Creativity is a skill that can be built like any other. Understanding your passion and challenging the voices in your head that say “no” are a great way to start.
Maybe it’s disingenuous to say that each of us has the potential to be a creative genius. Gifts of personality are dispensed in varied measures at birth. Humans are tangled balls of social conditioning, reactions to environment, and serendipity. Life isn’t fair. Luck plays a part. We’ve all heard someone say, “I was in the right place at the right time” or “I never get lucky.”
As far as creativity is concerned, most people believe you’ve either got it or you don’t. I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard someone say wistfully, “I’m not creative.” When I hear a statement like that, I think to myself, “No one has ever shown you where to begin.”
Because the fact is, creativity, like any skill, can be cultivated. It takes a healthy combination of self-knowledge and stamina.
Athletes have an advantage: prescribed methods of building stamina, because physical prowess is revered by our culture. Hire a personal trainer and you’ll start with a series of exercises done repetitively – gradually adding reps as the body gains strength. Exercise is specific, varied, and involves what’s called cross training. One day a session of running to work cardio. Next time? Yoga to maximize flexibility. A steady, balanced program of activity keeps the human machine functioning at its optimal level.
So what about the rest of us? How can we engage creatively with what we care about – whether it’s a job or an avocation? And just as important – how can we identify what works against building creative stamina in every aspect of our lives?
I teach artists how to build stamina through what I call “creativity strength training” but the fact is, the lessons apply to everyone.
Here are three aspects of thinking more creatively each of us can embrace.
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Today’s post is by thoughtLEADERS instructor Jan Rutherford.
What role does character, courage and virtue play in business achievement, and how should we deal with the difficulties, obstacles and adversity we inevitably face?
Napoleon held, “Adversity is the midwife of genius.” An alternate expression for adversity is crucible, and the Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘crucible’ as “a melting pot, for metals, etc.,” and adds that it can be figuratively used for a “severe trial.” The term crucible represents a difficult test or challenge; some sort of place or situation where we may face the intense heat of a severe trial, one that forces us to change or make difficult decisions. As Jules Evans says, “God sends adversity your way like a boxing coach sending you a sparring partner.”
Socrates and many philosophers influenced by him believed there was a strong connection between how we interpret the world and our own physical and mental health, and he believed we have the power to heal ourselves. The reason Napoleon saw adversity as a benefit was because the virtues of wisdom and knowledge stem from resiliency, dominion and discipline.
Answering the questions about virtues amidst adversity takes time, energy, courage, humility and discipline – i.e., self-reliance. One of the most important components of our own personal development is the desire to build our character to serve others: inner growth for outer service.
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Are you protecting your most important asset? No, it’s not your buildings, your equipment, or your investment accounts. It’s your people. Especially those rising stars whose contributions affect your bottom line and your future success.
The true cost of losing an employee goes largely unrecognized in many companies. Are you paying attention to this cost? Some managers shrug off this expense as a normal cost of doing business. Because there is no mechanism in place to compute the actual cost, the reality of the loss does not get reported to top management or discussed in terms of its strategic impact. But you can change all that.
Here’s the caveat: you need to be proactive. Don’t wait until turnover costs spiral out of control before you develop and implement a retention program. Start by mentally separating your employees into three categories:
– top performers – mid-level performers – lowest performers
While you may ultimately need to replace those in the third category, let’s concentrate on the other two. There are three important ingredients in an effective employee retention strategy: Read more
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Learn about four of the most common obstacles to creating a high-performance culture and how to overcome them.
You’ll face many common obstacles on your path to building a high-performance culture. Legacy culture issues, associates who resist the new culture, and processes or behaviors that don’t yet exist are going to slow you down. You need to work through these counter-culture moments and issues if you’re looking to change the overall culture of the organization. The more aware you are of what these pitfalls are, the more quickly you’re going to be able to overcome them.
Legacy culture issues
One of the four most common pitfalls I see is the legacy culture. “This is the way we’ve always done things.” Read more
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The caller ID stated “Mike.” The phone was on the fourth ring. I held it in front of me, watching the screen, mouth dry, sitting at my desk, thinking, “Here it goes again. He’s going to speak Chinese and I won’t understand.”
Creative Food, the vegetable-processing company I had started in China the year before, was on the verge of bankruptcy. Every project I initiated had failed. All the foreign experts I had hired had left. My operations were in such bad shape that my own customers, who included big fast-food chains like KFC and Pizza Hut asked my new recruits why they had come aboard a ship that was sure to sink. On that day, once I finally answered the phone, I had to ask Mike to repeat himself several times. Read more
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Collaboration is difficult, especially when the people involved have different interests, perspectives, and positions. A method called transformative facilitation can make it easier.
