Why Creativity? Why Breathe?

January 26, 2012 – 3:28 pm

I was invited by Tanner Christensen, author of the blog Creative Something to contribute a short piece to a free e-book on creativity. The assignment was to write a short response to the question “Why Creativity?” This is the first piece in ages that I wrote long hand first; maybe I should try that technique more often. See my answer below.

I’m joined in Why Creativity by the likes of Julien Smith, David Meerman Scott, Patrick Algrim, Matthew E May, Mike Brown, and Frank Chimero. The e-book has just been made available for free download on Tanner’s Aspindle page. I’ve read the other bits and I think you’ll enjoy them, very inspirational — so download a shot of creativity espresso!

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Why creativity?

You might as well say “why breathe?”

Creativity is the oxygen that inflates your soul and makes you who you are. Creativity might be the most essential aspect of being human.

When I hear someone say “I’m not creative” I almost want to cry because it’s a lot like saying “I’m not alive.” Saying and thinking you are not creative is like voluntarily taking poison. Just stop it!

If you think you aren’t creative, I’ll suggest that you change your definition of what creativity is.

First, it’s way more than artistic self expression. Everything you do in life, nearly, is an opportunity to be creative. To solve a problem is creative. To cook a meal, tend a garden, write a note to a friend, organise a holiday, plot a new marketing campaign, or to make a bold, brave new decision — it’s all creative — if you have that attitude.

It doesn’t matter if you aren’t artistic or particularly brilliant — if you can think you have the essential tool. History is filled with examples of average people creating amazing things, you have that potential too. Quit making excuses.

Start by making the choice; actively choose to be creative. Find ways to remind yourself daily that you have. Program your mind by repeating the mantra, “I am creative.” After a time your brain will start acting like it.

Then take creative actions. Seek better solutions, seek different answers to the challenges in front of you. Connect to that creative spirit inside yourself that is dying to be let out of the closet. Do creative things and you’ll be creative. After a time you won’t be asking “why creativity,” you’ll be saying “I am creative.”

And you’ll love it.

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PS: For a longer format dosage of creativity inspiration, consider Jack’s Notebook, a business novel about creative problem solving, available on Amazon (yes, Kindle ready). It’s a great book to inspire creative action.

If you’re a reviewer, a college professor, a teacher, or in corporate training, please get in touch with me about the book and creativity and innovation training programs — gregg@greggfraley.com.

PPS: If you liked this post or found it interesting, please comment, and/or subscribe to this blog. I humbly ask this as I know my next publisher puts great stock in regular readership on an author’s blog.

Posted in Creativity and Self-Expression, Idea Generation, Innovation, Inspirational | 1 Comment »

It Takes Two in the Innovation Tango

January 21, 2012 – 2:45 pm

Thank God for Susan Robertson.

Susan is a friend and colleague, and a principal at the innovation firm Ideas To Go. I’m happy Susan took the time to respond to yet another article in a respected publication that downplays the value of collaboration in idea generation. I’ve written several pieces in this blogspace defending the value of well executed brainstorming, for once, somebody else wrote a rebuttal — and I’m so glad, thank you Susan!

I can’t resist adding an additional two cents.

The article, “The Rise of the New Groupthink” appeared in the New York Times Sunday Review — impressive eh? Author Susan Cain is a good writer — her piece flows like a hawk gliding on an updraft. And I have to admit, she makes a good point in that the value of solitude in creativity is indeed quite valuable. She cites valid research to support her thinking. However, the soaring bird loses altitude with its over-empahsis on one mode of creation.

I do resonate with the tendency in our culture (western culture) to over-emphasize group work. Personally, I’m quite sick of meetings where there is any kind of debate or discussion. Time winds on and the debate never seems to go anywhere, and discussions rarely generate ideas. I’m looking forward to reading Cain’s about to be released book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. I would also agree with Ms. Cain that the role of the introvert is under-rated, and, introverts usually get the short end of the attention stick in extrovert dominated group sessions.

And, it’s not about group versus solitude, they both have benefits in a creative process. It’s not either group or single creation, it’s BOTH. Ms. Cain, check out a concept called Polarity Management. Group versus solitary work is not a problem to be solved, it’s a polarity to be managed.

Cain’s article features the case study of Steve Wozniak, the less-then-heralded founder of Apple, he’s ‘the other Steve’. She’s quite right in stating that Woz essentially developed the first Apple Computer alone. But Cain misses the point — without the collaboration of Steve Jobs, who shaped the final product in clever and important ways, Apple would still be a couple of geeks going to the HomeBrew Computer Club.

