Creative solutions in thirty minutes

With Cyprus in crisis mode, creativity is still our best friend.

Short term thinking is an oft-quoted obstacle to innovation. However, in times of crisis, long term thinking is off the agenda and creativity is considered at best a luxury, at worst a hindrance. This is wrong of course. Here’s how to use your creativity in the midst of a crisis, in half an hour, in three easy steps.

First, reflect on the situation. Note at least three positives (yes, you can find positives in any situation) and anything else that might be relevant. Then formulate your key challenges as open questions: In what ways might I/we + active verb … Be imaginative in your challenge definitions. Write up at least ten and select the one whose resolution you think will be of most value.

Second, find at least ten solutions to your challenge. Make sure at least three of these are great solutions but completely unrealistic. Spend a few minutes to ponder on how you may modify the unrealistic ones so they become somehow implementable. Choose the best solution, the one which confers the most value and is feasible.

Third, figure out how you might implement your chosen solution. Again imagine alternative paths to implementation and select the best one. Then go out and make it happen!

Do the above alone, with a friend or in a team. Devote about a third of your available time for each step. You can do it in a week, a day, an hour, even in half an hour if you have to.

Creative method is as efficient in times of crisis as it is in long term planning. Creative method asks you to think in stages before you act and at each stage to FIRST create alternatives THEN make choices.

All you need is thirty minutes. In the midst of a crisis, can you afford not to be creative?

PS. See my talk at the TEDx Innovation Everything conference (New York, December 2012) on YouTube http://bit.ly/V7TWRN

A vision for innovative leaders

Purple haze all in my brain
Lately things just don’t seem the same
Actin’ funny, but I don’t know why
‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky

Imagine you’re a business leader with a vision, intent on driving innovation in your organization. You’re also a fan of Jimi Hendrix and love the kind of visions he had.

Here’s what your consultants and management textbooks might tell you to do:

FIRST decide on your innovation strategy. There are after all different types of innovation: breakthrough innovation (creating an entirely new business), business model innovation (profound differentiation in an existing business), continuous improvement (doing lots of things better all the time). Product innovation, service innovation, process innovation, customer driven innovation. What is YOUR innovation all about?

SECOND decide on the balance between operational efficiency and innovation. What proportion of your resources (people time and money) goes towards doing what we do today at a high level of excellence vs imagining how to do things differently or doing new things?.

THIRD figure out what systems will deliver the above strategy within your above resource balance. How are you going to innovate?

Jimi Hendrix wouldn’t agree though. Too much rational thinking, not much people power. So how about you:

Create some purple haze, encourage them to act funny and aim high so they can kiss the sky. In other words appreciate that ALL your people are creative. Recognize that they represent a massive innovation potential that begs to be deployed. Help them develop their creativity, individually and in teams. Create a culture that will allow them to create freely, at any time and in any way they like. Trust that they will do the right thing.

How about blending the textbook approach with Jimi Hendrix? Good luck!

Have a good trip! Yeah

Purple haze all in my eyes
Don’t know if it’s day or night
You’ve got me blowin, blowin my mind
Is it tomorrow or just the end of time?

Jimi Hendrix

PS. See my talk at the TEDx Innovation Everything conference (New York, December 2012) on YouTube http://bit.ly/V7TWRN

Innovation is a multi-dimensional issue

Relax, this article is not about definitions of innovation and other such minutiae.  Innovation theorists and practitioners agree that there are many facets to innovation. They agree that within organizations some structures support innovation while others hinder it. And they agree that some cultures are conducive to innovation while others are not. Recognizing the multi-dimensional nature of innovation will help us understand why companies that have taken some action to promote innovation failed because the action they took was incomplete or insufficient. And what actions can really help organizations make innovation part of their DNA.

The Art of Innovation model – see my book http://www.theartofinnovation.net/aoi-site/publications and TEDx talk http://bit.ly/V7TWRN – is a comprehensive approach to innovation in organizations. It argues that to fully realize its innovation potential an organization must work at three levels:

Develop the SOURCES of creativity – the elements that are required for any creative act – Talent, Energy and Method.

