Leadership As A Creative Act

Why leave a cushy job for a challenging one? The need to engage the artist within, according to Harvard Business writers John Maeda and Becky Bermont. Read the complete story.

Knowledge Is A Barrier, It Inhibits Creativity

Why can’t I see any meaning in life?

Life in itself has no meaning. Life is an opportunity to create a meaning. You will find meaning only if you create it. It is a poem to be composed, it is a song to be sung, it is a dance to be danced.

Buddha finds meaning because he creates it. I found it because I created it. God is not a thing but a creation. And only those who create find. And it is good that meaning is not lying somewhere there, otherwise one person would have discovered it – then what would be the need for everybody else to discover it?

Albert Einstein discovered the theory of relativity; now, do you have to discover it again and again? One man has done it; he has given you the map. It may have taken years for him, but for you to understand it will take hours.

Buddha also discovered something, Zarathustra also discovered something, but it is not like Einstein’s discovery. It is not there that you have just to follow Zarathustra and his map and you will find it. You will never find it. You will have to become a Zarathustra.

Each individual has to give birth to God, to meaning, to truth; each man has to become pregnant with it and pass through the pains of birth. Each one has to carry it in one’s womb, feed it by one’s own blood, and only then does one discover.

You don’t expect a religious person to be creative. You just expect him to fast, sit in a cave, get up early in the morning, chant mantras. And you are perfectly satisfied! Praise a man because he has created a song, a beautiful sculpture. Praise a man because he plays such a beautiful flute. Let these be religious qualities from now onwards. Praise a man because he is such a lover – love is religion. Because of him the world is becoming more graceful.

The inquiry has to be pure, without any conclusion. If you are looking for a certain meaning, you will not find it – because from the very beginning your inquiry is polluted, it is impure. You have already decided.

For example, if a man comes into my garden and thinks he can find a diamond there then to him this garden is so many beautiful flowers, and so many birds singing, and so many colours, and the wind blowing through the pines, and the moss on the rocks. But he cannot see any meaning because he has a certain idea: he has to find the diamond, only then there will be a meaning.

He is missing meaning because of his idea. Let your inquiry be pure. Don’t move with any fixed idea. Go naked. Go open and empty. And you will find not only one meaning – you will find a thousand and one meanings. Then each thing will become meaningful. Just a coloured stone shining in the rays of the sun… or a dewdrop creating a small rainbow around itself… or just a small flower dancing in the wind… What meaning are you searching for?

Go without a conclusion! That’s what i mean when i say go without knowledge if you want to find the truth. The knowledgeable person never finds it. His knowledge is a barrier. Drop the knowledge and become more creative. Remember, knowledge is gathered – you need not be creative about it; you have only to be receptive. And that’s what man has become: man is reduced to being a spectator.

