Some years back I was involved in an inter-religious dialogue with a Muslim group. During the course of many conversations, one thing became clear. My Muslim friends didn’t think of themselves as belonging to a religion, per se. They simply were living a way of life.
They weren’t, and aren’t, alone.
In fact, there are cultures that don’t have a word for ‘religion’ in their vocabulary. If a word is used it is a variation on the imported word, “religion.”
The reason for this is as mentioned earlier. People view living in a “religious” manner as a holistic experience. There is no place that an individual’s (and community’s!) world view is not influenced by the relationship between God and Humans. It simply “is”, and if it simply is, it doesn’t need to be labelled.
This phenomenon is present in other places in our lives as well. Ask someone to describe how she gets from point a to point b, how he cooks a souffle, and I would be extremely surprised to hear those descriptions contain the phrase, “and then I breathe in and out,” multiple times, if even once.
It just happens and is part of the process.
That’s how an innovation competency should be. Eventually you shouldn’t need to talk about it. Everything you do, from working in an R&D lab to Finance, to Operations, to taking time to recharge your batteries should be geared towards optimizing your innovation output. (Remember the Innovation Audit)
Yes, some of this is about consistent procedures (‘ritual’ from a religious perspective), but moreso it’s about commitment; it’s about worldview which is tied into identity and brand.
Who are we? What’s our goal? What are we supposed to do and how do we do it? Who am I?
These are the questions that, at first glance seem to have a ‘religious’ nature to them. But, it’s not about religion as much as it’s about human authenticity. It’s about letting people be who they are, contributing from their strengths to help make the whole be more than the sum of its parts. If people can’t be their deepest selves, and if the innovative organization does not contribute to the making of the whole person, then the person suffers and the innovative output of the organization will suffer.
So, next time you find yourself talking about how what you’re doing is innovative, do a little reflection and ask if innovation is a core competency or a way of life. Ask yourself if you’re doing something because you have to do it, or because you’re committed to it and the company’s mission makes sense, and what you do makes sense, when you do it.
Does this mean that there’s no questioning?
No, in fact there should be, because, just as I learned in the inter-religious dialogue, growth and building relationships is more about sharing questions than sharing answers.
Not to mention, the organization that sells answers will eventually go out of business because humans don’t buy answers – fundamentally they buy a question:
“What will my life become with this product/service/etc.?”
That is correct. You don’t have to change the colors of your walls, or any other surfaces, for that matter. Just cover them with this transparent, writable glaze and you’re ready to go.
There really is no excuse for not having a whiteboard space.
Inside your brain there’s a creativity censor. With finger poised above the ‘Bleep’ button, he’s constantly protecting you from ideas that he deems useless, or worse: foolish. He knows what every boss wants, what every friend thinks of you, what strangers see when they look at you. He knows what’s best for you and the best way to get it.
On more than one occasion I’ve seen this censor, singlehandedly, dull brilliance and turn a symphony into an energy sapping drone.
Why would the censor do this? Because he’s protecting you! Give him a free rein and you will comfortably reside in the Status Quo. You won’t look like a fool, you won’t push the envelope, you won’t feel uncomfortable.
Your creativity and the potential for great ideas will also come to a screeching halt.
Ideas build upon ideas – yours and others. They are stepping-stones. Remove one and things might be okay…might. Remove two or three and you’re constrained to walking on one plane.
So, what can you do?
You need to teach yourself to not listen to the censor, but instead to listen to the ideas. When you hear the “BLEEP!” you need to ignore it. Instead, write the idea down and play with it. See where it leads. Nowhere? That’s okay! But, the very act of acknowledging that idea has now given you a stepping stone to another idea, and another, and….
Don’t get me wrong. There is still a time and place to listen to the censor. But, when you’re trying to come up with ideas, looking for new possibilities, exploring the unknown, your imagination is your friend, your light. Work together with your ideas!