Establish a STRUCTURE for innovation – recognize the dynamics between Individual and Team and mobilize them to work in innovative ways, define Targets for innovation and then set up Systems to deliver those targets.

Shape a CULTURE for innovation by promoting Ideas and Freedom, fostering Engagement and Humor and taking reasoned risks.

Leading with innovation in mind calls for new thinking and action at many different levels each with its own particularities. This is why there are apparently so many obstacles to innovation.  This is why leaders need to work on Talent, Energy, Method, Individual, Team, Target, System, Ideas Freedom, Engagement, Humor, Risk. It is the skilful synthesis of all these twelve innovation drivers that will create the ultimate masterpiece: the perpetually innovative organization.

Happy New Year!

Trends in creativity and innovation

“Marketing? How can marketing be creative?”

This is what a top research chemist asked me in a creativity workshop I ran in the early eighties for the research department of an agricultural chemicals multinational. He said it in all sincerity after I mentioned that the week before I had facilitated a similar workshop for the marketing department. For the researcher it was simply inconceivable that marketing, or anything outside the invention of new products, could be creative.

The world has moved on however. Thomas Edison is credited as inventing the method of invention and we might call him the father of private companies’ R & D departments. For many years after Edison the embodiment of creativity in organizations was R & D. Later on, in the early twentieth century, it became clear that good marketing helps sell products and that it is worth investing creative energy there too. In post-war times, computer systems allowed organizations to deeply re-engineer their operations and we found much value there too. Then creative (and ethical) accountants developed new ways of looking at company figures, to help company organization and operations through activity based costing and other such systems.

Today we recognize that creativity is possible and desirable in every nook and cranny of every organization and that every person is capable of delivering useful novelty to her organization. The connected world is making possible the application of hundreds of creative new solutions to almost everything on a daily basis, fundamentally changing the ways we do business and interact with other people. In particular crowdsourcing allows for willing people to supply free information and skills in all areas and opens new ways for funding new business ventures.

Perceptions of personal creativity have evolved too. We now recognize that creativity is not an area reserved for a small elite of gifted geniuses, but a set of skills available to everybody to develop. And neuroscience is opening up areas of research into the human mind and what defines its creative potential that would have been unimaginable even ten years ago.

We are grappling with the relative importance of individual and team creativity, while acknowledging that no innovation can ever be realized fully by a single individual. Beyond individual and team we are recognizing the importance of culture and climate in fostering innovation in organizations. We are expanding our studies of the creative unit to include communities, cities, societies and whole countries. And the public sector joins in and so do NGOs. Social innovation extends creative practice further into areas not often touched by the private sector.

Our creativity is expanding fast and so is our knowledge and understanding of it. So here is my safe prediction: in ten years time our conversations on creativity will be broader, richer and better informed than today and so creativity will never be the same again.

Creativity issues in education

We want our children to develop basic literacy and numerical skills. We want them to develop a broad basis of knowledge in the sciences and the arts. We want them to develop analytical skills and good judgment. We want them to develop social and physical skills. Oh yes, we also want them to have creative skills.

When schools were called to action in the European Union’s “year of creativity” many schools had their pupils painting pictures, singing songs and staging shows. Of course the arts are creative. But what a shame to limit the creativity of our young people to just the arts. It is time to broaden the scope of creativity in schools and indeed in the education system.

Researchers have long since established that creative competencies are teachable and learnable. We are now living in times where more and more people are recognizing the immense value of creativity at the workplace and in life.

In the process of integrating creativity in education in practice, educators are faced with a number of key challenges:

How can we teach our own subject matter more creatively?

Not an easy task. Teachers are called to go beyond the classic lecturing/examining mode to devise new ways of teaching, using tools that are different from those that they themselves experienced in their own formal learning. And sometimes boundaries between subjets need to be revisited.

How can we best teach creative method?

