TAPE # and time code

Audio

B10

Hedria P. Lunken

10:00:57:28 

10:01:19:13

[Could you introduce yourself…?]

Hi, my name is Hedria Porth Lunken.  For many years I was creativity consultant on my own.  Just recently I went with another company, called The Performance Group, where I’m the Director of the Communications Program and a creativity consultant with them.  My background in creativity is quite interesting, I have a Master’s Degree in Creativity from the Center for Creative Studies in Buffalo, New York.

10:02:03:10

10:02:22:03

[Could you define creativity?]

Creativity, people have asked me about the definition for creativity and my favorite definition is novel and useful.  But I also add to that that we have to have innovation as well.   Because when you try to sell just creativity in business they want to know what is going happen with it.  And innovation is when you bring the products to market and get money for them.

10:02:29:10 

10:02:46:03

[How is innovation different from creativity?]

It’s the same process, it’s just putting different words on it, so industry understands it.  Creativity is developing new products and coming out with them.  When you use the word ‘innovations’ it’s acceptable in the world because it means bottom line profits.  That you’ve come up with a product ??? it’s putting it to market.

10:02:52:09

10:03:30:04

[Could you define the four P’s of creativity?]

Quite often we talk about creativity in a framework.  Mel Rhodes, in 1961, put the framework together: the four “P’s” he called them.  He talked about ‘person’ because everything in creativity has something to do with people.  He spoke about ‘process,’ because the things that we do we use process for. And the other thing he talked about was bringing the product to fruition.  We talked about that in the way of innovations, you have products.  But encompassing all of this, the person, the product, the process, is the press or what’s going on around the outside, the environment, the climate for creativity.

10:03:36:01 

10:04:11:26

[Could you define Press?]

When I go into organizations, any kind of organization, I talk about creativity and what is the climate for creativity in that organization.  Before they can start saying they are going to bring in creativity into the organization, they must decide if they are going to be willing to defer judgment and use the guidelines that we talked about, when we talked about brainstorming or generating ideas or divergent thinking.  If an organization has their minds closed and they are not open to deferring judgment and they’re not willing try new ideas and take risks then the climate is not ready for them to train people in creativity.

10:04:21:15 

10:04:36:25

[What exactly does deferral of judgment mean?]

One of the basic rules we talk about, or basic guidelines in creativity, is the ‘deferral of judgment.’  Deferring judgment does not mean that I’m not going judge something, it means that I’m going to defer my judgment, that I will wait a while until I judge something. 

10:06:39:01 

10:07:17:26

[How do you deal with a climate that is not ready for creativity?]

You’ll know that a company is not ready for creativity when they want you to come in and do a fix.  We need some things happening, we need some new products.  But they’re not ready to listen yet and they’re not ready to accept  new ideas.  They’re blocked to new ideas.  There must be an atmosphere where it’s accepting of new ideas, new processes.  That they look at their people, their products, their processes and say it’s OK if they are different.  If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got.  If they don’t accept new ideas and they don’t see these things, then they are not ready to have us to teach process and to teach people how to be more creative and more open. Their people will be too vulnerable, we’ll start to have them come up with ideas and they will be knocked down.

10:07:31:19 

10:08:20:14

[Is there a good way to change the climate of a company?]

One of the first steps when you’re going into a company is to see if their climate is accepting of creativity.  You can’t say it’s going to be accepting and then change the people; it’s sort of a process you’re going through.  They have to let the consultants or the people coming in or the trainers come in and teach the people and they have to be agreeable that they are going to let some of these things happen that do.  That there is going to be a change in the way things are done. That there is going to be more empowerment – we talk so much about the word empowerment of people today.    And creativity is certainly empowering your people to the umpth.  It’s letting them do it the way they need to do it, using the process they need to be the most creative people they can be.  That they can show their potential.  And if the climate doesn’t allow this, then people are stifled and you’re not going to get their best ideas and the company does not end up with its best products.

10:09:29:20 

10:10:32:00

[Would you define the P of People?]

Before, when I defined the four “P’s,” one of them I said was the ‘people.’  That’s the most important, after climate, which is where the people will be working, the person is the most important, because people are going to make the products, they’re going to make the place.  We’re talking about people in management allowing things to happen or we’re talking about the people on the line knowing what they can do and how they can do it.  So in creativity, we talk about different styles of creativity, we’re not always talking levels.  So many people say ‘oh, I’m not creative, I’m not creative.’  Everybody is creative, everybody has some creativity in them. It’s how you bring it out and how you allow people to express themselves that’s important.  There’s different styles of creativity and style instruments that we have and we can go in and talk to people about .  We talked about adaptive creativity and we talk about innovative creativity.  Then everybody falls somewhere in the continuum and it isn’t important where they fall in the continuum, it’s important how we use them and accept their different types of ideas they have and the different plans that they have.

10:10:42:27 

10:11:46:18

[Why do you believe everyone is creative?]

