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Creativity and the Creative Paradox

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Creativity Explored

This a lens to honor Gordon MacKenzie the author of one of my favorite books on creativity, "Orbiting the Giant Hairball". Use this lens as a reference to review creative resources I have used to improve on my ability to be creative and add innovation to the projects I work on. Gordon was able to hold the position where he worked titled "Creative Paradox", although he got to choose the name of his position.

"Orbiting the Giant Hairball" starts with the author's realization while sharing his creativity with elementary school children, that as he surveyed the number of artists at each grade level, by the time he reached sixth grade there were only one or two artists left. The fear is that our institutions and culture stifle creativity and those that do not conform to expected behavior are rediculed in an effort to return them to the fold.

The story is about Gordon's path through the corporate environment and how he worked through the challenges he faced.

In this Lens I will touch on the ideas presented in the book as well as other creativity and problem solving resources I have found useful.

Take a look at a 2006 presentation by Sir Ken Robinson at the Technology Entertainment & Design (TED) conference , where he also raises concerns about our current educational system.

Understand the Hairball from a Survivor

I read this book at least once a year to remind myself to have the courage to be creative.

Positive Deviance

Positive Deviance is the "intentional behaviors that significantly depart from the norms of a referent group in honorable ways." I think this term relates to what I valued by reading "orbiting the Giant Hairball", that trying to find the courage to not be limited by cultural norms on your path to being creative.

Michigan Ross School of Business: The above quote comes from this site.
Toward the Construct Definition of Positive Deviance: Gretchen M. Spreitzer and Scott Sonenshein have written a paper on Positive Deviance which I am reviewing (Note this is a Link to the 21 page PDF file).

Abductive reasoning

Think Different!

Great ideas and new revolutions seldom come from existing ideas. It often takes intuition to be revolutionary.

Harvard Business Review: abductive reasoning article.: A good introduction.

Creativity RSS Feed

Time for a new idea?

Support Creative Environments

As I mentioned above, I have concerns about children loosing their individuality and creativity while growing up. There are many ways that parents can help keep this from happening. I have just started volunteering my time to teach elementary students Lego Robotics as well as support high school students working on the TARC Rocketry contest.

Destination Imagination: I spent 2006 helping coach a Destination Imagination Team at my son's Elementary school. It was amazing to see the wide range of ideas and solutions the kids came up with when trying to solve a problem, especially when I compare their sessions to the sessions I am involved in at a corporate level. It does appear that the corporate environment creates an atmosphere of censorship either imposed by the company or by the individuals trying not to stand out among their peers.
Lego Robots: I started teaching Elementary school children about Lego robotics in the Spring of 2008. Robot competitions are taking place around the country, check google for local events.
Rocketry for Junior and Senior High School Students: The Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC) will be starting up in September for next year's competition. You can find a link to the Challenge on my TARC Rocketry lens, along with rocket competition hints.

Enhance your creative environment

Is your environment conducive to Alpha and Theta brainwaves? These are the brainwaves associated with being in a creative state of mind.

Creative Spaces Lens: Many books on creativity mention that you should work in a space that will enhance your creativity. One idea which I practice is to surround yourself with items you have made, to remind yourself how creative you are. I display my photographs, family pictures and many lego products on my desk at work. Check out the creative spaces lens for more ideas.
Environments Shape Our Thoughts: This is an interesting article where the researchers found that the local environment, for example ceiling height, affects the way we think. Have meetings outside or in a large room to help keep the participants minds open and free!
Organize your environment: Get rid of the clutter so you can focus on being creative.

Be open to new ideas

Unlearn. Challenge your assumptions. Lose your fear.

There is a story in "Orbiting the Giant Hairball" about a poor dog who bites and holds onto a ball in the trough of the pool table. By biting the ball, the dog is unable to pull away from the table. When Gordon asks others at the diner what the dog is doing, they state that the dog wants to play and will often stand still for more than an hour holding the ball. Gordon left feeling sad for the dog, but it reminded him of an important lesson, found in many creativity books. The lesson of letting go. To be open to all the possiblities that exist, we must let go of what has worked for us in the past, our biases and our fears.

Start Your Creative Journey

These books are a quick read

Once I finished "A Whack on the Side of the Head", I started researching other books on creativity.

Brainstorming Techniques

A brainstorming session is more than just sitting around thinking up wild ideas. Techniques are available to improve the outcome of your brainstorming sessions. Focus on the quantity of ideas rather than the quality of an idea and do not forget to "warm up".

