How to Become More Creative.

Here's an excerpt from a great article in today's Positive Psychology News Daily.

Do you ever wish you were more creative? New research has shown that adults can be primed to become more creative simply by being asked to think like children. There are many kinds of creativity, including flexible thinking, elaboration of existing ideas, fluency of ideas, and originality.
For the purposes of the study conducted at North Dakota State University, college students were asked to imagine and write about what they would do if school was canceled for the day. In the experimental condition, they were primed in advance of writing to imagine that they were seven years old. Merely being primed to think like a child resulted in the production of more original responses on a subsequent measure of creativity.

What Happens to Creativity as We Grow?
There are numerous benefits to being more creative. However in school, creativity is usually valued less than conventional thinking, whether you are a student or a teacher. It may be that formal education discourages divergent thinking, and that school may also coincide with a natural brain development shift in students from more impulsive and less self-conscious thought to less spontaneous and more rule-bound thought.
Since both ways of thinking are important (imagine if we were all child-like all the time), it is intriguing to think about interventions that would enable you to be more creative at least some of the time. You might try thinking like a 7-year-old right before you have to do something that requires original thinking.

Here's the entire article.

The answer is coming. It's just out of sight.

I've been sitting with a “problem” for months. I use quotes because I know from experience that I see problems only when my perception is limited. When my vision expands (or clears), I see the solution (hidden like a fortune) inside my problem (cookie).

In the theatre, I faced this paradox countless times. I would be staging a scene and find myself trapped in an “impossible” dynamic. I'd need an actor to be in a different place. Or a “vital” prop would be unavailable. Or time, money and resources would evaporate as opening night approached.

In each case as I “sat with” my insurmountable problem, an unforeseen solution would materialize. One moment I am stuck and then I see an opening. Have you had this experience? It's a hoot.

The solution only appears when I'm relaxed and patient. But it always appears.

Today I'm sitting with another impossible dilemma. I have a book to write, a great part time college gig, and a growing training business. How can I find the time to write and keep growing my business without giving up my great part time job? If I need to give something up, what should it be, and when? I've been posing these questions for months. No answer has emerged - yet. Perhaps the timing is not right for my writing or a change in direction. I watch and wait. I know that working with the flow of events is essential.

The answer is coming. It's just out of sight.

© 2009 Laura Lewis-Barr all rights reserved

Emotional Intelligence and Intuition

Lately, I’ve been thinking about intuition and Emotional Intelligence. Writers such as Malcolm Gladwell and António Damasio have explored how “hunches” come from unconscious processes that involve our emotional brain. These intuitions provide extremely valuable information. Emotional Intelligence helps enhance this faculty.

Here’s a lengthy quote from Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline, on this subject.

Bilateralism is a design principle underlying the evolution of advanced
organisms. Nature seems to have learned to design in pairs; it not only builds
in redundancy but achieves capabilities not possible otherwise. Two legs are
critical for rapid, flexible locomotion. Two arms and hands are vital for
climbing, lifting, and manipulating objects. Two eyes give us stereoscopic
vision, and along with two ears, depth perception. Is it not possible
that, following the same design principle, reason and intuition are designed to
work in harmony for us to achieve our potential intelligence?

Systems thinking may hold a key to integrating reason and intuition. Intuition eludes the grasp of linear thinking, with its exclusive emphasis on cause and effect that are close in time and space. The result is that most of our intuitions don't make 'sense' - that is, they can't be explained in terms of linear logic.

Very often, experienced managers have rich intuitions about complex systems, which they cannot explain. Their intuitions tell them that cause and effect are not close in time and space, that obvious solutions will produce more harm than good, and that
short-term fixes produce long-term problems. But they cannot explain their
ideas in simple linear cause-effect language. They end up saying, 'Just do
it this way. It will work.'

As managers gain facility with systems thinking as an alternative language, they find that many of their intuitions become explicable. Eventually, reintegrating reason and intuition may prove to be one of the primary contributions of systems thinking.

How do you unite reason and intuition?

What is Your Unique Contribution to the World?

I hear a lot about the need to “brand” myself—to create a clear, crisp, lean message/image of who I am and what I do. I can despair as I attempt this. I feel too quirky, too idiosyncratic to make myself easily understood. My wide range of passions, talents, and attributes don’t fit together in any conventional way. Will I ever be able to create something that resonates in the marketplace?

Lately, I’m comforted with new thoughts. If the world seeks to put us in a box, our own originality will always defy this. Great artists and thinkers can resist the crush toward conformity by either creating work that is easily accessible (bestsellers and blockbusters) or creating work that won’t be appreciated for a very long time. I may not be talented enough to do either type of great work, but at least I know that my eccentricity isn’t the problem.

If we give ourselves the chance to fully blossom, we will develop wonderfully novel personalities. Since we are always under pressure to conform, it may take decades to develop our unique character. But adults who follow their passions and talents will create a singular template that is a gift to the world. I am realizing that my own gifts may only be seen or appreciated by a few (hopefully). But this is important (despite our culture’s worship of fame and acclaim).

As children, we come into the world in a certain time, place, and circumstance. But as soon as we’re planted in our immediate environment (family, neighborhood, school), we begin to have an utterly unique experience of life. Even identical twins see the world through their own solitary lens.

This idea consoles me. We will each, like the drawing above, start out with peers and siblings but life’s events and our particular temperament will twist and bend us. We will develop an utterly novel perspective on life. Can we cherish our originality instead of denying our rare and beautiful gifts? Can we develop ourselves fully instead of trying to be like everyone else?

What is my unique contribution to the world? © 2009 Laura Lewis-Barr all rights reserved

A Workplace Secret Weapon

Take this workplace challenge: everyday take a 20-30 minute break to walk or run (preferably outside, especially if you have some green and birds nearby). For this experiment, walk in silence without headphones or talking companion.

Please report back on your experiences. There are some incredible benefits to this practice. We’d love to hear if you’ve had the same (wonderful) outcomes from these daily, physical, silent, (preferably outdoor) breaks.

Motivation for the Mundance Task

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the author of “Flow,” discusses how highly productive people keep themselves motivated to do mundane tasks. Consider mowing the lawn. Have you experimented with different patterns, or tried to time yourself or challenge yourself to be as efficient as possible? By making such tasks more difficult (and game-like), we enjoy them more and are more likely to enter (according the Csikszentmihalyi) the enjoyable state of “flow.”

Have you tried to do this at work? Alfie Kohn, author of “Punished by Rewards,” says that allowing ourselves (or our staff) to manipulate HOW a task is completed can help us (them) enjoy the task more, and thus be more motivated, even when the particular task is dull.

Struggling with a Problem? Take a Break!

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Incubation is one of the 4 proposed stages of creativity: preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification. Incubation is defined as a process of unconscious recombination of thought elements that were stimulated through conscious work at one point in time, resulting in novel ideas at some later point in time.

The experience of leaving a problem for a period of time, then finding the difficulty evaporates on returning to the problem, or even more striking, that the solution "comes out of the blue", when thinking about something else, is widespread. Many guides to effective thinking and problem solving advise the reader to set problems aside for a time.

So take that break or even better, take the nap. You'll not only feel better, but you'll thinking will clarify and the answer WILL come!

The Power of Play

We all know how invigorating play is to our energy levels. Brain researchers are also finding that play helps keep our brains healthy. Play is a natural and needed part of life. How might we bring more play into our workplaces? More on that tomorrow. For today, check out this incredible photo shoot narrated by Stuart Brown, a physician and clinical researcher who founded the National Institute for Play.