Everyone has some creativity in them.  First of all let’s look at a 1-year old child and 2-year old child.  These little children ask ‘why, why, why, why’ all the time.  People are creative.  Sometimes peoples have very narrow definitions of what creativity is - well it has to be artistic.  That’s one way of creativity.  The arts are one way of showing creativity and that’s a beautiful way.  But isn’t the person, isn’t the child and we’ve talked about the definition before - novel and useful - when my 2-year old grandchild invents something new and it’s exciting for her it’s novel and useful.  She’s very creative.  I have to come up with something different for myself at a different stage and my company something else that  is novel and useful and that we can use in the world and we can bring to market.  Well, we’re all creative, it’s just at different stages.  The person that makes a wonderful dinner, the chef that cooks something, the process is made different, the person in their office that puts out a wonderful report.  Creativity takes many different forms.  It’s how the individual and how it works with the company, works with the people that they’re working with.  That’s what creativity is to me. It’s expression of one’s person, personal self.

10:11:57:03 

10:13:07:18

[Can you list or define creative styles?]

We talk about creativity styles, much of it is based on Curtin’s work.  He has an adaptive innovative instrument. Where he talks about different types of creativity and how put things through a company, how we get products through a company.  How people express their creativity when they’re brainstorming or while they’re doing products.  Some people are very innovative and come up with very unusual, very different products, different ideas.  They are not always looked at very nicely because people say we can’t use these very well. Then there’s people that have adaptive innovation, I’m talking about one end or the other of the continuum, very different, most of us fall in the middle.  And adaptive creativity is what takes these unusual items and says ‘OK, let’s do this to them’ and changes them a little bit and a little bit.  For instance the battery operated watches that we started out with. When they were first invented and the Swiss brought them out at their Swiss show, people said ‘oh, we can’t use these’, they were very heavy, they were hard to use, they were very expensive. Texas Instruments, the Japanese took them, adapted them a little bit here, a little bit there.  We have a product now, I’m sure, that most of the people watching this tape have a battery driven watch on now and not one that you wind.

10:13:13:07 

10:14:30:28

[Would you define the P of Process?]

Process is very, process in creativity is very important.  That’s what we do a lot of at the Creative Problem Solving Institute that takes place in Buffalo.  We teach the process, we teach the Osborn-Parnes method of process.  There’s many steps to it.  We talked about having a mess and finding out what’s going on around here, what’s happening.  And people search for the data that they need.  Then how do we come up with ideas and how do we look for the right solution.  Most people come up with, ‘I have the idea, let’s go.’  And that’s not what we call Creative Problem Solving.  CPS says let’s look at many ideas, and we have many ways of helping people do divergent thinking, or thinking of many ideas.  And then we have ways of doing convergent thinking, which says how can we choose the idea that we need.  But, the important thing again, is, that many people say, I’ve got the idea, let’s run and they don’t take time spending time on planning for the action. What’s going to help them, how are they going to do it, how do they set it up?  When we talk about process, there are two overall parts that are very important.  One is the divergent thinking which is to be open to many ideas and the other is convergent thinking, so you say, ‘how can we select or evaluate the ideas that we need?’  And this is within the process that takes us from steps saying ‘what do I need to do?’ to ‘what are my steps that I’m going to do?’

10:14:44:08

10:15:32:11

[Tell us about the P of Product]

Product, product is what you come out with.  Product is the end thing of having everything work together.  Product is the product that you come up with, but you can’t get a good product unless your processes have worked and you’ve been very thorough about your process.  And that you have the people who have had the ability to work well.  So product is like almost the end result to me when we’re talking about the four “P’s” and you’re talking about the climate being important so that the people can do their work, so their processes work, so they come out with the product they need to.  Product is where you have to sell it to industry.  Because, if you just say we’re going to do some changes and we’re going to make the people more creative and they’re going to have more fun and it’s going to be more interesting and ideas are going to get accepted.  It’s not enough.  You have to tell them the product will be better. And the profits will be better for it.  So there’s almost five ‘Ps.’

10:15:47:00 

10:16:40:09

[… Process definition]

Process is how you make the products.  Process is going through the creative problem solving process here at the CPS Institute. We teach the Osborn-Parnes Process of creative problem solving.  It takes us from mess finding, looking at what’s going on out there, to data finding, to finding out how we an come up with some more ideas.  How can we find the right solution, evaluating it.  So that we can come up the solution that is the most viable and work the best, so we can come up with the product we need.  All this is always encompassed through divergent thinking and convergent thinking.  If people don’t learn to think more and come out with more ideas, instead of choosing ‘the right one’ and if they don’t use the right process for convergence so that they don’t forget about some of the ideas that might be a little harder.  They’re not going to be creative problem solvers, they’re just going to do quick thinking. 

10:16:52:08 

10:17:21:18

[How do you help individuals work better with teams?]

