Creative Streak

How To Make A Creative Director Cry

I can trace most of my career path back to one person: Darrin Stephens, the harried husband from the American TV sitcom Bewitched. Take away the attractive Elizabeth Montgomery as the witch who gives up her magical powers to marry a mere mortal, and the shenanigans doled out by the meddling mother-in-law Endora, even the glistening 1960s production values ... and you're left with a man who had the world's greatest job. He was a Creative Director.

The Four Agreements, Applied to Business

Many people deservedly know Don Miguel Ruiz from his appearance on Oprah Winfrey’s television show to speak about his philosophy in his book The Four Agreements. I was introduced to him by my friend Greg in New York who gave me the audio book as a gift.

But, true to the Aussie personality, friends here in Sydney scoffed at the New Age spiritualism and the "icky" motivational philosophy ... and I had to agree, during the moment.

But when I re-read the book again this weekend, I was struck again by its relevance to the business environment. If you could scrub clean the Aquarian elements from its core philosophy, you might agree its essential clear tenets which should describe the behaviour of the most effective leader, a strategic creative thinker, or an ideal team member.

Be impeccable with your word. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

Don’t take anything personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others day and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

Don’t make assumptions. Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can do avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

Always do your best. Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

If you like Ruiz' style and philosophy, you'll love his website.

If you're curious about the book, take a look here, on Amazon.

Master Recipes of Creativity

Several months, I was reading and commenting in a group discussion on LinkedIn where the facilitator was curious if creative techniques might be organised more efficiently, such as developing a periodic table of (creative) elements. The conversation had the typical voices: the Activists started devising charts, the Theorists sorted and graded the techniques, the Reflectors asked questions to clarify questions, and the Pragmatists criticising the whole exercise by asking (rightly) “why? what’s the point?”

But, the germ of the thought stuck in my head. Not that I think a table of elements would be particularly useful (I might be convinced though). But rather: could one isolate the different mental processes that the brain uses to create an idea? In other words, might there not be “master recipes” which the brain uses repetitively, which form the foundation of brainstorming? And, to keep the food analogy going, does the brain need specific ingredients – outside of its own imagination?

I have exactly 32 books on my work shelves which specifically list and outline creative techniques, although no single system prevailed with very little common terminology. Still, over the past month or so, I’ve reviewed almost every book, trying to see if there were similar thought processes with made each idea 'work.'

Bits & Bytes, March 23

Nothing like a sinus infection to make you dredge your head into a pillow for most of the weekend. Nonetheless, three inspiring points cut through ...

 A thoughtful post from Scott Berkun's blog which turns into brilliance with this one paragraph.

"The closest thing to a real secret is this: In my years studying and teaching all things innovation, there’s one fact that’s the hardest for people to swallow and it goes as follows – To invent or create is to take a bet against the unknown. No matter what you do, you are still betting you can do well in the face of many things that are out of your control. Don’t like that? Don’t want uncertainty? Then do something else. Comfort with risk and uncertainty is the real secret. Or at least acceptance of the fact you can work your ass off for uncertain rewards. Anyone who wants to create something new is placing a bet that their view of the future is better than everyone elses’, or at least their competitors."

The second post, from Glen Stansberry's blog, "Are You Prepared To Lose Control Of The Idea?"

I've edited together the key points for me:

"One of the most intoxicating aspects of having an idea is having control over the idea. We thrive on building, planning, analyzing, almost anything but actually doing.

"Some people never understand that if they hand over control of the original idea, something better might come out of it.

"Sometimes our idea outgrows us. The trick is to swallow the thick pride and embrace the potential of what could happen."

And last, a quote from Robert Frost which I found in the entertaining book: "I Never Metaphor I Didn't Like,' by Dr. Mardy Grothe. "An idea is a feat of association, and the height of it is a good metaphor."

Seven Different Types of Meetings

One book that keeps finding its way to the top of my shelves is How To Make Meetings Work, by Michael Doyle and David Straus.

One book section lists the seven different type of meetings, which I've listed below with some of their tips - and a few of my own - to consider prior to planning or facilitating your next meeting.

Problem-Solving Meetings

• Make sure the problem is well-defined and agreed-to by key decision makers in advance of the meeting.
• What problem-solving methodology or tool will you use during the meeting? Agree to it in advance, and make sure someone is fluent in the methodology.
• Energy is critical: attendees must want to solve the problem, or feel urgency to solve it.
• Incorporate plenty of time for discussion and debate.
• Engage a neutral facilitator depending upon the discussion and debate you expect.

Decision-Making Meetings

• The key decision maker must be involved, if not attend the meeting.
• Identify the coaches (the positive influencers to the decision maker) to determine how to win or leverage their support
• Identify the gatekeepers (the negative influencers to the decision maker) and the bomb-throwers (the ‘devil’s advocate’ type of people). Determine how to minimise, neutralise, or think ahead of them to counter-balance or address their concerns.
• Keep the number of attendees to a smaller number than a larger.
• Make sure team knows how they will be impacted by decision, that they have responsibility for the decision. At the same time, do not steam-roll.
• And last – perhaps most important – don’t fake a decision-making meeting. Be honest.

