This is the mural we created for Future of Talent-Netherlands to share our model for innovation, which emerges from the successful interplay between creativity, co-creativity, work and teamwork. The concepts of creativity and co-creativity often become muddled and make people in traditional organizations secretly nervous. The idea of everyone being creative sounds like chaos — and probably would be without understanding the nuances. Yet creativity is essential to innovation, and innovation is essential to organizations. So we’ve created this four-square model to help with the discussion.
The mural (which will be evolving) reads like this: Left=Indvidual/Internal to Right=Individual/In relation to others. Top=Intangibles (“The Soft Stuff” such as values, emotions, vision), Bottom=Tangibles (“The hard stuff” such as deliverables and money which are measurable). Around the edges are the various demands and activities most of us face every day that can be overwhelming. The lists on the left and right show the shift in social values that is occurring as we begin focusing more on humanity in the workplace. In the center is the “sweet spot” of insight. The balance of all these factors leads to innovation.
—Creativity (upper lefthand corner) is the connection between the individual and the intangibles — feelings, self-expression, values, vision, purpose. Creativity is something everyone has, it is entirely personal, and may not have any practical application whatsoever. Adults often think they’ve lost it (“I don’t have a creative bone in my body.”) but usually they are simply disconnected from their creative spirit because of life’s pressures. Creativity is personal and is accessed through non-logical channels. It’s “what is most authentic about you” and can be manifested in many ways from art to teaching to singing to gardening. You know creativity when you feel it, and sometimes the results resonate with others, but that is beside the point. Creativity is not the same as having a talent or ability. It is not externally but internally defined. Through interviews for our 1999 book, Claiming Your Creative Self (New Harbinger Publications), we learned how much courage is required for most adults to express themselves creatively. Children are natural at it until a certain age, usually around the time their artwork comes down from the refrigerator (as our colleague Geoff Ball pointed out). Re-connecting with one’s creativity requires a leap of faith and willingness to engage in (usually nonverbal) exercises that access the unconscious. Our colleague Betsy Burroughs, who has been applying neuroscience concepts to individual and group creativity, calls the unconscious, “The Milky Way Brain,” for the vastness of knowledge and wisdom that lies below the surface of our conscious thought. Jennifer’s joy in photography and visual work was her way of accessing her creative spirit, and that put her in touch with deep wisdom.
–Individual Work (lower right hand corner) is what we make, do, produce, deliver on the ground, in the workplace, to the world. This is where most managers focus their attention and how they judge workers–by what they do or produce. It’s usually measurable or quantifiable in some way. Further down, you can read the story of Jennifer, whose individual work was as an administrative assistant, organizing events and communications. Her supervisor saw beyond the “job” to Jennifer’s creativity, with amazing results.
—Engagement is the sweetspot between creativity and individual work. When work is inspired by one’s authenticity, true expression, one is more engaged with the activity. That can translate into effortlessness, joy of work, pleasantness, and producing goods or services that resonate with others because of the “spirit” that comes through the work. Often when people bring creativity into their work–adding a flair or something personal and engaging–others will recognize what they are doing or producing as “something creative.” But a thing or an action cannot be creative, it can be informed by one’s creative spirit. One irony is when people involved in activities that others associate with creativity (art, music, writing), they may not necessarily be inspired at all, but just going through motions. The word “inspired” is derived from the word “spirit.” Only the individual knows if he or she is inspired and truly engaged. Jennifer describes herself as an engaged employee. She feels she can be herself in her work, and that her creative offerings are valued. Her engagement led to her stepping up to create a breakthrough innovation.