In other words, it takes two to dance the innovation tango.

It’s the difference between creativity — which Woz had in ample supply, and innovation, which the collaboration enabled. Both solitary work and collaborative work were what turned a great piece of solitary invention into a groundbreaking marketable product.

Cain also writes about the value of working alone from an office space perspective, citing the ineffectivenss of open space plans. Again, it’s not about private offices versus open space, it’s a mix that works best, not one or the other. See Pixar for an organization that got this totally right — open space in the center, private offices around the edges. Pixar is doing okay right?

So, I’ll leave it at that. If you want to see a more thorough point for point dissection of the Cain piece, read Susan Robertson’s NYT Groupthink Rebuttal: Effective Brainstorming Works.

Posted in Creativity and Self-Expression, Idea Generation, Innovation | 10 Comments »

Moneyball is Innovationball

January 19, 2012 – 9:17 pm

As in-flight entertainment luck would have it, I’ve now seen the film Moneyball twice within a week. On the surface Moneyball is a true-story film about baseball — but it’s really an innovation story.

I enjoyed the film but nothing about it struck me as profoundly good in terms of story, or character development. I always like the charming Brad Pitt, and he’s good here in a tailor-made part as Oakland Athletic’s General Manager Billy Beane. He keeps you interested, but this doesn’t feel like an Oscar worthy role. Same with Jonah Hill as the nerdy statistician and Philip Seymour Hoffman as the disgruntled coach — good work — and not notably so. We don’t quite see enough about what motivates these guys. There is no romance, other than a love for baseball, no significant female roles, no special effects. So, I enjoyed the film and would recommend it, but not for its Hollywood portrayal of major league baseball.

I’d score Moneyball a double as an entertainment film, and a grand slam homer as an innovation film.

Moneyball is actually Innovationball. What it’s about is the reinvention of how professional baseball teams are managed. Intl. readers, don’t let baseball throw you, watch it for the process.

The entire innovation process is illustrated. First, the dreaded status quo, as represented by the coach and the scouting group. Next, there’s the motivating emergency that drives the need for change. Then, there’s the familiar “box” that everybody is trying to think out of, in the form of a very limited budget. The scouts and coach can’t see beyond how things have always been done. Billy Beane, the General Manager, is the innovative change agent or champion. He’s the leader who has to innovate or die. He finds an innovative solution in the use of new statistics (Sabermetrics aka “moneyball”) to help him find under-valued players. Yes, it’s a new methodology! He’s assisted by someone who is already thinking differently, and then the team of two face the turmoil and conflict that innovative change brings. After a lot of pain, heartache and resistance the pioneers succeed, and success is, typically, bittersweet, and not all about money after all. (I think I’m talking myself into this being an A film after all).

For me the film works best when we see the “dark side” of innovation — just how lonely, frustrating, scary, risky, and life changing it is. We see Billy Beane’s frustration when his coach won’t go along with the new program. We see the holes it tears in his personal life, and the huge risks. This is what people should know about innovators and their process. The film, thankfully, shows these dark moments realistically.

Innovators, pop up some corn, watch, learn, and enjoy.

Posted in Books & Reviews, Entrepreneurial, Innovation, Pop Culture | 2 Comments »

Do Innovation Consultants Kill Innovation? Oh please…

January 10, 2012 – 11:34 am

I get letters.

A colleague of mine, Lisa Baxter, alerted me to an article recently published in Fast Company’s online Design section. The article, titled “Do Innovation Consultants Kill Innovation?” suggests that in fact, innovation consultants do indeed kill innovation. Authors Jens Martin Skibsted and Rasmus Bech Hansen argue that innovation is too messy to be captured in any process. So how can big firms innovate?

I could write 5000 words in response to the article, but let me keep it simple: BS.

In their defense I would agree that an over emphasis on process is often a failing of an average innovation consultant — and even those very high priced firms who do innovation consulting. I also resonate with the underlying message of the article, which is essentially, “it’s about culture.” Yes, it should indeed be part of the company DNA, and, yes, it is difficult to change that. I’ll even go so far as to say that sometimes process inhibits innovation; because it’s too slow, poorly managed, or overly cumbersome. That’s one reason why KILN has designed a faster “flywheel” style front-end of innovation process (it’s called “FuseTrail).

