doing the job of someone who works for you even for a few hours. Nothing is more informative than experience. !
Deconstruct Something - Start noticing how other organizations manage something - say fast food process for getting things done right and fast every time. Write it out and then ask yourself “why do they do it this way?” and “what could I use or apply from what they do?” !
Try It- If you don’t know what to do then just do something. Launching quick and cheep prototypes or pilot programs help us make more informed decision. They don’t need to be perfect. Any kind of experimenting with an idea gives you better insight into how things might work. Choose anything that you are not sure about and try an experiment to see what happens. ! !
Now that you are asking more questions, observing how things work, networking together new information and experimenting to see how things might pan out you should be making more connections that lead to ideas. But it doesn’t end there for you because you’re a leader and you have to not only BE creative but LEAD creativity. You have to make it happen every day in every way and transform the way people work so that your organization is benefiting from not only people’s ability to DO but also their ability to DISCOVER and DELIVER new value. Here’s some things you need to know.!
Leading Innovation The job of leadership is changing. We can’t just keep doing what we have always done and expect to get new results. Especially when what we are trying to do is to provoke business creativity in order to profit from innovation.! !
Today you are the Chief Problem Framer, not problem solver. You need to help people understand the problem and provide focus on what needs to be solved or created. This means setting new expectations and asking more questions rather than just coming up with the solutions and telling people what you want.! !
You also have to set the example by being a part of the innovation engine. That means being the example of questioning, observing, networking and experimenting. It also means you can’t delegate innovation away. You’ll have to be highly involved at least in the beginning.! !
You also have to use your power and position to remove any obstacles teams that are innovating run into. It means budgeting for prototypes, cutting through bureaucracy and assuring people have the time to be creative. It’s about will power as well so you need to be willing to champion these people.! !
Finally, you need to make sure that people are focusing on solving problems important to customers internal or external. You’ll need to ask the uncomfortable questions of “why would the customer care about that?” “What’s the need for what customer you are trying to solve for?” and “Have you involved the consumer in your thinking?”
A few things to help you get started.! “the more you use it the easier it becomes.”
Lead w/ Questions! Come up with the questions the organization needs to be asking and answering and share them with your people. Ask for their input on your questions. Post the questions in visible places. Everyone should know what questions you are pondering so they ponder them as well.
Encourage Ask for Risk Taking! Questions! Get people past their fear of failure and ridicule by making small failures part of the process. Hold post project learning sessions where you encourage people to highlight what didn’t go right and what we learn from it. Make it fun by hosting it as a funeral.
Go for Abundance!
Instead of focusing on the one right idea get people to start talking about all the options first. Ask for people’s top 7 possible ideas for a challenge. By giving people a chance to give more than one answer they dare to suggest one that they would have either held back on. More options more possibilities for success.
People need your questions but you need theirs as well. As a team put together a Question Bank - a list of all the questions around a challenge. Brainstorm out all the questions the team has before starting to come up with the ideas.
Break it Up! Instead of putting the pressure of of delivering the solution ask teams to start by bringing back a clear understanding of the problem. Then ask for several ideas. Follow that by asking them to test out their favorites. By giving people the space to take each needed step they move forward with more confidence and take more creative leaps.
Great books on creativity. The Innovator’s DNA is a foundation book in understanding the habits of how people like Steve Jobs command creativity. Authored by Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen, and bestselling author Clayton M. Christensen (he’s kind of a big deal and teachers at Harvard), it summarizes their research findings on creative leaders in business. The terms Connecting, Questioning, Observing, Networking and Evaluating comes from their work. It is a must read.
!
Santurce, Puerto Rico! 787.283.6077! Accelerators of creativity, innovation, change and growth.!
Creative Confidence is the work of innovative brothers David and Tom Kelley of IDEO. They are champions for balancing analytical thinking with imagination - a combination they see as design. And we agree. This is one of our favorite books.
The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp shows how creativity is more behavior, rigor and discipline that innate talent and can be applies beyond arts to business and all parts of our lives.
www.seriouslycreative.com! dana@seriouslycreative.com! angie@seriouslycreative.com!
fb.com/WeAreSeriouslyCreative
! @SCIdeaEngine! !
Servicing clients in The United States, Canada, Caribbean, Latin America & someone in Europe since 2008!
thank you