Extract from The Silence Of The Heart: Talks on Sufi Stories.

~~~~~

Read the full piece.

Copyright And Creativity

It often takes years for the academic world to catch up to the breakneck pace of technology. But a new study from Center and American University’s Washington College of Law recently examined the issue of copyright and creativity and came to some interesting – and surely controversial – conclusions.

Read the complete article.

Encouraging Musical Creativity In The Early Years

Small children spend much of their time playing and most have no fears about the challenge facing them as they set about painting a picture or modelling with play dough. Children are equally at home when improvising their own songs and playing with musical instruments, although putting them in the spotlight without first preparing the ground can turn a budding composer into a shrinking violet. Before they can make their own music, children need to have some experience of rhythm, pitch, dynamics, tempo and timbre and this they acquire by interacting musically with adults.

Patricia Lee explains how supporting children’s musical creativity can contribute to their sense of self-worth and emotional wellbeing.

Staying Motivated

Whether your chosen medium is pictures or language, food or formulas, everyone has the capacity to be creative in their work. But we can often lose our motivation to create, making it difficult to stay focused and excited on a project. So how does one keep their creative well from drying up? Read this fantastic article by Kevin Cornell.

 [Via Navin on Creativegarh]

Getting Ideas Is Like Catching Butterflies

I am often asked by managers and business people that I meet: How can I get great ideas? I tend to answer this question with a metaphor: Getting ideas is like catching butterflies. So what can you do to catch butterflies? Of course, you can equip yourself with a net and run madly behind a butterfly until you catch it.

However, chasing butterflies with a net is a tiresome work and the results can be rather meagre. There is another, better strategy. You can first invest your time and efforts in creating a beautiful garden. Initially, this requires hard work and takes more time. And, on the face of it, seems to bear no relation to catching butterflies. But once the garden is blooming, you just need to step out and the butterflies are there all over the place, attracted by your wonderful garden. Now it’s very easy to catch many butterflies – particularly if you’ve also invested in a net.

Now how is getting ideas similar to catching butterflies? One method of generating ideas is to follow a systematic creative process and to familiarise yourself with serious thinking tools and creativity techniques. By far, the most popular creativity technique is brainstorming. Brainstorming makes use of the collective brains of a team that are brought together into a thinking session for a given period of time (usually up-to one hour). Brainstorming is an integral part of the culture and idea generation strategy of IDEO, one of the leading industrial design companies in the world.

Read this fantastic article by Dr Detlef Reis here.

Aging Well How Creativity Stops The Years In Their Tracks

There is a vital relationship between creative expression and healthy aging. When we draw and paint, certainly we delve deep into the springs of vitality, increasing our sense of self worth, determination, and achievement. But the University of Kentucky’s Prof. David Snowdon, who tracked the health of 678 Catholic nuns over 70 in his important Alzheimer’s study, showed us much more: he was once given a priceless ceramic sculpture of Santa Claus perched atop a John Deere tractor by one of the nuns. She was Sister Esther Boor, who had taken up ceramics at age 97. When asked by Prof. Snowdon to join his project, Sister Esther had originally told him, “I’m too busy with my art to take part in a study of old people.” She was not very aware she was old when she passed away at 107.

Read the complete article.

Humour Is The Highest Form Of Creativity

Are you stressed due to overwork? Do your colleagues and subordinates find you too boring to involve in a discussion?

Are you working in an overly serious environment that is affecting your creativity? Don’t worry. All you need is ‘humour’ to get out of such situation.

Read the complete story.

From Preparation To Implementation

An artist wakes up one morning and gets an idea for a painting. A copywriter walks on the riverside and a great campaign takes shape. A musician stumbles upon a homeless man and an excellent composition comes alive.

How often we hear this and wonder why ideas come this way only to others and not to us. But if you at this closely, you'll discover that all of the above had already been working on the idea. And what happened one morning, or by the riverside or on the road is actually the third step in the creative process.

To understand this, let's look at the process of creativity and the five steps it involves.

Step 1: Preparation
This is when the problem is first seen by the creative person and he starts preparing to find a solution to it. This is when all the knowledge you've gained in your chosen creative field comes into play. Everything that you've seen, heard, smelt and felt till date starts working together to help you find a solution. No wonder that creative people are always hungry for new knowledge and more information even on unrelated subjects. Because they know that they will never know when and from where a great idea will come by.

Step 2: Incubation