But the problem they identify is not going to be solved simply by having a gun-slinging, single focused entrepreneur at the helm, or by hiring a highly creative team. Nor is it fair to single out innovation consultants as the culprits.

We innovation consultants usually get called into a situation that is already a mess, or is simply not working. Everybody thinks they can innovate — until they can’t. 95% of the time, a consultant, like myself, gets a call when the boar is already tits up. Oh, and incidentally, about 98% of the time, those who call us don’t have any process.

And yes, the team matters, they have to be good — but great teams can and do fail without good process and smart leadership (think the USA losing Olympics basketball). Like many, you guys define creativity as something that can’t be structured, and in fact, it can. I’d say further that allowing for mess and non-linear activity within a process is actually Part of an Effective Structure and Process.

I also find it interesting that they cite as an example the movie industry. In reality, the film industry has highly defined creative/innovative processes. They may look organic from an outsiders perspective, but trust me, the structure is there. The film industry has a system for content identification, for script development, for production on-set and in animation labs, and for testing films in focus groups. I’d call that deliberate process.

Deliberate creative process enhances creativity, it doesn’t stymie it.

And people, deliberate process does not kill innovation. In the right culture, an awareness of process is a good starting point. Highly deliberate and structured processes are not only effective — they are necessary. Without process innovation is left to chance, and personally, I wouldn’t want to take that chance with my company, nor my clients.

So Jens and Rasmus, I love ya, but enough already with the provocative titles, and let’s agree (or not) that it’s mostly about the culture. And I’d simply suggest there is more than one way to instill innovation culture. Now, maybe it’s time for me to write the article “Do Brand Consultants Kill Brands?”

Posted in Creativity and Self-Expression, Entrepreneurial, Innovation, Open Innovation | 6 Comments »

How To Avoid Innovation Infarction

January 4, 2012 – 5:44 pm

As the son of a coach, and full-on sports participant in years past, I am not a stranger to exercise. I was doing push-ups daily before I entered kindergarten. I was an average athlete at best, but Dad was proud of how fit I was. The modest success I had was entirely due to good conditioning. Once upon a time! I’m back into an exercise program again and after just a couple weeks of very hard work I’m feeling the positive effects. While far from perfectly fit, I’ve made progress, I feel more prepared for life! It occurred to me, as I reached near maximum heart rate last night, that there is a huge parallel between the concepts of exercise and formal innovation.

Organizations that allow themselves to focus on cost reduction and operational efficiency, without exercising formal innovation skills, are like well dressed middle aged men who get botox and have their hair dyed — but don’t exercise. They look good on the surface, but under the expensive suit, a heart attack is waiting to happen. Like an out of shape guy, organizations are setting themselves up for life threatening myocardial infarction by not exercising their innovation skills.

Innovation Infarction?

Conducting a brainstorming or concept writing session with those who practice is dramatically different than those who don’t. Those who practice generate more and better ideas, faster. They are also better at elaboration and story building. My experience says, the less you do it, the less likely it is you’ll be much good at it.

This lack of exercise means your organization won’t be prepared for sudden consumer behavior change, market shifts, or new competition.

Emergencies and stress cause heart attacks in those with unconditioned hearts. Responding quickly with innovative ideas and products to organizational emergencies will be difficult, and maybe even disastrous, if you’re not in innovation condition.

It’s hard to generate ideas when you are scared to death, and being out of ideation breath won’t help.

Weight loss is really pretty simple isn’t it? Eat less, exercise more — right? And yet we see thousands of books written to exploit the fact that doing what’s right for your body is just plain difficult. It requires behavior change. Practicing innovation is difficult as well for the same reason. Taking people out of day-to-day work to get training, scheduling innovation work while you’re trying to keep up — these are behavior changes that must occur. In order to improve in innovation you must practice these skills: learning innovation process, conducting frequent strategy and brainstorming sessions, writing up/presenting new product concepts, prototyping, and launching. If these activities aren’t “business as usual” you’re not exercising your innovative skills and you’re at risk for Innovation Infarction!

So, get on the program already.

Posted in Cartoons by Gregg Fraley, Innovation | No Comments »

Secret Wish Cartoon #6, Practicality & Creativity

December 13, 2011 – 11:29 pm

Practical matters are often given as reasons for not doing creative things.

“I’d love to try painting, but I don’t have time for that silly stuff.”

“Yeah, I love music, but who can spend an hour a day practicing guitar.”