Creative methods take challenges that have many solutions (like most real life challenges), help define them in new ways and help invent imaginative solutions to resolve them. Creative Problem Solving, Six Thinking Hats, TRIZ, Synectics are but some of the methods available today. Schools should consider formally teaching such programs while at the same time promoting team collaboration and even doing so in partnership with companies, public organizations, communities, NGOs to help solve real world problems.

How can we develop our students’ creative skills?

Although some issues with definition and measurement of creative competencies remain, we know that it is possible and desirable to improve young people’s skills of idea fluency, flexibility, association, synthesis, as well as their critical evaluative skills. Creative competencies are probably best developed in tandem with creative problem solving methodologies.

How do we make our schools more creative?

We now know enough about organizational structures and cultures that further innovation. It is time to consciously promote innovation by fostering the systems and climates that favor creativity. A good place to begin is to mobilize teachers to creatively confront the specific challenges of their school, in addition to creatively teaching their own subject matter.

How do we make our educational system more creative?

While there are are many challenges in formalizing creative ways of teaching school subjects and in the teaching of creativity itself (methods and skills), such formalization should come high on the agenda of any educational establishment – school, community, region, state or country.

How might we best use new technology in our teaching?

As cyberspace evolves, educational institutions must ensure they are up-to-date with the technical and social aspects of new technologies so as to exploit them to further learning.

What’s stopping us?

Everybody can make a long list of creativity killers – risk aversion, fear of failure, absence of precise metrics, vested interests in the status quo, inappropriate organizational structures and more. Sometimes a reaction to what seems as a challenge to the image of the teacher as sole bearer of wisdom. Since creativity requires extended moments of non judgmental thinking, teachers who have been trained (and are expected) to judge, need to get used to deferring judgment until it is time for those extended moments of critical reasoning. Not always so easy.

After generations of learning by rote and critical thinking, bringing creativity to schools is no mean feat because it requires significant changes in mindsets and attitudes. Education changemakers need plenty of inspiration and much courage to move ahead on creativity, but the time for it is ripe, very ripe.

Creativity in the 21^st Century Classroom: The title is taken from a workshop designed and facilitated by Donna Luther and Siri Lynn offered by the Creative Education Foundation at the Creative Problem Solving Institute in 2011 and 2012.

Contradictions?

Creativity is a force for change. Yet so much creativity is deployed by defenders of the status quo to find arguments showing that change is unnecessary.

Creativity is a progressive force for mankind. Yet great creativity was involved in making the first atom bomb, carrying out the attacks of 9/11, making designer drugs, cosmetic surgery and products that many of us would not call progressive for mankind.

To generate creative ideas we are encouraged to suspend judgment ie to be defer criticism. Yet within every creative idea resides a critique of an older one. And from every critique many potentially creative ideas can arise.

To generate creative ideas we search beyond reason, we venture out into the impossible, the fantastic world of dreams – we even go back to our childhood. Yet we know that a truly creative idea is not silly for it must be solid, rational and logical.

Creativity thrives in competitive free market conditions. Yet it is government that put man on the moon, a government-funded organization that created the worldwide web and governments that created the best generalized healthcare systems.

Innovation is never a solo act – somewhere there is teamwork involved. Yet Nobel Prizes are handed out as recognition for the rare creativity of exceptional individuals.

As proponents of creative thinking and innovation practice we must learn to live with such and many more paradoxes of our subject matter. Our vocation is fraught with ambiguity and our capacity to accept many solutions to a problem is the very source of our insight. Arthur Koestler once wrote about the paradox that lies in the creative mind:

“Most geniuses responsible for the major mutations in the history of thought seem to have certain features in common; on the one hand skepticism, often carried to the point of iconoclasm, in their attitude towards traditional ideas, axioms, and dogmas, towards everything that is taken for granted; on the other hand, an open-mindedness that verges on naïve credulity towards new concepts which seem to hold out some promise to their instinctive gropings.  Out of this combination results that crucial capacity of perceiving a familiar object, situation, problem, or collection of data, in a sudden new light or new context: of seeing a branch not as part of a tree, but as a potential weapon or tool; of associating the fall of an apple not with its ripeness, but with the motion of the moon

Innovators have no choice but to accept the contradictions and make the best of creative tension and ambiguity, for these are at the core of what brings new value to the world.