This is when creative people try to understand the real problem. They get into the nitty gritties... into the minute details of the problem. And then, once they have all the information on the problem, they combine it with all the related and unrelated knowledge they've gathered and put it on the back burner and let it stew.

Step 3: Enlightenment
This is also called insight. It's the moment at which the unconscious and the subconscious minds, having finished working on the problem, present an "AHA!" or a "EUREKA!" This is the step where the artist, the copywriter and the musician mentioned earlier were on.

Step 4: Evaluation
This step is where you evaluate the solution. Will it work, will it not? Is it the best? Is it worse? It's not always the right answer, even though it may be amazingly creative. This is where you find a balance between imagination and reality and evaluate if the solution is practical.

Step 5: Implementation
And finally, it's time to implement the idea. The artist creates the masterpiece. The copywriter writes an award winning campaign and the musician creates a memorable score.

And after the idea is implemented, the five steps begin again... the preparation, the incubation, the enlightenment, the evaluation and the implementation... all working towards making the idea better than before. Again and again. 

~ Arun Verma

10 Barriers To Creativity

So you want to be creative? But you keep running into barriers that block your creativity and diminish your productivity. You are not alone, and you can knock down ten barriers to creativity by learning and accepting truths about the creative process.

The following ten barriers to creativity are based on myths, lack of information and bad habits.

1. Believing you have to be an artist,
2. Not learning the fundamentals,
3. Not collecting samples of favorite creative projects,
4. Waiting for your muse,
5. Failing to take a systematic approach,
6. Not learning about your target public,
7. Not understanding your purpose,
8. Not knowing your key message,
9. Letting your conscious do all the work,
10. Settling for your first attempts.

Read the complete article.

Get In Touch With Them

Many well known creative people have been known to be recluses. They prefer to create in isolation and are unwilling to interact with other people. In fact, they take the belief of ‘creativity being an individualistic activity’ a wee bit too seriously. And in 99 cases out of 100, it is these same creative people who after locking themselves up from the world for days, months and years find themselves slaves to intense depression and serious phobias and manias.

Sure, you have to create alone but it is always better for your creative soul to share your creativity with the world. Not only in the form of a finished piece of art but even when it comes to a thought process. Because when you share your thoughts with like minded people, you get feedback. When you get feedback, you learn and absorb more. And when you learn and absorb more, you create more. And better.

And it doesn’t take more than your willingness to go and reach out to a world of like minded people. Luckily, to use the cliche, the world is shrinking and like minded people are just a phone call, an email or a short walk away. Go ahead, get in touch with them.

Remember that guy you met in a chat room who went gaga over your poetry and left his email address in your mailbox? And you never did much about it…. it’s time to get in touch with him. Remember that woman you met at a friend’s wedding who wanted to drop by to check your paintings… call her up and invite her over. That old pen friend of yours with whom you had a heavenly rapport… get in touch with him now. Remember when you were playing the guitar and that colleague of yours who played drums asked you if you like to form a band? Get in touch with him now. Remember your next door neighbour who said that she likes the music you play every night… drop by at her place in the evening. Remember that online discussion group you were a part of but had to quit ‘cos you were spending too much time online… subscribe to it again. Remember the local play reader’s club you were a part of, go for their next meeting.

Getting in touch and interacting with people takes no more than 1 hour of your time, once a week. Am sure, that isn’t asking for too much considering you’re doing it to better your creativity. And besides, when you’re going through a bad stage in your life, be assured, you’ll always have a person who believes in you and your creativity giving you a helping hand. And when business is looking bleak, it’s your friend at the cafe who will pleasantly surprise you with an assignment you would love to pick up.

After all, God and creative people work in mysterious ways.

~ Arun Verma

Happiness: Good For Creativity, Bad For Single-Minded Focus

Happy people are open to all sorts of ideas, some of which can be distracting.

Despite those who romanticize depression as the wellspring of artistic genius, studies find that people are most creative when they are in a good mood, and now researchers may have explained why: For better or worse, happy people have a harder time focusing. University of Toronto psychologists induced a happy, sad or neutral state in each of 24 participants by playing them specially chosen musical selections. To instill happiness, for example, they played a jazzy version of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3. After each musical interlude, the researchers gave subjects two tests to assess their creativity and concentration. Read the complete article.

Night Owls Are More Creative