Creative Aerobics: Warm up your team before jumping into a brainstorming session. Get warm up exercises from the Creative Aerobics web site.
Role Playing: Participants take different perspectives when viewing a problem
Mind Mapping: Write down the essence of your problem. Now write down all aspects of the problem you can think of, for two minutes.
Metaphorical Thinking: Use similies and metaphors to define problems and investigate possible solutions.

A resource for generating ideas.

I am currently reading Gamestorming from O'Reilly media. A nice resource to learn how to facilitate generating ideas.

Creative (Lateral) thinking

Edward De Bono researches creativity and believes lateral thinking can be taught to others. His Six thinking Hats idea is a concept on how to evaluate ideas and is very popular. I have just started reading Serious Creativity.

Brainstorming Rules

Set rules, enforce compliance or suffer the consequences.

Define the problem the team will be working on.
Set a Time Limit
Get everyone to contribute or else ask directly for their suggestion
Document all of the ideas.
Do not allow people to criticize ideas during a brainstorming session.
No Teasing! At all costs, do not allow group members to tease one another. Teasing is a defensive mechanism often displayed by people who are threatened by those who share ideas. Teasing is a method people use to shame one another and if allowed, the teasing will decrease communication and the number of ideas generated.
Watch for Killer Phrases! A few examples of killer phrases are; "We tried that before..","Sounds impossible...", "Yes, but...". These phrases kill the creative process and dimish the team spirit. Evaluating the ideas should come at the end of the session not while ideas are being collected.
Evaluate the ideas at the end of the session.

Techniques to Evaluate Ideas

Before time is spent working on an idea, the idea needs to be evaluated against company goals and whether the idea is feasible. Does the idea map into the organizations goals? Is the idea cost effective? Does the team have the necessary skills to bring the idea to fruition?

Six Thinking Hats: Dr. de Bono invented the Six Thinking Hats method for evaluating ideas.
SWOT Analyses: Test an idea's Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

Use the Right Process

Improve your results

Sometimes creativity must be set aside and a rigorous process used to solve business problems, from TQM (Total Quality Management) to Six Sigma to Business Performance Excellence (BPE). The company I work for uses the Six Sigma process to improve business processes. Processes which only look to resolve internal problems are now being questioned in today's market place. These processes have a place, but higher value is given to processes which identify new markets and products. I am currently taking courses in BPE and the program is excellent. I have considered changing from IT to Engineering Management for my advanced degree.

Six Sigma: Check out the Six Sigma Lens. One of the ideas of six sigma is to control variation for the purpose of cost reduction. Many argue that Six Sigma methodologies are not good for innovation.
Total Quality Management: Explore TQM via using Wikipedia.org. Six sigma replaced TQM
Business Performance Excellence: The latest and greatest way to optimize the profits of your business is by using BPE. "BPE is the brain-child of ROI External Advisor Dr. Jeffrey Luftig, who continues his development of techniques and ideas to improve business. It is the culmination of his more than 20 years of experience of improving profit in virtually all areas of service and industry." Dr Luftig is currently associated with the University of Colorado at Boulder where he teaches BPE in the Engineering Management program. The goal of BPE is profit optimization.

Learn the Way of an Artist

Julia Cameron has written many books about discovering our artistic talent

Have You Been Creative Today?

"You have a masterpiece inside you, too, you know, One unlike any that has ever been created, or ever will be. And Remember: If you go to your grave without painting your masterpiece, it will not get painted. No one else can paint it. Only you."
Gordon Mackenzie

