Creativity:What Can a New Baby Teach Us?

I haven't posted in a while because my wife and I had a new baby girl on June 10, 2011. My daughter is  healthy and is doing what new-borns do: eat, poop, sleep, and we're lucky because there is, so far, only occasional crying.  But I realized there is so much more going on that isn't as obvious as a stinky diaper.

I'm not going to claim that babies are born as 'blank slate' with no personality traits or some predetermined instincts. However, underneath that apparent blank stare her is mind already sensing, experiencing, and developing.  Everything is new.  She has no preconceived notions of how the world should be.  In fact, at this age her world is all about herself.  (I think this attitude never really goes away and reappears in teenage years.)

As children, human beings are naturally creative and at some point or points as we mature we suppress this capacity.  Some argue it is our educational system or even our Western culture.  Regardless, to be creative adults need to look at the world through the eyes of a child, even a new born.  We should step outside of our old patterns of looking at the world. I have a 9-year old daughter and when we play she always changes the the rules of the game by saying, "How about we do this?"  I, of course, want the story line or rules of the game to be consistent.  This is not a concern of my 9-year old; she revels in it.

What can children teach us about creativity?  Here are some things I've come up with (so far).

• Try to look at the situation not only from a new perspective but from a frame of mind where the rules are not yet written.
• Continue to ask yourself questions like, "How about ...?", "What if...?", "So what...?".
• Regain an appreciation of 'play'-where participation in the activity is its on goal.
• Learn to be comfortable with ambiguity and inconsistency.

Businesses need to innovate or they will not succeed and thrive.  Innovation, as I've said in a previous post, can only result from creativity.  Sometimes we need to bring our inner-child to work.

Three business trends: Innovation, Innovation, Innovation (and, oh yea, creativity)

Read any business magazine or attend any seminar and you will probably hear the word innovation over and over again. Businesses must be innovative or be left behind.  New and better products or services are what keep a company moving forward and growing their customer base.  All true.  Innovation, however, requires more than writing it in a business plan.  Innovation, by definition, is applied creativity. Creativity must come first and it can be a messy process by business standards.

Let's talk about what creativity is and is not.  Creativity is...

• That which separates us from other animals.
• A gift that all human beings have and use every day.
• A process where humans can imagine something that is not immediately available to our senses.
• Something that can be developed by anyone.

Creativity is not...

• Limited to artistic endeavors such as painting, sculpting, or playing a musical instrument.
• Limited to grand discoveries by geniuses.
• An anything-goes, free-for-all.
• Something we can live without.

Creativity needs a few things in order to be realized.  There must be a culture where the free flow of ideas is welcome and the rush to judgment is suspended.  Failure, always a part of the creative process, must be tolerated to a certain extent.  It cannot be fitted into a short time frame and ideas must be allowed to incubate.  Last, creativity and innovation tends to be its own reward and people must be internally motivated to engage the process.

Innovation is key.  But innovation necessarily relies on the creative process.  Is your company promoting creativity? If so, are you ready for it?

Is your business sitting on a data Gold Mine?

Many businesses have been storing data for years.  Data are the raw numbers that record unique events or amounts.  By itself, data cannot tell you a whole lot.  But, if you have a data base or spreadsheet with customer information, sales data, related business costs, or other records about your operations you should be mining that data and returning it as useful information. 
Most desktop applications provide basic but powerful tools to query and retrieve that data and format it into finished reports, tables, and graphs.  Some even give you basic graphical user interface (GUI) tools to write some basic queries without using SQL. SQL stands for Structured Query Language which is the standard language for retrieving data. 

The basic understanding is that data of one type may be related to a different set of data (note-even the lack of a relationship between particular data may be meaningful).  For example,  a common relationship is the one between sales volume and time of year.  The challenge (and the fun part, I think) is to analyze more complex or multiple relationships.  What effect does gender have on cash versus credit sales?  What are new customers in a certain age group from a certain neighborhood more likely to buy?  Basket analysis and cube computing is where the real gold lies.