Innovation for competitive advantage

Our company is excitedly working on a new version of product X that is clearly superior to any competitor in the market. We launch it in May and watch our sales rise with glee. The month after, a competitor has just invented a new process on a more cost-effective process to make a key component and is reducing prices by 20%, forcing us to drop prices too. The month after that, another competitor offers additional services to clients concerning lead times and delivery, taking some of our business for themselves. Two months after that, yet another competitor, not present in market segment Y (in which we were market leader), suddenly makes a bid for it with a new retail outlet. Come September a big company from a different industry acquires a competitor and packages both company products together, offering our clients a hitherto unprecedented combination that we can’t match. As our sales team is busy defending our existing customer strongholds, a new start-up company enters the market demonstrating how their products are far more respectful to the environment and hiring Al Gore as their spokesperson. And we know that a completely new technology that may make ALL our products today completely obsolete is under the works somewhere.

Is any of happening in YOUR business? Which is the most innovative company in this context? Or has one company really reinvented a new business model to sustain it in a differentiated segment for quite some time to come?

The above scenarios depict reality in many competitive businesses.

To innovate or not to innovate – that is is clearly NOT the question. The question is how to innovate, and how much, and how fast.

Companies in competitive environments are condemned to do new things that add value (ie innovate) all the time. When they have completed an innovative venture (product, service, process etc) they will seek to extract the most value from it and then move on to the next new thing. And the next one. And the next. The time it takes to extract value from your last great thing before you move to the next one is a crucial strategic judgment. Too slow could mean becoming obsolete before you even launch.

Here are some more crucial issues arising from innovation in competitive environments:

• How to simultaneously deliver operational excellence today and innovation tomorrow?
• How to best choose between different types of innovation – radical/risky/disruptive vs incremental/improving?
• Who in your organization is mobilized for innovation?
• How might change the rules of your business so you can legally enjoy the fruits of monopoly for a while?
• Which is the best timing for carving out your own exclusive territory – that true, deep “blue ocean” strategy?
• How far are you ready to go in reinventing your own organization (especially if it seems to work quite well now, thank you)?

And above all: How much are you prepared to reinvent yourself?

The purpose of innovation is important, very important

So, if creativity imagining new things and making them happen, is creativity good? Of course it is! Surely the history of human progress leads us to an assertive “yes”.

Can creativity be bad? Of course creativity it can!  The knife invented to cut fruit from trees can also take lives. The same nuclear force that produces energy to warm millions, can also destroy millions. The warped minds that orchestrated the attacks of 9/11 in 2001 were in some demented way creative.

Creativity can provide methods for the oppressors to oppress the oppressed and for the oppressed to revolt. It can be used for peace and it can be used for war. It can be used to provide luxury and it can be used to alleviate poverty.

As observers of the immense benefits innovation brings to mankind, our enthusiasm should not blind us to the socio-political realities of our times. Innovation does not serve everybody equally in a world where the products of innovation are traded on the open market. The latest, most innovative products/services/processes will be bought by those who can pay for the value they bring to themselves. More creative energy will be spent on where there is more money: to invent and sell latest gadgets and designer drugs rather than to confront seriously debilitating diseases afflicting millions of poor people.

There is a trickle down effect to some innovation. Poor people in developing countries, who are late adopters of mobile telephony, are putting mobile phones to very good use. But not all trickles down. Responsible action can help innovation work as a social agent for the benefit of the underprivileged. Here are some possible directions for action:

• Engage in innovation for social causes. The field is very broad, but innovating for the poor can yield great potential benefits – think of microcredit or efforts to bring energy saving appliances for cooking to low income households.
• Offer education in creativity on a large scale. This requires accepting the (proven) fact that creativity can be taught, learned and developed in each individual and organization. It also requires a conviction from leaders that innovation is a value and an important one at that.
• Change the socio-economic status quo to ensure that innovation spreads and thrives for the benefit of all. Freedom and democracy have helped entire societies become more innovative. The golden age of Athenian democracy, compared to the tyrant systems that preceded it, brought a phenomenal explosion of great new ideas in the arts and sciences. More recently, the industrial revolution which was accompanied by the evolution from monarchy to democratic institutions in the West and which culminated in the innovation explosion of the last thirty years has enabled amazing progress to happen.  Sadly, there is often as much creative energy spent in defending the status quo as there is in overturning it.

