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TAPE # and
time code
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Audio
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A4
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04:02:06:10
04:03:18:29
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[How do you
involve…a large company… in creativity?]
In a large company, to really find ways to involve
individuals, groups, and organizations in creativity, it’s probably more
difficult than the tools and techniques.
To really get people involved in creativity you have to establish a
level of rapport. You have to
be in a position where people can truly want to learn and to consider
possibilities and opportunities. It’s
very easy for us inside of organizations, especially large organizations,
to get so caught up and so distracted in day-to-day activity that it’s
difficult sometimes to let new insights and new information in.
So, the most difficult task I have is not impressing someone with
some new whiz-bang technique or some new method, as matter of fact, most
corporations are just numb to the concept of methods and techniques and
some new magic formula that’s going to save their company.
Nothing raises more suspicion than when somebody says ‘hey, I
have the answer for you.’ So, it’s more of a matter of establishing rapport and
getting people literally in a position where they are open to make their
own investigation.
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04:03:21:19
04:03:53:24
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[How do you
define creativity?]
I define creativity as the most natural process human
beings have. And that process
enables them to make fresh and new as they experience life and they
experience the world, because the world and life is a full contact sport.
But, people why can naturally access what is so natural to them is
creativity simply live life more fuller and at a happier level and I’m
convinced, by the way, that they live a heck of a lot longer.
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04:04:19:20
04:05:12:11
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[How do you
overcome resistance…?]
To overcome resistance to new methods or techniques
or the whole concept of creativity requires not so much overcoming
resistance as it does helping people be in a position so that they are not
distracted. Because
resistance, based on my experience, is mostly distraction.
People are distracted based on their own habits, their own habits
of thinking or they may have had some unsuccessful experiences in the past
in the specific area of change and with that lack of success comes with
what I would call negative feelings and bad memories. And it’s like
poking on a bruise, if you push too hard it hurts.
So what we try to do is really position people so that they can be
a human being and when they’re human, they’re amazing, as far as the
openness to new ideas and possibilities.
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04:05:19:15
04:06:13:10
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[How do you do
objective finding at Texaco?]
The challenge of objective finding at Texaco is very
similar to the challenge of enhancing creativity. You have to help people get undistracted to focused, to get
open minded because it’s so easy to get into ruts. One of the things that we really work with people on is the
power and pleasure of possibility generation. Because when people learn how to have the capacity to
generate lots and lots of possibilities, when opportunities come up it’s
amazing how they can make the connection.
As a matter of fact, I believe it’s physiologically impossible to
see any opportunity in life if you haven’t at first considered the
possibilities. So we work
quite a bit on possibility generation as a discipline for accelerating
growth at Texaco.
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04:06:17:26
04:07:02:28
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[How do you do fact
finding at Texaco?]
Fact finding is absolutely fascinating because the
more we look for oil, and oh, by the way when we look for oil, one out of
ten holes has oil in it. And at $10 million a hole it becomes a high
anxiety profession. But fact
finding, and I smile about fact finding because what is truly a fact?
Facts aren’t truth, they are the best you know at the moment.
They’re what you see today.
And again, it’s very similar to being rich with possibilities,
you want lots and lots of facts, not because any one fact has the answer,
but the more you see the better your perspective is, and the more you can
then connect fresher, bigger perspective with your own power of
creativity.
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04:07:05:28
04:07:56:14
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[How do
you do problem finding…?]
Problem finding is really…as a matter of fact, if
you look at the whole process of creativity, the whole creative process,
you see that it basically has two steps not six.
When you’re diverging, considering possibilities, seeing bigger
pictures or you’re converging, selecting from those possibilities a few
that really seem to make sense based on your understanding of the problems
and the business challenges and the business ‘facts’ out there.
So basically problem finding is a combination of being rich with
possibilities and open and caught in your old solutions so you can see and
pick from new alternatives and not get sucked in to what I call the
slavery of your old solutions.
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04:08:05:02
04:09:03:21
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[How do
you encourage the quantity of ideas…?]
Well we can go the safe way when it comes to
generating quantities of ideas. And that is to get people comfortable in
good process, good habits, good practices…show people the great results
you could have just like if you’re a good salesperson there are four
steps to being a good salesperson, there are four steps to being more
creative…creating more possibilities.
That’s one way and that’s what we call the technique or
methodology path. The other
path that is becoming more and more popular and more and more effective is
what I would call the inside-out path – when people are simply feeling
good. To use the ‘F’ word
in business is kind of scary. When
people are feeling good, when they are in good feelings they are just
amazed at what comes out of their mind.
As a matter of fact that is the essence of the creative process,
you get good ideas when you feel good.
As a matter of fact you cannot get ideas when you’re not feeling
good.
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04:09:07:10 04:09:34:24
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[How do
you make people feel good?]