You may already be sitting on some of the best market research available. Mining information from your data can help you focus your marketing campaigns and more efficiently allocate resources.  You may discover new business opportunities or spot market trends. All you have to do is go get it.

Business Ethics: Maybe Not a Contradiction

I attended a recent Leadership simulcast sponsored by Chick-Fil-A.  There's been quite a change in the attitudes and approach to managing and leading a business since I graduated from college almost 30 years ago. In fact, the simulcast could have been sponsored by the seminary I attended almost 15 years ago.

Leadership as service.  That was a primary theme through out the program.  The word profit was rarely mentioned.  Much more common were phrases like "higher calling" or "being part of something bigger than yourself"  and " being responsible to your employees."  Employers had a duty to develop an employee and find spot were he or she can succeed.

Doing the right thing was not only the ethical choice but it was also the smart choice from a business perspective.  Growing a company and earning a profit is not a bad thing and it is still necessary for a business to succeed.  But it is achieved through making choices that are considerate of the people you hire.  Some speakers used the term 'love' when describing their attitude toward the people that work for them.
Practically speaking, employees that are engaged in their work, that trust management, and that feel that they are growing professionally tend to stay in their current jobs.  Reduced employee turnover affects the bottom line.  But sometimes is good to do the right thing just because it is the right thing to do.

Defining Your Terms

As I mentioned in a recent post the one of the first steps in any argument is the defining of relevant terms.  This step can accomplish the most but requires significant effort.  Often arguments that seem to have no resolution occur because participants either have not clearly define the terms they are using OR can't agree on how to define a concept.  For example, what is human life and when does it begin?
For discussion purposes here, term refers to a word the represents a concept.  A concept is a mental label attached to an idea, belief, thing, or feeling.  There will be more on this in a later post but here are some ways to approach the task of defining terms.

One way is to think in terms of categories.  Does a concept belong to category of things that share common characteristics of other things in the category.  Does a tomato belong to the category of fruit?  Of course, we need to set parameters for our category.  This is done by establishing the necessary and sufficient conditions a concept must meet in order to be included in that category.  Is one of the necessary conditions of being a fruit that it have seeds?  Do the seeds alone make something a fruit or are there more conditions that need to be met?

Sometimes we define terms by distinguishing them from other concepts.  A tomato is not a vegetable because its sugar content is too high.  We can then examine the differences to see if the differences are differences of degree or differences in kind.  Is tomato just a sweet vegetable or is it in a completely different category (i.e. fruit)?

Defining terms takes time and effort.  I was teaching a philosophy class a few years ago and we were discussing recycling.  The students spent an hour defining what qualified as tin can or can of pop (some emotions were involved as well).  This step will not resolve every argument but it can help us at least understand what we're arguing about.

OCW: Open Course Ware

The wage an employer offers may get a person to take job but it is usually not a factor in motivating that employee or increasing her or his job satisfaction.  However, employee training and professional development is a way to increase an employee's sense of fullfillment and increase the chances of retaining that employee.

During tough economic times an organization's training budget is one of the first to get reduced or even eliminated. There are some free resources available on-line.  Open Course Ware or OCW is provided free of charge by major universities (e.g. Harvard, Notre Dame) in a wide variety of topics.  While there is still an investment of employees time, the cost of content and materials is almost eliminated.  Just do a web search on Open Course Ware and look at the options.  As always, read the fine print, but you should find something that your employees can use in their over all development.  Let me know if you have any questions.

Analytical and Critical Thinking-it's a matter of method

In a multi-cultural, pluralistic society in can be really hard to decide what's right or wrong-what is ethical and what isn't.  Even in group of people sharing similar backgrounds division can occur over topics we care about (politics anyone?).  It's sometimes easier to say "I'm a moderate" or "I really don't care" than it is to get into a debate and risked being called insensitive.

If your are going to take on an important issue, either in your own internal dialog or with another person, there are at least three things you should do before you "open your mouth".  They are define your terms, define the problem as you see it, and determine what evidence you have to support your positions.  While this is only a starting point it is necessary to understand your position, as well as it strengths and weaknesses.


More on this as we go along but for now, "A problem well-defined is a problem half solved" (John Dewey).