I do a lot of experiential things when I work with teams.  Teams are very important because they are not just people working together, they are people learning about other people’s styles, that we had talked about.  We’re teaching people how to be more open to each other’s ideas, we’re teaching people how to learn to get along with other people on a very deep level.  When I work with teams, I try not to just look for the ‘uh-huh, I understand that,’ but the ‘‘Aha’, I really understand what you’re talking about and how it’s affecting people I work with.’

10:17:33:05 

10:18:55:20

[R&D example of CPS success]

I had a very interesting project recently.  I was working with a company that is letting creativity come in – they are very intent on having innovation and creativity come in to their organization.  And one of the first brainstorming sessions that I had was working with the R&D (research and development) department on a product that they had let go before.  They spent quite a bit of money and some time on it and they lost interest.  The important thing is when I work with the people first to find out exactly what it is they wanted.  It wasn’t just a new product, because I said I couldn’t promise them that in three hours.  But to revive the whole idea of the process let’s get back together, to become excited about it again.  So, we talked about creative climates it’s just ‘let’s get going on this and let’s say this is exciting so we want to do it.’  I used several processes for divergent thinking that morning: forced relations, divergent thinking through brainstorming and brain-writing.  We had a great morning and they really found it very, very exciting. And by the end of the day we came up with many ideas for the new product.  And they have been working on it since.  Some other things we’ve developed to show them we’re not going to be closed; that we’re not just going to change this part of the product or this part of the product, or this part, but how can you weave it all in together and stay open to there’s still some more ideas, let’s try some other things, let’s try some other combinations.  It’s working very well and the product will probably come to market soon.

10:19:34:17 

10:20:44:16

[What are the small steps that would help a manager start this process?]

The most important thing that I do when I speak to managers, or people or address crowds, or go into a business when I talk about creativity is being open to new ideas or deferring judgment again.  The deferring judgment on one basis so that people can do what they need to do and they’re not always wondering if someone is looking over my shoulder.  The next part is being very open and being affirmative when you judge a product.  There are two things that I think are the most important things I have learned about creativity.  One, is to teach people to be more open, using what I call the three magic sentences.  I always tell them I’ve given them fairy dust and they have the ability now to do whatever they want to creatively.  And what that is, is instead of saying ‘I can’t do it’ or ‘It can’t be done,’ to change it into ‘How might I do it’; ‘In what ways might I do it’; ‘How to do it differently.’  And if they would use those three sentences, not just open ended sentences, but actually the wording in those sentences, they start thinking right away, people start coming up with the answers and I have seen it turn entire meetings around.  I’ve seen those three sentences help products that weren’t going together before to start to work.  They’re magic.  Pure magic.

10:21:24:02

10:22:17:09

[She wants to add…]

The other very important thing that I like to leave with people when I am working with them is the fact that when they are going to evaluate something instead of saying that it won’t work and it can’t work, the first thing they have to do is think of the many ways that it can work.  They have to write the positives or the pluses about how does it work, of how can it work.  And after they have list several positives, when they do get to the concerns, it’s very important that they put the concerns in a positive way.  Instead of saying it can’t be done, to use the magic questions and say how to do it, how might I do it,  how can we change it around instead of saying we don’t have enough money, say, how might we get the money;  the product won’t work, how do we make the product work?  Very, very important and it changes the whole context of how you do things in a company.  When a company starts to do this, then they become a creative company and they are ready to do everything.

10:22:37:08 

10:22:51:17

[Creativity is so powerful…]

that it’s part of everything we do…you can’t do anything in the world without being creative about it.  It’s the difference between being a person that’s alive and a person that’s being ecstatic alive. It just encompasses everything and embodies everything that I do.

10:23:04:20

10:23:20:07

[Creativity is important because…]

Creativity is important to help every person achieve the potential they have. To let them come out, it’s a matter of letting people be open to what they need and to letting it come out and honor each person for what they have.

10:23:23:27

10:23:46:12

[In the future creativity will become…]

Creativity has grown leaps and bounds in the last few years.  It has gone from people asking me what do you mean when I say I practice creativity.  I teach creativity to Fortune 500 companies today it is a core competency.  Creativity is going to make the difference between our world being a good place to live and a better place to live.

10:24:05:28

10:24:29:17

[Take #2]

When I came into creativity, when I went the Center for Studies in Creativity and started my master’s program 11 years ago, people said what, what is this creativity?  And now when I talk to people in Fortune 500 companies, it is one of their core competencies and they are looking for people to come in to teach and help them learn more about creativity. 

10:24:31:03

10:24:45:10

[Take #2]

When we speak about creativity and why it’s important in the world, creativity is important because that is how we are going to have every person in the world show their potential.  And it’ll be the difference between having a good world and a better world to live in.

10:24:46:02

10:25:06:26

[Take #2 – teamwork]

When I go into an organization and I work with groups, I do not work with the whole organization, I work with individuals.  I truly feel that if we help one individual become more creative, they’ll help their team become more creative, the team will help the unit and the unit will help the company and the company will help the world.