Genius at work

Mr Ghayas · #1 Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Genius at work
How to be more creative in the world of business

By Julie Hill

Creative genius has always seemed a bit like magic. Stories abound about inventors, painters or poets struck by a sudden revelation who created masterpieces of ingenuity or art. Consider the legendary tale of Archimedes, who discovered the scientific principle of displacement while soaking in his bathtub. He was so excited that he ran naked through the streets shouting "Eureka!" -- I found it -- or so the story goes.

Thankfully, not all creative acts involve public nudity, nor are they a product of divine intervention or magic. The creative impulse is part of being human and, as with any other skill, it can be nurtured and developed, even at work.

Mr Ghayas · #2 Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Work is the last place many people would expect to find a creative outlet, but presenters operate under special circumstances. Rather than stifling creativity, as much office routine can, presentations offer a rare opportunity for people to flex their creative muscles. Sometimes, presentations demand creativity even if the people giving them don't think of themselves as creative types and the corporate culture in which the presentation will be given doesn't normally encourage or support creativity.

What's an uncreative presenter to do? First of all, don't despair. Almost anyone can learn to be more creative. It may mean taking honest stock of the obstacles preventing you from being creative, such as a lack of self-confidence or lack of experience, and working to overcome those obstacles. It may also mean mustering the courage to overcome other fears as well -- fear of being laughed at, fear of failure, fear of incompetence -- and learning how to exercise creativity in a work environment that is less than friendly to new ideas.

In some part at least, tapping into one's own creative potential is also a journey of the soul. If a presenter is willing to make this journey, however, the rewards can be rich. Increased job satisfaction, more professional confidence and an enhanced vitality for living are but a few of the intangible rewards. For most businesses and organizations, having creative employees also happens to make plenty of business sense.

Mr Ghayas · #3 Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Many people don't think of themselves as creative because they've been told they're not -- by a parent, teacher, friend or sibling. It's amazing how much a single remark can have on our lives. One crooked stick figure or misshapen clay ashtray in art class can shut the door on a person's creativity forever. One off-the-cuff comment by an adult that art isn't "practical" can relegate a young person's artistic aspirations to the dustbin of romantic dreams. The unrealistic desire to be an artistic genius can be an equally formidable obstacle. After all, some people wonder, what is the point of trying to write, play music or paint if it's not going to be brilliant or if I can't sell it for a million dollars or be famous until I'm dead?

The one thing all these mind-sets have in common is that they are self-defeating. During childhood, almost everyone is a creative whirlwind, curious and open to new possibilities. But the combined forces of education, peer pressure and social expectations tend to choke one's creative urges, and unless these forces are resisted, once-lively creative impulses can easily wilt from neglect. They hardly ever die, though, so it is within everyone's capabilities to nurture their dormant creative instincts back to health.

Mr Ghayas · #4 Friday, May 12, 2006

One of the greatest obstacles to creativity is every presenter's familiar foe: fear. Fear prevents us from doing things by planting seeds of doubt and self-criticism in our heads, where they grow into anxiety and paralysis. In their book, The Creative Spirit, Daniel Goleman, Paul Kaufman and Michael Ray call this phenomenon the voice of judgment, the psychological purpose of which is to protect people from others' criticism. As debilitating as these fears can be, they can also be "the handmaiden of creativity," say the authors. The recognition of one's fear and the willingness to engage it is what spurs the creative process. Just as a seasoned speaker knows how to turn his anxiety into positive energy once he hits the stage, the person facing a creative challenge can use his anxious energy to fuel ideas.

Peoples' inner fears play a major role in stifling ideas, especially within the corporate realm, says Glen Karwoski, a public relations expert and professor of creativity at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis. "Think about how often you've heard people say in meetings, 'You might think this is crazy, but ...' People are afraid others won't like their ideas, so they qualify their statements like crazy," he says. "I call it setting out the pillows."

Karwoski teaches his students how to become aware of this inner voice of judgment, to recognize the boundaries it creates and to tear them down -- constructively, of course. One way he helps students overcome their fears is by making them face one of the most common fears of all -- fear of public speaking.

For their final project, Karwoski's students must demonstrate, in a 15-minute presentation, what they have learned in his class. As the inevitable day arrives, students begin to get anxious, wondering about Karwoski's expectations for the presentation. "When they ask, 'Glen, what do you want?' and I say, 'It's not what I want; it's what you want it to be,' that gets them thinking," he says.

When students realize they have carte blanche to be as creative as they dare, interesting things start to happen. Students have done a baking demonstration, produced videos, danced, made paintings, written passionate monologues and more, Karwoski says. One of his favorites was a woman who started the semester declaring that she didn't have a creative bone in her body. For her final project, "she showed up with X-rays of herself and presented the fact that she had discovered all her bones were creative," he recalls.

Mr Ghayas · #5 Friday, May 12, 2006

One of the biggest differences between creative people and people who don't consider themselves creative is that creative people take action on their ideas. When Thomas Edison said, "Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration," he was basically saying that creativity requires lots of hard work and a willingness to fail. Edison himself is known primarily for inventing the phonograph and the light bulb, but he also filed more than 1,000 patents on ideas that never developed into anything substantial. Edison's willingness to take action on his ideas despite the probability that they would fail is one reason he is considered a genius today. At work, one obviously shouldn't spend too much time chasing bad ideas, but having such a willingness to pursue ideas, even if colleagues aren't wild about them, can lead to opportunities and successes that otherwise wouldn't exist.

Unfortunately, even if you have ideas, many corporate cultures don't make it easy to act on them, especially for the rank and file. Some companies are better at encouraging creativity in their employees than others, however. At 3M, with headquarters in St. Paul, Minn., technicians are allowed to spend 15 percent of their time pursuing new ideas. More than 50,000 possible new products have grown out of this rare freedom to experiment, including Post-it Notes and double-sided wrapping tape. At Motorola Inc. in Schaumburg, Ill., project teams are formed from a cross section of marketing, research, engineering and sales people, all of whom are trained in both creativity and conflict-resolution tactics. Sony Corp., headquartered in Tokyo, allows its designers around the world direct access to top executives so new ideas don't die in committee.

Mr Ghayas · #6 Friday, May 12, 2006

Although it's unrealistic to expect a single person to change an entire corporate culture, it's also surprising how much change one determined person can generate. By simply adopting the attitude that a fresh supply of ideas is good for business, an employee can usually count on having one or two of them noticed by someone higher on the corporate ladder. Remember, hardly anyone criticizes an employee in an annual performance review for being too creative. Besides, even if you assume that new ideas and fresh perspectives aren't welcome in your place of work, your assumptions may be wrong. Many companies that desperately need to break out of a rut to remain competitive are actually starving for creative input.

The truth is, companies are often no better than individuals at recognizing the potential for creativity. Sometimes, the company's structure is to blame. Hierarchical organizations have a way of creating survivalists who tend to dismiss the ideas of anyone they perceive as competition. Elsewhere, creativity can be poisoned by a pervasive attitude that everything has already been tried, so "it'll never work," regardless of what "it" is.

Karwoski is surprised at how often innovation is discouraged in the workplace. "It puzzles me because business is all about innovation and development and marketing and differentiation," he says. "It's all about being evolutionary and adapting; otherwise you're left behind." Yet companies everywhere make a daily habit of ignoring the creative values they claim in their annual reports to uphold, and companies everywhere are filled with creative people looking for outlets and a little recognition.

"There is a real hunger out there for people to be able to show their creative side in some way," says Karwoski. "If workplaces could find a way to allow people to exercise their [creativity] more, they could really tap into some pent-up energies."

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