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04:09:34:24
04:09:46:15
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And the concept of ‘no
pain, no gain’ I hope in my lifetime we can get rid of that concept as
one of the world’s most ridiculous myths.
Because no pain is simply, no pain.
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04:09:57:06
04:10:28:00
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[Talk about the
results, successes using CPS]
Well last year our company made about $1.4 billion.
Our CEO went on record as saying that two-thirds of that was a
result of technologies we’ve created in the last five years. So, from a
standpoint of macro results our company understands the power of ideas and
collective creativity and…both collective and individual creativity.
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04:10:28:00
04:11:19:00
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Two years ago, this is a funny story, you’re going
to get a kick out of this, since the American public loves to hear
negative stories…our CEO went in front of a group, our offshore
engineering group, two years ago and they were $300 million off their
budget for the year. He
wanted to know what was going on there, how could they be so far off.
Three hundred million dollars is a lot of money – at least the
last time I checked it was a lot of money.
And what he found was that, the management said hey, we never could
have imagined what would happen once we empowered employees and gave them
the tools and techniques of creativity.
We never could have imagined what they could do.
So the $300 million mistake was to the good. So we add $300 million-plus to the budget, $300 million we
didn’t expect to have because people unleashed their creativity on
challenges and problems.
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04:11:54:23
04:14:16:19
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[How
did you get involved in applied creativity?]
Mt first encounter with applied creativity was back
in the late 70’s, I was employing a process called value engineering.
It was a process that was started in the late 40’s actually, with
the Department of Defense and helped engineers and manufacturing people
take waste and unnecessary costs out of their design.
And the people I worked with back then said if you want – and we
had one phase of the value engineering process that was called the
innovation phase, where you look for ideas, after you’ve done your
analysis and fact finding. And
they said look, if you really want to improve on that part of the process
of value engineering, you must go to Buffalo, New York.
I lived in Rochester at the time, because I worked for Xerox.
You must go to Rochester, New York (he means Buffalo)
because that’s where the source of all new knowledge on creativity was.
Now being in Rochester, it was all I could stand to consider going
to Buffalo because Rochester’s weather is almost as bad.
But, we took comfort in the fact that Buffalo’s was even worse.
And to think that Buffalo was a source of anything was a shock to
me. But I finally went
because I have a lot of respect for the individual who recommended it. And when I first came here 20 years ago, I was just amazed,
because you get into this environment – for business people this is a
real stretch, it’s a real change. I call it a boutique. And in boutiques you can get stuff and a great bargain.
But sometimes it’s a little risky.
So when you come here as a business person, you have to come here
with a very open mind. But, I
came and saw that it was almost chaotic, and yet when I left at the end of
the week I felt it was one of the most professionally run events I’ve
ever been to. And for years and years I reflected on what was it that
would make me feel that way. And
what I realized, after 20 years – I’m a slow learner – was what
happens here is you have a whole week where people care for you, don’t
judge you, and really do see your potential, your creative potential.
They see it in your eyes, they see it in your soul.
And that’s not a technique, but that’s the power behind being
centered in yourself if you want to bring their creativity. And that’s
what this group does at probably the highest level in the world.
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04:14:19:04
04:15:38:14
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[Talk about
Deferral of judgment.]
Deferral of judgment, based on my opinion, is what I
call the politically correct way to love people outside of your immediate
family. It is something we
can do simply by deferring just a little bit of judgment.
As a matter of fact, I contend that if each one of us times six
billion deferred judgment once a day this world would change so fast in a
positive way it would make our heads spin.
Because deferred judgment, when exercised well, can be the most
powerful creativity enhancer. It
is one of the most powerful things we can do to accelerate collaboration.
It is one of the most powerful things we can do to make life better
for everybody. Now from a
kind of a straightforward practice, deferred judgment is simply a
discipline that you have to work on that is basically discipline to
overcome your years and years of conditioned thinking because we are so
quick to judge, it’s just amazing.
You could hold your breath longer than you can hold off judgment,
it’s just amazing. If you
want to be humbled, just start keeping score of how many times you judge.
And especially of how many time you judge yourself.
Which gets in you own way of your creative potential.
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04:16:11:14
04:18:23:18
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[Examples
were Deferral of Judgment saved the day…?]
In my own professional and personal life I can think
of a few cases where deferred judgment literally created breakthroughs,
deferred judgment literally helped us leave a meeting without what I would
call scars that may last for weeks and months inside of the company.
Let me give you a couple examples – before we start this just let
me tease you back with the concept of deferring judgment at it’s most
simple level is like the old saying ‘my mom always told me never to pass
up an opportunity to keep my mouth shut.’
Now all we’re saying here is the power of deferred judgment is
stopping the act of judgment in your own mind.