This is exemplified beautifully in this blog post over at Thoughts on Theater. I’m going to end this piece with a quote directly from her post, as it’s a wonderful read (as is her entire blog). It’s about Academy Award winning screenwriter, Robert Pirosh. He was a copywriter that wanted to become a Hollywood screenwriter. Here’s how he finally landed his dream job:
(Pirosh) sent the following note to all of the major studios, received a slew of interview requests, and finally accepted an offer as a junior writer at MGM. From there he went on to win an Academy Award and write for some of the best and brightest (including the Marx Brothers). Just another testament to the fact that you should not water yourself down in order to obtain the dream job. Do not censor the you that just might land you the gig.
Dear Sir:
I like words. I like fat buttery words, such as ooze, turpitude, glutinous, toady. I like solemn, angular, creaky words, such as straitlaced, cantankerous, pecunious, valedictory. I like spurious, black-is-white words, such as mortician, liquidate, tonsorial, demi-monde. I like suave “V” words, such as Svengali, svelte, bravura, verve. I like crunchy, brittle, crackly words, such as splinter, grapple, jostle, crusty. I like sullen, crabbed, scowling words, such as skulk, glower, scabby, churl. I like Oh-Heavens, my-gracious, land’s-sake words, such as tricksy, tucker, genteel, horrid. I like elegant, flowery words, such as estivate, peregrinate, elysium, halcyon. I like wormy, squirmy, mealy words, such as crawl, blubber, squeal, drip. I like sniggly, chuckling words, such as cowlick, gurgle, bubble and burp.
I like the word screenwriter better than copywriter, so I decided to quit my job in a New York advertising agency and try my luck in Hollywood, but before taking the plunge I went to Europe for a year of study, contemplation and horsing around.
Over at the Looper’s Delight group we were discussing what to do with ideas that don’t grow the way we expected, or wanted them to. Richard Sales of Glasswing Studios and Good Nature Farms (A farm/Creative sanctuary) then said the following:
We have a policy at our house that, when someone is in the creative moment, we tiptoe, we close doors quietly, we are very respectful of the presence of the Muse – that lightning fast butterfly. When we accidentally barge in, we dont’ make conversation and apologize etc. Everyone is trained.
This is such a great practice to follow!
Everyone puts such a great emphasis on collaboration nowadays, we assume that the best results will only occur when everyone is open to everyone else. Businesses try and force collaboration through architecture, work flows, etc.
Yet, how often do businesses respect the need for people to seriously engage their muses; to afford people the silence to hear the silent whispers of inspiration within? How often to we tread lightly when approaching people who are immersed in their creative moments?
How can businesses and people structure the environment, or create rules, so that individual creative moments are free to blossom?
Beautiful, amazing, new, hybrid plants are possible through botanical cooperation – the collaboration of multiple flowers.
But before this can occur, each flower needs to bloom on its own…
To keep creative productivity at its optimum, it’s important to be able to detect when we’re overstressed so we can decompress and allow the creativity to flow. However, sometimes people get so caught up in trying to be productive that the ability to detect stress gets dulled. Here’s an interesting technology that can help people detect when they’re pushing themselves (or being pushed) too hard.
There is a growing consensus that when building a successful, thriving, innovative culture, it’s essential that people adopt the mentalities of entrepreneurs. While there are many different facets, Bob Baker over at The Buzz Factor has summarized them nicely in this great article (it’s worth reading to understand the nuances of what being INDIE means).
In summary, people should be:
I – Inspired
N – Nontraditional
D – Determined
I – Innovative
E – Empowered
Adopt these perspectives and foster them in those around you and, trust me, the sky will be the limit.
What do you do when the trees in your city park are diseased and need to be cut down?
You could cut them down and dig out the stumps…
Or…
You could have chainsaw artists come out and convert the stumps into art. That’s what the folks of Craig, Colorado did in 1999.
The event was so successful it became an annual festive event. (However, due to limited diseased trees (thankfully), stumps are now brought in and sunk into the ground for the artists to work on. )
I bring attention to this festival because it highlights 5 tips for building and sustaining innovative communities:
There are no stupid ideas when brainstorming. If City Employee, Mike Shelton, didn’t suggest this in the first place, something special for the community might never have happened.
