One contributor was a petty criminal in his youth. He no longer follows this ‘career’, and has spent a great deal of time thinking about what prompted his choice in the first place. The ultimate reason was that “our greater community wasn’t our community.” In other words, he chose not to be a responsible member of his society, because that society did not want him to have a say in how it was run. Perhaps a typical adolescent view, but it does give pause for thought.

For me, it was an opportunity to reflect on workplaces and workplace culture, and the reminder that each organization is a mini-society, often with multiple communities. In following the above logic, then: If we want to feel part of the community (the corporate or departmental culture), then the society (organization) needs to consciously want us and give us the opportunity to have a say. This means responsibility on the part of the leadership team to be a role model and put the processes in place that enable safe dialogue (ie no fear of reprisal if people don’t like what they hear or think the idea is bonkers). It also means responsibility on the part of followers, who have a responsibility to trust the intention behind the leadership and their colleagues even if they don’t always get it right.

Do you see your workplace culture as a mini-society? Do you feel part of the community? If not, what would help you feel part of that community? If you have committed a ‘crime’ in your corporate society, what was the ‘crime’ and what was the ‘punishment’?

This was the question on a LinkedIn Group that I belong to – Innovative Leadership and Change Management Expert Innovators. There was the usual discussion on whether creativity is a skill or an ability, and how one can learn it if one was indeed able to learn creativity. You can imagine for yourselves the usual types of nature vs nurture responses, so I won’t repeat them here.

What I do want to share, however, are my “by extensions” of some of the points discussed, as well as an angle that hadn’t been covered…

My take on a couple of points:
1) For creativity to work well, there must be a goal, whether it be a welcoming home or a new solution to an old business problem. Since businesses are goal-oriented, by extension, that they also be creative *should* be a logical leap for business leaders.
2) We can create on our own; in businesses we work with other people, so we should also  co-create. In the training I do on creative problem-solving, I emphasize the role of leadership in establishing a creative/learning environment.

Here’s a different angle, and I’m quoting directly from my post:
“Some of the posts have touched on the role of communication in supporting creativity. I’d like to be more explicit about it. It’s all well and good coming up with ideas and exploring solutions, as long as there is tolerance for those brainstormed ideas. Natalie, you came closest to what I’m getting at – we often talk about diversity in the workplace, but we rarely discuss diversity in how we think, how we work, and how we communicate. How we relate to each other – our RelationAbility(TM) – is just as important a factor in creativity; what good is a great idea if it or the proposer gets cut off at the knees?”

I’d be interested in your thoughts!

It got me thinking… all this emphasis on problem-solving; sure, it keeps consultants in business, but who wouldn’t want to avoid all that hassle in the first place? This is ‘avoidance’ at its best.

I like the ad heading for another reason, too… we all know that brainstorming is about finding an answer. What most people don’t realize is that they need to ask the right question before finding the solution. “What’s the problem?” is the first step in brainstorming; then move on to “what’s the answer?”.

In strategic brainstorming, ask “what are the potential problems?”. We should be good at this by now – hindsight must be telling us loud and clear to plan for reserves and cashflow in case there’s another (or unduly long) financial squeeze. Baby boomers are hanging on to their jobs longer, and this will have implications for developing younger talent. Social media has proven without a doubt that we must be prepared for ever-newer marketing and communication channels, and the increase in places where messages need to be managed. The nature of learning and methods for gaining information continue to evolve – how does an organization leverage learning and knowledge for future success?

The moral? Next time you’re reading a magazine or watching telly – don’t skip the ads; they could provide a whole new perspective.

In my quest to find quotable reasons for, and examples of, creative problem-solving, I came across a blog by James Howard Kunstler. He believes “the collective sense of purpose, intent, and self-confidence” is more muddled and detached from reality than any other time he can remember. As a result, he says, there is a great clamor for ’solutions’ to get us back to where we were when, in fact, there is no ‘back’ that we can go to; instead, we should be striving for ‘intelligent solutions’. Secondly, he returns to a common theme: we’re doing a poor job of constructing a coherent consensus about what is happening to us and what we are going to do about it.

I agree with the first part. I like the phrase ‘intelligent solutions’ because, as Kunstler puts it, “this implies that our well-being depends on our own behavior and the choices that we make, not on the lucky arrival of just-in-time miracles; it is an active stance, not a passive one.”

Where I want to open the debate, however, is in our ability to construct a coherent consensus about what’s happening and what the ‘intelligent solutions’ should be. This comment reminded me of a conversation I had on a similar topic. We were talking about the ’state of the nation’ and how much potential there was for change, and for individuals to play a part in that change. My contention is that our society is in a state of huge flux and a lot of chips are in the air. It feels to me that, perhaps because there is no ‘back’ to go to, people are willing to bear witness to the chaos and ’sit’ with it (putting aside, for a moment, the tangible effects of this chaos) in order that as the chips begin their decent, there are more individuals, groups, and organizations who say, “I/We are going to grab these chips and these are the feasible solutions in dealing with them.”

As a country, we are in great need of creativity. The problem with creativity, however, is that it requires letting go of logic, of ‘unlearning’ what you know, in order to make space for the emerging intelligent solution. We have been coddled and protected for so long that our collective consciousness relies on Mother America to provide for us. This state of flux is the kick up the backside we need to remind us that individuals built this nation. If we are to truly turn our situation around, it’s time to take responsibility for our part in the rebuilding.