RSS Mashup of my Favorites

Keep up with other creative individuals

May 29, 2012 @ 5:55 amA hierarchy of business to business needs from Seth's Blog: If you're selling a product or service to a business--to a non-owner--consider this hierarchy, from primary needs on down: Avoiding risk Avoiding hassle Gaining praise Gaining power Having fun...
May 28, 2012 @ 12:00 pmPinterest: an Opportunity for Creators ? or a Thre... from Lateral Action: When I first saw Pinterest, it almost made me wish I were a visual artist. "What a fantastic idea!" I thought. It brought to mind all my artist coaching clients who had said to me: Twitter's all ver...
May 28, 2012 @ 5:26 amThriving in a wet environment from Seth's Blog: If you've ever fixed any kind of machinery, you know that a device that's exposed to the elements is incredibly difficult to maintain. A washing machine or the underside of a car gets grungy, fast. O...
May 27, 2012 @ 5:37 amEmergency room doctors from Seth's Blog: It's a mindset, not just a job. You can pitch them as hard as you like about having them work to persuade their patients to give up smoking (after all, it saves lives in the long run), but I think yo...
May 26, 2012 @ 4:50 pmThis is (still) broken from Seth's Blog: Two things worth a design rant, as well as a book and a free video talk... I apologize if you see the world with more frustration after this.
May 26, 2012 @ 5:34 amWhat are you leaving behind? from Seth's Blog: I love watching contrails, those streams of white frozen exhaust that jets leave behind. It's a temporary track in the sand, and then the sun melts them and they're gone. Go to Montana and you might...
May 25, 2012 @ 5:18 amThe tyranny of low price from Seth's Blog: If you build your business around being the lowest-cost provider, that's all you've got. Everything you do has to be a race in that direction, because if you veer toward anything else (service, workfo...
May 24, 2012 @ 2:09 pmA book/gadget list for late spring from Seth's Blog: I hope you'll find a gem or two. Here it is.
May 24, 2012 @ 5:42 am"If I were you..." from Seth's Blog: But of course, you're not. And this is the most important component of strategic marketing: we're not our customer. Empathy isn't dictated to us by a focus group or a statistical analysis. Empathy i...

The Latest Books on Creativity and Innovation I have read

Check out audible.com for the titles if you have an iPod

Scott Adams (Dilbert) mentioned that we will all eventually do what we hate most. For Scott it would be designing cubicles, for me it would be doing marketing. Since I am doomed, I started listening to marketing audio books. I highly recommend Seth Godin books, especially the Purple Cow which provides ideas of how to be remarkable. The Beyond Code blog recommends reading a book a week and I am finally coming up to speed on this task.

Reader Feedback

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Vitamoney Nov 26, 2010 @ 11:22 pm | delete

awesome lense..keep it up!

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GospelSmith Nov 12, 2010 @ 7:46 pm | delete

At first glance the arts look impractical. Perhaps it's time for artists to come up with lists -- Why We Need Art -- or -- Why We Need Poetry -- etc. Just the same way they ask us to come up with 100 ways to use a brick or a paper clip, what if we started coming up with ways to use art whatever the medium?

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LabKitty Oct 2, 2010 @ 4:19 pm | delete

Just had a look at this on Amazon. It's astonishing that MacKenzie got corporate culture to listen to him (our suits made us read "Mythical Man Month." Yeesh). Yet another thing we would have never come across were it not for Squidoo...

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monkeyshiva Sep 17, 2010 @ 6:36 am | delete

I think you may be interested in what I've been up to for the last three, amazing years. Easiest to explain if you visit the Nomadic Oracle :-)

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Obscure_Treasures Aug 18, 2010 @ 12:14 pm | delete

Very Impressive lens your images are awesome,I enjoyed reading your lens.
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Featured Lenses

There are other great creativity lenses within Squidoo, check these for additional ideas on creativity.

Seth Godin's RSS Feed

I like to keep up with the topics and questions posted by Seth on his blog.

Todd's odd creations on CafePress

Shameless plug or an example of my creativity.

Cafepress is a cool idea, providing a way for us to display our creativity and share with the world. Check out the cafepress lens.

Other Creativity Resources

To stay creative, be sure you are open to new ideas.

The Artist's Way: Julia Cameron now runs a web site for those exploring their creative spirit, using her books.
Models of Creativity: Many different models of creativity have been constructed.
Despair: Don't despair. No, wait...Do Despair. Despair.com offers creative products which take a very different look at the art of motivating workers.

I purchase the Despair calendar every year and have it on my wall at work. It is amazing to watch the reaction it gets, from people who never take the time to read the captions.

Conclusions

It has been said that "Great ideas are five minutes ahead of their time".

Thanks for spending your time reviewing this lens. Please pass along any ideas you have on making this lens more valuable. Better yet, build your own lens to share your perspective on creativity.

Orbiting the Giant Hairball is a fun read and the book is full of creative illustrations.

Visit my Lensography for a look at other lenses I have contributed to the Squidoo community.

Thanks again,
--Todd

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by Edmands

Todd Edmands is an Engineer with a Masters Degree in Systems Engineering & Information Assurance and an undergraduate degree in Geography. Todd is an Affiliate... more »

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