Not a morning person? Take solace — new research suggests that “night owls” are more likely to be creative thinkers.Scientists can’t yet fully explain why evening types appear to be more creative, but they suggest it could be an adaptation to living outside of the norm.

“Being in a situation which diverges from conventional habit — nocturnal types often experience this situation — may encourage the development of a non-conventional spirit and of the ability to find alternative and original solutions,” lead author Marina Giampietro and colleague G.M. Cavallera wrote in a study to be published in the February 2007 issue of Personality and Individual Differences. Read the complete article here.

 [Via Manoj on Creativegarh] 

Don’t Wait For Opportunities To Knock

In fact, find opportunities, hold them by the neck, drag them to your door, punch them hard, push them down, pull them by the collar and make them knock till the cows come back home. To get creative, don’t wait for problems to happen. Look around you and you will see there is still a lot to improve. There’s always around you a leaking faucet, a poem unwriten, a picture unclicked, a masterpiece unpainted, a child neglected, a recipe untried and a call unanswered. If you see problems, look at them as opportunities to find new ideas.

Add Humour To Work

Came across this very interesting article by Michael Kerr. Michael in this article outlines 130 ways to bring humour into the workplace and thus helping organisations embrace a creative attitude (something that we have been talking about lately).

The Measurement Of Creativity

Does the company encourage new ideas and diversity of opinions? If so, how is this evidenced in the processes and structures of the organization and in the behaviors of individuals? Do employees feel valued? Are they listened to? Do their opinions matter? Do they have a say in the way work gets done? Are their talents fully utilized? Are they willing to share ideas without worrying about who gets the credit? Are they encouraged to take risks? Are they rewarded for good efforts that fail as well as those that succeed? Are mistakes seen as learning experiences? Can they “fail-forward?”

A very interesting article by Ian Rose on the measurement of creativity in organisations or the non-inclination to measure it.

Exercise Your Creativity

Looking for a creative spark? Pick a sport like biking or swimming in which your mind can wander.

Free your mind by taking a break and working out, says this very insightful article.

Cultivating Creative Passion At Work

Came across this interesting post today by Adrain Furnham.

 In the post, Adrian questions whether creativity workshops really work in the ’stess industry’.

“For management consultants the stress industry is a nice little earner. Everyone in IT likes to believe that they are acutely, chronically, unfairly and uniquely stressed at work. Further they are certain that all stress “comes from the outside”: that it is caused by others, usually control-freak, demanding and unreasonable bosses.

Seminars on stress are hard work. There is a lot of what Americans call “negative affectivity” as well as depression, fatalism and the like. Indeed it becomes stressful for the stress consultants.

There is another more attractive and fun way to earn your daily dollar and that is running creativity workshops. In that evidence-free environment beloved of trainers, people are told that everyone is creative and that they can be taught quite simply to explore and exploit their talents.”

Being a creative, a creative practitioner and a part-time creativity trainer, I agree with Adrian. But the problem, I believe, is not with creativity trainers but with the organisations themselves.

Besides delivering deliverables and meeting deadlines, one of the biggest expectations from employees in the 21st century workplace is to be ‘more creative’.

Now what does that mean? Many would think that employees are expected to write ads, make radio jingles, produce power presentations in flash? Fill out forms in fluorescent inks? Design their own motivational posters?

No. Not at all!

What the management is looking for is for employees to approach common work practises in new ways. Making processes. Figuring out how to streamline operations. Even listening to customers. And maybe thinking of new products and features that meet his expectations. It also means means thinking out of the box, thinking the unconventional, which might sound ridiculous, but could possibly change the way business is done.

But what do organisations do about this, besides demanding creativity from their employees.

Do companies give employees the creative freedom? Do they allow employees to screw up and if they do, give them a pat on their back for crossing over the proverbial ’stepping stone’? Do they give employees a ‘creativity allowance’ to expand their horizons? Do they give employees enough opportunities to think out of the box?

Of course, not!

The most that companies would do, is hire a creativity trainer. So, we’re back to square one.

Is that enough? Not really I would say so, because if you give your employees the ‘theory’ but no practical environment to bloom in, the results could be disastrous.

No doubt that there are tons of employees who say that this is NOT their job and would be shaking their heads wondering how to cope with this ‘creative’ expectation. Mainly because, so many employees have been in such restrictive environments for so long, doing ‘operational’ work, that coming up with alternative (read creative) thoughts can be a little frightening and intimidating.