—Co-Creativity (upper righthand corner) is when more than one person connect, together, with intangible factors that engage their hearts and encourage their self-expression. Like creativity, c0-creativity cannot be judged by the output, but rather by the quality of experience. Co-creatives are people who gather around a shared vision and who develop a bond based on their willingness to contribute their authentic selves to an endeavor together. The activity itself is secondary to co-creativity. We do not often see systematic approaches to co-creativity, but here are a few examples: **A team that engages in “mindful” practice, a time-out from projects to meditate together and share what they feel and value. **A group that gets together to provide support for one another as they bravely express their creativity in the world (one of the women interviewed for the 1999 Creativity book had created a group called “The Danger Rangers,” women venturing forth into writing, performing, and painting who gave one another badges for bravery). **A group that takes time for everyone to share their values, passions, and most authentic form of self-expression. The latter is what Jennifer experienced, a co-creative environment developed when her supervisor urged team members to share more about themselves than just what “the job” demanded.
–TeamWork (lower righthand corner) = groups of people working to get specific jobs done–the products, services and deliverables that are tangible workproducts. It’s measurable and quantifiable by what gets done, not how it’s done.
–Insight (center) is when somebody has an “A-ha.” Examples of successful insights are **Dr. Douglas C. Engelbart’s vision for Collective IQ that in the 1960s inspired him to hook up a screen and a handheld mouse to a computer **Dr. Vint Cerf’s vision for “packet switching” that enabled the foundation for today’s Internet in the early 1970s, **Steve Jobs’ idea for the iPhone iPod and iPad that revolutionized many industries from communication to music. **Many examples from scientific history including Newton (gravity). Insight is different from creativity or invention. It is a sudden awareness of a truth or possibility.
—Innovation emerges at the center of all of these factors as long as they are synchronized. Innovation is more verb than noun, it emerges from specific actions within a system (More on Innovation Systems. http://visualinsight.net/innovation.html, from our research at Institute for the Future). Trust is developed in a co-creative environment (a state of “being”) enabling people to access their individual creativity and share with others so that when it is time for work (a state of “doing”) everyone is fully engaged (conscious and unconscious capabilities) in the project. We are just beginning to understand the “how” and there is a lot of talk about collaboration. What’s missing from most of the conversation is the element of creativity and co-creativity–that in order to get true innovation, people need to feel safe and supported for who they ARE not just what they DO. And that environment must be maintained as the project develops. Thus, the approach to work must necessarily change. Some pioneer work in this area is under way but it is very new. One example is Verna Allee’s work in Value Networks where she maps roles and workflows (as opposed to titles and management). In enlightened teams, roles are carefully parsed (and frequently shifted) so that individual creativity is at best supported and at least not threatened. People take turns understanding one another’s visions and engage in intentional exchange of energies to maximize contributions. More to come on emergent methodologies for roles-based teamwork that leverages co-creativity.
–Jennifer’s story: Jennifer is a single mother working in an administrative assistant role for an executive focused on patient experience for a health care organization. She enjoys her work but her real passion is photography and computer graphics. Her supervisor Denise takes a personal interest in all her team, and learned about Jennifer’s creative outlet. Denise realized that Jennifer’s schedule and status as a single mom made it difficult for her to pursue her photography, so she helped Jennifer arrange her schedule so she could enroll in a class she wanted to take in Photoshop. Jennifer’s daily work didn’t change, but Denise and others on the team would look for opportunities, such as making posters, to engage Jennifer’s creativity. The organization was facing challenges, as are most health care organizations, managing large data sets in such a way that pertinent information can quickly move from information banks into the hands of physicians, nurses and other care providers. People in the data analysis division were working on spreadsheets and other ways of aggregating and presenting the data. Jennifer took a look and saw a better way to approach the interface. She did not know how to do it, but, as a visual thinker, she could “see” what kind of approach would work. Based on the respect shown for her capabilities as a visual thinker, she felt comfortable making the suggestion to Denise, who then put Jennifer in touch with the data team. The information technology they developed was so successful that she won awards not just within the organization but also at the industry level. When Jennifer tells this story, she does so matter-of-factly. To her, the innovation was a logical extension of her work. Yet in most organizations, this scenario would be highly unlikely. Let’s look at the creativity model and relate it to Jennifer’s story.
(Some reference links for this topic may be found at www.delcious.com/eileenclegg/netherlands