One example would be with my teenage children…I’m convinced to
this day that in those difficult years of raising teenagers, there are two
or three specific occasions I can think of when it came to driving cars or
these major decisions, that if it wasn’t for deferred judgment, it would
have really made a mess. In a
more specific way at Texaco, just two weeks ago I was working with some
very senior leaders and all I asked them to do was to practice this very
simple practice of deferred judgment.
I challenged them that this would be the only rule that we would
enforce in the next hour or two. And
because of that people had so much time to consider the problem and
consider the possibilities. And
once people start considering more and more possibilities, they invigorate
and inspire themselves. It’s
almost like deferred judgment is the way to just let people start
snowballing in inspiration. To
see this happen in this meeting was just amazing.
And it didn’t require a Ph.D. in creativity, all it required was
just practicing simple discipline with deferred judgment and trusting not
only that discipline but the power of individuals, even though they are
executives to be able to be creative.
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04:18:41:04
04:19:16:02
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[Why do you
believe that everyone can be creative?]
I believe that everyone can be creative for a few
reasons. Number one, there
isn’t a moment that doesn’t go by in my own personal life where I
can’t feel the awesome power of creativity, it’s like: it’s right
there. And maybe that’s
after 10 years or 20 years of exploring the subject.
But it is so much in my knowing, my knowing of how I am and how I
feel, I just cannot imagine that other people don’t have the same
access. It’s just like,
it’s like knowing that everyone else breaths.
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04:19:16:02
04:20:02:02
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And in all my life experiences with people I have yet
to find an individual who couldn’t blossom and amaze me with their genius.
And by the way, that’s another powerful part, creativity is where
genius comes from, not intelligence.
It’s very subtle, but that’s a very powerful point here.
Intelligence is where you grow, understand methods and techniques
and understand these so other people can share with you your formal
education. But genius comes
from a place we don’t truly understand. It comes from this knowledge we happen to have, it comes
from intuition, it comes from a place we don’t understand.
And so truly creative people are the source of genius.
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04:20:40:15
04:22:49:22
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[Examples]
At Texaco I could share with you many examples of how
creativity really turned things into positive results.
But instead of giving you a very specific minute one, let me give
you very general, but very big one you’ll see that.
At Texaco, we deal with large numbers, very large numbers.
This number goes back about a year ago when our CEO came to talk to
us about how well we were doing. Last
years we were at $1.4 billion in income and our CEO shared with us and he
went through a list of new technologies that have evolved over the last
five years. And how those
specific technologies have accounted for about two-thirds of our net
income this year. And every
indication is that the future five to ten years, the same things are going
to happen. Newer
technologies, new ideas, new possibilities will be the major source.
As a matter of fact, in this country, the U.S., oil fields are
considered dead and we’re looking overseas because our best
understanding was we could not get any more oil out of those holes. Now we
have found ways to get another two-thirds of the oil out of the hole and
we have found ways in the Gulf of Mexico, for example, to go drill down
ten times farther than we could drill before because of new technology and
understanding. Now the
important thing about new technology that you have to remember is it’s
not just the textbook stuff that you see.
That may be, at best, half of it.
The other half is the human being’s ability to be flexible, to be
open, to be supportive of other people’s ideas because almost all new
technology, the speed of new technology is directly dependent on all kinds
of people’s willingness and openness to new ideas.
The technology sometimes seems easier than deploying the
technology, getting through the system.
And it’s the cultural shift that’s happening within Texaco,
where people are becoming more open to other people’s ideas, more
embracing of other people’s ideas. That has really helped transfer
technology at a more rapid pace.
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04:23:10:08
04:24:57:22
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Creativity is important
to corporate America for one very simple reason: There isn’t a
corporation in this country that isn’t in the same business. And that
business is acquiring knowledge, adding value to it, giving that to the
customer and receiving a premium back to the customer for how we’re able
to acquire that knowledge, add value to it and then give the customer
something that would satisfy their needs.
And that comes from people’s creativity, their openness, it also
comes from being to, with that creativity access fresh knowledge and not
be locked into their old solutions. Without
creativity we get solution bound. We
get locked into our old solutions. And
nothing can be more debilitating for a company than being locked into your
old solutions. Creativity,
one of the most powerful things about creativity is, you create a healthy
disrespect for your old solutions. Solutions
are very much like meat or potatoes, put them on a table fresh they’re
wonderful, but after a day or two it’s not too attractive.
Well we have to have the same level of disrespect for our old
solutions. The more creative
you are the more you can have disrespect for your old solutions to be open
for new, fresh ones. Corporations
cannot survive if they’re not open to new ideas.
And if they do not have the inside, internal capacity to create new
the knowledge and new ideas. So
it’s a two way street, you have acquire new knowledge and new ideas, but
you also have to then mix it with your own internal new knowledge and new
ideas. They have both tacit
and explicit knowledge. Explicit
knowledge is book-learned knowledge.
Tacit knowledge is the knowledge that comes from within our
employees based on their years of experience, day-in, day-out contact at
the work level.
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