Thursday, August 2, 2007
Creating & Creativity
One of my clients in academic medicine has a strong problem-solving culture. No surprise.
They're embarking on a huge new initiative that requires a clear vision, proactive initiative internally, and enrolling scads of people outside their organization.
They're embarking on a process of "creating the future." Many consultants would spend a lot of time on creativity exercises. The problem is that "creating" requires a burning underlying passion that carries people through a focused effort toward a specific future.
Interestingly enough, many so-called creativity experts have never created anything in their lives. They instead help people become creative in resolving problems, identifying many possibilities for addressing existing problems, problems people understand, which is not the same as creating a specific result.
It's different when you commit to a vision of a future. Robert Fritz, author of Creating, perhaps says it best: "Creating is in the realm of the noninevitable." In his book, Fritz lays out one of the most cogent processes that I've seen for creating, which includes:
They're embarking on a huge new initiative that requires a clear vision, proactive initiative internally, and enrolling scads of people outside their organization.
They're embarking on a process of "creating the future." Many consultants would spend a lot of time on creativity exercises. The problem is that "creating" requires a burning underlying passion that carries people through a focused effort toward a specific future.
Interestingly enough, many so-called creativity experts have never created anything in their lives. They instead help people become creative in resolving problems, identifying many possibilities for addressing existing problems, problems people understand, which is not the same as creating a specific result.
It's different when you commit to a vision of a future. Robert Fritz, author of Creating, perhaps says it best: "Creating is in the realm of the noninevitable." In his book, Fritz lays out one of the most cogent processes that I've seen for creating, which includes:
- Conceive Result – Define general conception of what you want to create.
- Articulate Vision – Move from many possibilities and impressions of what you want to the one you will pursue
- Assess Current Reality – Describe what you currently have compared to results you want.
- Take Action – Taking action "before you are ready" leads to real experience versus speculation and overplanning.
- Adjust-Learn-Evaluate – Plans lead to actions, which lead to direct experience, which leads to learning, evaluation, and more skillful actions.
- Building Momentum – Deadlines support momentum by driving organization and completion of next steps.
- New Places to Go – Identifying the “next place to go” focuses energy and direction and also highlights the difference between where you are & where you want to end up.
- Completion - Declaring your creation matches your vision prevents endless tinkering & allows for new projects
My long-time client, and the leader of this new initiative, has definitely been "taking action" and well before he was totally "ready," but that has built both experience (leading to increased confidence) and momentum (leading to more supporters and success).
He was pretty bold when some of his faculty worried about "problems" they could forsee in the future and he said, "We'll address those when we get there. I will welcome the chance to solve those problems. We're great at problem-solving. And, if we get to that point, it means we've realized the core of our vision, so that will be a good day for all of us."
Wow. Well done. And what focus on creation and not just creativity!
# posted by Cindy Marteney @ 5:40 PM 
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