Bits & Bytes, March 15

Here's some of my week-end catch-up on posts related to creativity, innovation and communications.

Framing Is Everything - One of my favourites, Luciano Passuello writes Litemind, always a thought-provoking blog on creativity and innovation. His post Framing Is Everything speaks to the process of "framing" and its importance to problem solving and decision making. He suggests that how you articulate the problem will profoundly influence how you solve it with creative thinking.

How Good Is Your Website? -  My colleague Neil Drewitt sent this website to me - Bowen & Cragg - a company which consultants on website effectiveness. It has a terrific database of best practices, plus 1,000 articles free on its website. You can also sign up for its newsletter. Handy, practical and a beautiful website to boot (no surprise there).

Two Articles on Innovation

Bits & Bytes, March 5

Some random things I've found during the past week ...

Creative Technique: Free-writing – Some good simple instructions for one of the most basic brainstorming techniques, an especially good one when you’re working solo. (From BQF, the blog of the British Quality Foundation’s special interest group on Innovation, written by Paul Sloane.)

How to live a simple and peaceful life: 13 tips – If you want some basic tips to simplifying your life, this is great. If you can read between the lines, there’s some interesting points here about creativity too: being aware of living in the moment, seeing unusual relationships between objects, finding metaphors between different tasks – and perhaps a new solution, scheduling time to think – or dare I say the word, ‘daydream’? (From WikiHow, a useful blog about all sorts of different things.)

Six writing techniques to increase your creativity – Love tips, absolutely love them. This post has six good ones about proper preparation, analysis and creativity to improve your writing skills. In particular, I love tip number 5: annotating. It’s not only about thinking actively about what you’re reading, but then, writing down what you actually mean. I constantly read things where I stop and ask myself: what is this person trying to say? (From Fast Cash Freelance, a blog about – how aptly named! – free lance writing.)

Six Ways to Ruin a Brainstorming Session

Re-posted from Ralph Kerle's blog at the Creative Leadership Forum, which he took from an article by Paul Sloane, author of The Leader's Guide to Lateral Thinking Skills.

They say brainstorms are old-fashioned and no longer effective. But the real reason for the frustrations is that the brainstorms are not facilitated properly. A well-run brainstorm is fun and energetic. It will generate plenty of good ideas. But a poor brainstorm can be frustrating and demotivational. Let's look at some simple ways to ruin your next brainstorm meeting.

1. Having no clear objectives

A brainstorm with a vague or unclear purpose will wander and lose its way. So set a clear objective. The purpose of the brainstorm is to generate many creative ideas to answer a specific goal. It is best to express the goal as a question. A wooly objective is not helpful. 'How can we do better?' is not as good as 'How can we double sales in the next 12 months?' Once the question has been agreed it is written up clearly for all to see. It is worth setting objectives for the number of ideas to be generated and the time to be spent. 'We are looking to generate 60 ideas in the next 20 minutes. Then we will whittle them down to 4 or 5 really good ones.'

Definitions of 'Creativity'

I was re-reading some old posts yesterday, and found one I wanted to update:  Definitions of Creativity on January 5, 2009. The original list included general statements, whereas the list below are specific definitions I've culled from a variety of resources.

Having or showing imagination and artistic or intellectual inventiveness.  Drs. Richard Paul and Linda Elder, from Critical and Creative Thinking. I've found lots of links that suggest the words "artistic or intellectual inventiveness" come from Webster's Dictionary, but the copy staring at me from my desktop has the vanilla definition: "The ability to create."

Nothing more than going beyond the current boundaries, whether those are boundaries of technology, knowledge, current practices, social norms, or beliefs. Creativity is nothing more than seeing and acting on new relationships, thereby bringing them to life.  Joseph V. Anderson, from "Weirder than fiction: the reality and myths of creativity", Academy of Management Executive, 6:4 (1992), page 41.

Characteristics of the Creative Individual

The confluence of three events – the month-long summer holiday, a broken toe, and the imminent move to a new office – meant I had the opportunity of a lifetime. I could take my time packing boxes. (Why can’t all moves be this stress-less?)

While packing the bookcase last night, I found myself sitting back to re-read one of my favourite books on creativity – Creative Thinking in the Decision and Management Sciences, by James R. Evans. (Not an easy book to find, but see details below.) While much of the book focuses on the role of creativity in quality management, it's also an excellent 'textbooks' on creative thinking.

Here's an example: Evans' characteristics of the creative individual.

1. Awareness and sensitivity to problems. Notices things others do not. Knows that nothing is perfect and that everything can be improved upon. Recognises that a problem exists or can cut through details and misleading facts to find the real problem.

2. Memory. Has good memories, and displays remarkable powers of recall. Good retention and retrieval of information. The individual has a memory bank of life’s experiences to be able to recall them for creative’s sake.

3. Fluency. Can generate a large number of ideas easily. Can judge an excellent idea by seeing it in context with mediocre ideas.