Of the above three possibilities, I would argue that the first is the most immediately practical but the second will have the highest and most enduring impact. The third is a long shot, costly, risky but with a high potential payoff.

In any case if there is no universality in the goodness of creativity, we do not have to rule that it must always be the exclusive domain of the rich and powerful. Innovation always has a purpose and the purpose of innovation is more important than the process. Let us try to figure out how we might use innovation for a purpose greater than our immediate personal interests.

Creativity gains breadth and depth

Here are some of the issues that are being discussed in the world on creative thinking and action:

Crowdsourcing. Global connectivity allows us to do such things as “crowdsourcing” – for ideas, for innovation, for financing and more. The creativity comes from the content of each individual contribution as well as from the speed of collection and the open access for a very large number of actors.

The human brain. Researchers studying the human brain are working on what physical attributes or “wiring” the creative mind may have. And “brain plasticity”, now recognized as a fact, tells us that we can shape our minds in a number of different ways.

Introversion-Extraversion. There is a debate on introversion and extraversion and which is best suited for creative performance. My friend Andre Walton, PhD wrote in an email to me “The discussion regarding introversion or extraversion is, I think, largely academic.  Even if introverts are better at ideation they are probably less well equipped to take the idea any further so it will die without seeing the light of day (and therefore probably never be the subject of any books such as this one)!  In other words, introversion is probably somewhat of a gatekeeper in the real world.”

Team creativity and individual creativity. I am convinced that both are extremely useful and to pitch one against the other is a mistake. There is also no doubt that some great individuals have produced some rare creative ideas that have helped us understand the world in new, valuable ways and have transformed existing domains of knowledge or created entirely new ones. There is also no doubt that most great innovations are the result of the work of many different people building on each other’s work. I myself have produced some of my best ideas in solitude and others in a group. In any case personal creativity is indispensable for team creativity which can in turn stimulate individual creativity. (Teams can also stifle individual creativity, but they don’t have to)

Andre Walton adds “I firmly believe that what it takes to come up with an original ‘germ’ of a creative idea is very different to what happens next.  The evolution of the idea and its subsequent morphing into an innovation are very different processes that the original idea creation.  So, ‘Yes’, I believe solitude is necessary for the original ideation, and ‘Yes’ I believe collaboration is critical to taking that idea and doing something useful with it.”

Creativity and Leadership. As our understanding of organizational and societal creativity improves leaders at all levels are grappling with a large number of creativity challenges:

• How to develop their own personal creativity
• How to develop the creativity of others in their organizations or social groups
• How to define the right targets for innovation
• How to transform creative ideas into valuable innovation
• How to create systems that foster innovation – both processes and incentives
• How to shape cultures that support innovation

The many debates on creativity, show that our subject matter is multi-dimensional and thriving, while becoming at the same time richer and more complex.

Creativity scales up

We have expanded the practice of creativity in many ways.

We respect individual creativity more and more.

We have moved from individual creativity to team creativity, recognizing the value of collaboration in making great new things happen.

We have come to appreciate organizational creativity, recognizing that entire organizations can be more or less creative depending on deliberate design and leadership as well as many other factors.

We are recognizing that entire cities and countries can develop the creativity of their communities. Oh yes, governments too can be creative. And we have innovation planning at state level and guidelines at European level.

We are now using the term “social innovation” – applied creativity for social causes. The World Bank is joining the debate at last.

Many are publishing “most innovative” (company, city, country etc) lists these days. Some are based on good refereeing, surveys, performance and other indicators. Others are a little bit of a joke. But surely the fact that many institutions are ranking organizations and countries on some scale of creativity/innovation, shows that more and more people are valuing creativity in the world?

Have a Happy New Year!