The process of creating seems to naturally brings people together. Don’t miss opportunities to bolster community around creative output.
Just because people aren’t directly involved in the creative process doesn’t mean that they can’t, or won’t have fun. Creativity breeds interest, and eventually, creative output. Make creativity visible!! Then let people follow their curiosities.
People take pride in who they are as a community. Give people opportunities to revel in their commonality and it’ll create esprit de corps.
Share who you are as a community and others will want to be a part of what you’re doing.
Dr. Stanley Block, over at Psychology Today, has a great process for breaking through the blocks, or rather the box that surrounds and constrains our psyches – in three minutes or less. Rather than reproduce it here, I’m including a link to the process that you can read here.
I’m a strong believer that the more relaxed we are, the better the quality of ideas. Dealing with stress is important if you want to stay on top of your game. Here’s another interview with Dr. Herbert Benson, founder of the Benson Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine.
What do you do to deal with stress and keep the creative juices flowing?
I was reading an article yesterday, don’t even remember what it was about, but my mind went to when I was a kid and I became fascinated with cross-pollinating my mom’s African Violets. I was constantly trying to come up with cool color combos of white and purples – something new: Innovation, African Violet Style…
Usually when people speak about innovation and plants, the metaphor is one of seeds and planting. I like that metaphor, but one that is even more rich is the metaphor of pollination. After all, pollination is the process by which flowers reproduce. It’s how flowers survive (and have survived for millions of years!). The mixing of genetic material results in new fruit, new flowers that have the best (and/or worst) of the parent plants. It’s just like ideas. Different ideas commingle and the result is often a fantastic amalgam of the parent ideas.
Not surprisingly, the innovation/pollination metaphor can be taken much further. But, before we do, let’s do a quick primer in plant reproductive biology.
Pollen (see the diagram below), which originates on the Anthers of the Stamen, gets carried via various mechanisms, to the Stigma of the Pistil. Once Pollen lands there, a tube grows down the Style so that the sperm nuclei can be conducted to the ovules. That’s it. Fertilization occurs and a fruit is the result.
To flesh out some more ways in which innovation is like pollination, I made a simple mindmap describing various types of flowers and the processes by which fertilization occurs. Here it is:
So, how else can we learn to innovate by looking at the pollination metaphor? Let’s walk around the above mindmap starting at the lower right and flesh this out.
Wind. It’s effective for some plants, but not for all. Plants that use the wind usually don’t rely on much else and they usually don’t have fancy flowers. The wind does all the work and the rest is up to chance. You probably Read the rest of this entry »
We’re cranking along in a project and someone comes in with a ‘brilliant’ idea or a new documentation requirement.
AUGHH! Time is ticking, money is being spent. Why couldn’t this have been brought up at the beginning of the project?!?!
There are basically three responses:
Ignore the request and move forward promising to fold features into the next version
Agree to the request and try and get more time/money
Agree to parts of the request and move the rest into the next version.
All three of these cause angst to the team, to management, and perhaps even the users. They result in more time and money being spent. Creativity likewise drops as people go into crunch mode trying to accomplish more with less.
We all have a tendency to look at projects as totally linear processes. Everyone agrees up front what needs to be done, money is allotted, a timeline is set and everyone is off to the races. The project moves into execution mode – efficient execution.
But, we also know that projects aren’t linear phenomena. They’re a combination of fits and starts, looping back, problems and solutions.
So what happens?
When we first embark on projects, we keep our fingers crossed and hope that nothing gets in the way of launching the product – that there is no Scope Creep. As the project progresses we continue with the same mentality, constantly moving forward but at the same time looking over our shoulders, trying to anticipate what might occur before it does. We hope nothing will knock us off our tenacious trek towards launch – especially no new product requirements. Nevertheless, these new requirements seem to come and wreak havoc.
But, there is a bright side.
Scope Creep is more than something that should be avoided and/or grudgingly dealt with because where there is Scope Creep, there are opportunities to Read the rest of this entry »
