Creativity involves breaking out of expected patterns in order to look at things in a different way - Edward de Bono "I am not a very creative person" - I have heard this phrase a lot of times in my managerial role for the past one decade. It is very easy to say and personally I feel that only unsuccessful people say that. Although it is an over generalization but it still hold true to 90% of the time. Not only am I saying this but world educationalists like Sir Ken Robinson and Yong Zhoa are lamenting the same thing that there is a decline in creativity of the students. This maybe due to the over stress that we put on scoring marks rather than pure learning. So it brought me to do some research on why should anyone be creative? To many people, creative often means Micheal Angelo or Mozort or Mandoin Srinivas or Stephen Hawkins. Yes these people certainly are creativity professionals but there are typecast as the "big-C" creative (Kaufman and Beghatto, 2008) but what I'm talking is about the "small-c" which de Bono described as "breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way". This is what I am claiming is installed inside everyone. As a leadership mentor I have spent quiet a long time with young and fist time managers and have pondered this point always. Is it really worth trying to unearth the creative skill within each one and what benefit does it give them? (Pay rise, better responsibility, power) After reading the book on creativity by de Bono I came to understand clearly, when the managers take the role - all the teachings of Engineering, the soft skills etc are swept under the carpet. It's their creative skill which brings them the rewards. The same can be applied to any profession - say for an artist, all his sketching homework may be dusting under the cot but his creativity is what everyone notices. "We have entered a new economy” as Yong Zhao says. And this new economy requires creative and innovative entrepreneurs, not the “medium skilled, middle class jobs that were the backbone of the workforce in the past". Thus creativity is important and has been established. How come I saying that to unearth it is a piece of cake?
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Everyone wanted to have lots of holidays, no work pressure, deadlines and had their mind full of things that they were missing due to work related stress. Then came the destroyer - COVID-19 and gave us the required time (in fact more than required). Now people are wondering what they should do in these coming 21 days.
You have time, all the resources needed, the skills – yet something is stopping you. It is because you are suddenly pulled out of your routine life and now have to plan your day without deadline pressure. With the added distractions such as Smart TV/Phone, you are kept from achieving your dream tasks. So let me try to help you around with something called as Continuous Improvement. Unlike improvement which makes a radical jump from one level to another, continuous improvement actually takes rather small baby steps towards your goal. Before I start, let me explain: - What is Continuous Improvement Anways? Continuous Improvement is a written goal (or dedication) to making small changes or improvements in a short cadence (ideally every day) with the expectation that all these small changes adds up to something significant (some attainable goal) Mostly everyone after reading this definition would feel it is very easy except for one part. The short cadence or every day. This is the trickiest part for anybody (I am the person who violates this the most, Proof – ask my wife). There are couple of mistakes that most of us commit when trying to set a goal or try achieving a goal. Either the goal is very large (or long term goals without short term missions) or the time limit set is not correct (mostly too short). In either case when you start and find yourself halfway down the road – you MUST be in one of these states – Burnt out, Frustrated, Staring at failure, demoralized or All of them. This brings us to the problem – we need to set these two parameters according to the self. It cannot be dictated by anyone else. Now I would put another direction to this problem. Instead of setting the goal and time limit why not focus on small changes at regular intervals and slowly adjusting the course as we go. Agree in today’s rapid work the tortoise is not an appealing animal but let me reiterate – it’s the tortoise that always wins. The key words are SLOW and STEADY and these 2 words are what is required for continuous improvement. It is very easy for today’s generation to dismiss this theory of getting 1% better every day is not a TRENDING headlines. (All news today have to be breaking, as all Supreme Court verdicts needs to be a landmark one) But there is one thing about this – IT ALWAYS WORKS. |
AuthorVasudevan is a Leadership Mentor and an Executive coach. I run an online website geared towards helping creative entrepreneurs and future managers to build their dreams. Archives
June 2023
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