“I hate my job, but I dare not change in these troubled times.”

It’s true, we have to be practical. We have to pay mortgages, school fee’s, taxes, car payments there is no end to the bills in a middle class life style. No end to the trouble you can get into taking risks in life, and yet, being practical — all the time — isn’t much fun is it? Yes, we need some stability in our lives, but past a certain point it’s more like an anchor and less like a foundation. And it’s not very creative to be an anchor. A creative person will find a way to have fun, make a statement, and be self-expressed somehow, no matter what the circumstances. I think that’s a key thing to do if you want to maintain a creative life, that is, find a way to get around practicalities, and take a few calculated risks.

Maybe more than a few calculated risks!

The woman in my drawing, Maude, was totally practical looking.  A plain cloth coat, comfortable non-descript shoes with no style factor, very little make-up — everything about her seemed to indicate a person who was practical and made safe choices. Still, I sensed someone wishing to “break out” of the practical mold, and hence my guess at her Secret Wish.

So, be practical by all means, you don’t have to close the shop and do the stand-up routine in LA. But if you really want to be creative, every once in awhile you have to throw practicality out the window and do something crazy just for the sake of your soul.

Posted in Cartoons by Gregg Fraley, Creativity and Self-Expression, Humor | 1 Comment »

Relentless Innovation by Jeffrey Phillips, an Innovation Primer

December 8, 2011 – 9:09 pm

Jeffrey Phillips is a respected innovation consultant and a noted blogger (Innovate on Purpose). I saw him speak at the MindCamp conference and it’s clear he has an uncommon breadth of knowledge about innovation and a focused results orientation.

He’s just released an impressively good book.

Relentless Innovation, What Works, What Doesn’t–And What That Means For Your Business is the somewhat lengthy title. Now, I didn’t really read this book — I studied it — highlighter in hand. This book is the perfect primer for those who wish to change a corporate culture into a more innovative one. It answers, in a comprehensive way, the complex question of: How does a company consistently innovate? In this well analyzed, logically written, well-paced narrative you’ll learn precisely why innovation is so difficult. More importantly, Phillips provides good, practical, and highly actionable advice on what to do about it.

Relentless takes a broad look at all the factors involved in innovation. As a diagnostic tool, for those seeking answers to the complex innovation puzzle, Relentless is excellent.

A key thread through the book in the concept of a companies day-to-day operational culture, or, Business As Usual (BAU). Is your BAU inherently innovative, that is, part of your day to day work? Or is innovation viewed as an extra task by those running the train? If you want to be relentlessly successful at innovation, I’m betting you know which BAU Phillips thinks makes the most sense.

Notes I jotted down while studying Relentless Innovation:

* The idea for a management written Innovation Charter is brilliant. It would help instantiate innovation as an everyday thing, and go a long way towards a real innovation plan and consistent approach. A charter would be a good start on being relentless.

* “Accepting a poorly defined and scoped innovation effort with inadequate resources is a recipe for abject failure.” Wow, truer words were never written. Poorly defined makes it easy to cancel a project when it hits dark days, not enough resources means the team is trying to run a marathon with a broken ankle (my metaphor). I also like that he uses the word “abject” it goes so well with failure.

* Interesting that “spotting trends” is the first bullet in defining an innovation process. Yes, and, wish more people knew that ( — by the way KILN has an answer to help with that trend stuff.)

* Great analysis of why Middle Managers resist innovation efforts. It reminds me of Michael Kirton’s assertion that organizations tend to skew adaptive over time, because they hire and reward those who are good at managing the details of complex process. Jeffrey is saying the same thing, I think, not because of their cognitive style, but because of communication and more broadly organizational culture. I think they’re both right.

* This is maybe the one area I’d question Jeffrey about, he says “Recruiting even a few ‘creatives’ or right-brained thinkers in to a rigid left-brain company can add just enough dissonance and creative tension to start shifting the thinking of the company as a whole.” My experience of this is that it does indeed create tension, conflict actually, and it more often than not it becomes toxic. Now, if those new ‘creatives’ are supported, you’ll get the shift, but this is a big if. So I agree with the idea, but would simply add, take care of those people! Unsupported right brain types tend to fly the coup if their feathers are trimmed.

I’ll leave it at that, but suffice to say, Relentless is a masterful book about innovation, it deserves reading — and studying.

Posted in Books & Reviews, Creative Problem Solving (CPS), Innovation | 3 Comments »