Great! So, creativity trainers are hired. Workshops are help. The creative juices need to flow. Can that be done overnight?

No way!

Creativity is a process that needs to be honed over days, months, years and lifetimes. So, the best way to start is by giving your employees time, freedom, opportunity and above all, a creative culture.

Here’s some small things that companies should do to help kickstart a creative environment.

1. Encourage employees to leave their workstations:
In fact, encourage them to leave their workplace for a quick stroll in the park, or a provide them with a chance to play a quick game of pool. Or simply have lunch ‘outside’ the office. Sitting at the desk endlessly can suffocate their creativity — because of the same colleagues, same walls, same environment, same coffee cups, same screensaver. Having the feeling of freedom helps them see a bigger world. Much bigger than the workplace. Sometimes, the best of solutions are born when you take your mind off the problems. DO NOT make a note of what time they leave office or come back after lunch.

2. Encourage them to have a hobby:
Provide opportunities to employees to broaden their horizons. Intranets, newsletters, common-interest groups, picnics, movie-outs, play reading groups are good means for this. The idea is to not only think, but live out of the box.

3. Give them rest:
Don’t be a slave driver. Let employees sleep at a reasonable hour every night. Or for a reasonable number of hours. While in office, it’s ok to have them sit back in their chairs and take a short 15 minute nap. Come on, you just cant think creatively when you’re pooped.

4. Give them the freedom to fail:
No idea is a good idea unless it’s not attempted. Same goes for a bad idea. Unless you don’t attempt it, you’ll never know if it’s bad. The point is to try. And if it doesn’t work, well, it doesn’t work. But they would have learnt something in the process. Let their imagination fly.

So, any employer would now say, “if I let them leave their workstations, go to movies, take a nap in office and allow them to fail, how will I even get any work out”.

Agreed. By doing all of the above, there surely seems to be no time for work. But with these practises, what you would creating are passionate people.

People who have the freedom to be themselves.

People who would be thinking of world-changing ideas while strolling in the park.

People who would be thinking out of the box during a game of pool.

People who would be catching up on sleep and be waiting for the night to end so they can get back to doing some great work, the next morning.

People who would know that one doesn’t fail forever… success is round the corner.

People who would be passionate.

When you have the passion, no task is tough, no building tall, no mountain tiring and no ocean big enough. When you have passionate poeple, you wont have to get work out. It’ll come out on its own.

~ Arun Verma

p.s. If you are an employee, and your employer wants you to be creative but brings none of the above into practise, read this article by Josi Lynn Keyser.

Embracing Your Insanity

KM pointed me to this fantasic post by Dustin Walper on embracing your insanity and giving in to instant urges. Dustin says, “There’s something important to be said here: Everyone is secretly insane. The only problem is, we’ve been taught to repress those insane bits in favour of a more “normal” or “balanced” approach to life. We’ve been taught that urges will get you in trouble! I know they got me in hot water in grade school, high school… heck, for as long as I can remember!”

He further says, “I know you all have weird little urges. I certainly do. A little while ago, I was sitting at my laptop with a bottle of water in hand when I suddenly had the urge to splash myself in the face with it. I’m not sure why, but I gave in to it… and it was refreshing. I gave myself a jolt and suddenly I felt happier and more productive. Are you starting to see how this might be beneficial?”

I added a comment to Dustin’s post. To quote from there, embracing your insanity’, eccentricity, giving in to urges are areas that have interested me for the last few years. A logical addition to Dustin’s post are ‘creative rituals’.

This started from a post I read on Creativegarh that asks, “are creative people absurd or simply superstitious?”

What made me ask that were things that I saw around myself. My creative director friend, who always wears his underwear inside out on the day of a big presentation. Another friend, be it winter, summer, hail, hurricane or earthquake – prefers to be the first one in office everyday.

At one time, I would have classified all the above-mentioned people as weird. But over the months, I realise that all these people are doing is performing their creative ritual.

Crafting and enacting such ‘weird’ ceremonies and and rituals, and giving in to urges that over time become a part of the routine is important for every creative person. The ritual is a very personal thing. Sure, some rituals can be downright strange but they do help is done with the right frame of mind. Most of times, a creative ritual is not directly related to creative thinking but it is a very strong means of focussing the mind on producing ideas.

And all rituals don’t have to be strange. They can vary from always taking a bath before getting down to making the best art to always watering the plants before writing a presentation.

Or simply, splashing water on your face before you start working.

A very interesting topic indeed!

~ Arun Verma

Five A Day Of Creativity

A recommended daily output for expression