The most straightforward way to get something done is just to do it, or to get other people to do it in the way you think it should be done. You can do this by forcing people gently or harshly, making use of your authority, brilliance, money, or other inducements. This way of getting things done often works, and in many contexts, it’s the default.
In many other situations, however, using force doesn’t and cannot work because getting something done requires other people to come along, and they aren’t willing to. So, an alternative approach is collaborating: a group of people getting things done by working together, with every person freely contributing what they think should be done.
The problem? Collaboration isn’t straightforward. It’s usually difficult—especially when the people involved have different interests, perspectives, and positions.
I’ve spent the past 30 years facilitating collaboration among diverse groups of people within and across organizations, including among people who don’t agree with or like or trust one another, but who nevertheless are trying to get things done by acting together because they can’t do so by acting separately.
What I’ve learned from this experience is that such collaboration is possible and can be highly creative and productive, but it requires an unconventional approach.
Start by finding a facilitator
A facilitator is someone who helps a group work together to effect change. This role can be played by a leader, executive, manager, consultant, coach, organizer, mediator, stakeholder, or friend; you can play this role, or someone else or several people can.
The word group is both a singular and plural noun, and a facilitator’s task is to help both the singular group as a whole and the plural members of the group. This is the core tension underlying all facilitation.
Some facilitators deal with this tension by focusing primarily on the first part of this task: helping the group as a whole address the problematic situation that has motivated their collaboration, often using an authoritative, top-down, “vertical” approach.
Other facilitators focus primarily on the second part: helping the individual members of the group address the diverse aspects of the situation that they find problematic. Top-down, vertical messaging gives way to openly shared ideas and opinions, a more “horizontal” approach.
These two approaches, the vertical and the horizontal, are the most common and conventional approaches to facilitation. Both have their proponents and methodologies. The upsides of vertical facilitation are coordination and cohesion, but the downsides are rigidity and domination. The upsides of horizontal facilitation are autonomy and variety, yet the downsides are fragmentation and gridlock. Both approaches can help a group collaborate to create change, but both also have limits and risks.
The solution? Choose both
The approach to facilitation that I’ve found to be most effective doesn’t choose between the vertical or the horizontal; it chooses both. This method, called transformative facilitation, produces progress by employing the vertical and the horizontal alternatively, the same way breathing doesn’t choose between inhaling and exhaling but doing both in succession.
More specifically, the facilitator explains, guides, and models five pairs of alternating moves:
Advocating and inquiring. Often, both the participants and the facilitator start off a collaboration with the confident vertical perspective: “We have the right answer. Let’s get everyone in line.” Each person thinks, “If only the others would agree with me, then the group would be able to move forward together quickly and easily.”
But when the group takes this position too far or for too long and starts to get stuck in rigid certainty, the facilitator needs to help participants move toward horizontal plurality. When participants are pounding the table, certain that they have the right answer, the facilitator can encourage them to add “In my opinion” to the beginning of each sentence, and if that’s insufficient, to try “In my humble opinion.”
These playful modifications open the door to inquiry and discussion. Then, when the participants take this horizontal “We each have our own answer” too far and for too long and start to get stuck in cacophony and indecision, the facilitator helps them move toward the clarity and decisiveness of vertical unity.
Concluding and advancing. Typically, both participants and the facilitator start with the vertical belief, “We need to agree.” Yet when a group gets stuck in this demand for a conclusion, the facilitator needs to help them keep moving. One of my most important learnings as a facilitator has been that, to move forward together, agreement isn’t required as often or on as many matters as most people think.
Then, when participants start to get stuck in the unfocused horizontal “We each just need to keep moving,” the facilitator needs to help people pause to work out what they can agree to focus on.
Mapping and discovering. Many participants and facilitators start off a collaboration with an assured vertical perspective: “We know the way.” But when they start to get stubbornly stuck, the facilitator needs to help participants experiment, test their understandings, and discover new options.
Later, when the participants start to get stuck in the horizontal “We’ll each just find our way as we go,” the facilitator can help them map out a common way forward.
Directing and accompanying. When participants and the facilitator start a collaboration thinking, “Our leaders will decide,” they may get stuck in ineffective, vertical bossiness. When this happens, the facilitator needs to help all participants take responsibility for their own actions.
Then, when the participants start to get stuck in the misaligned, horizontal “We each need to decide for ourselves,” the facilitator should help them align their actions.
Standing outside a problematic situation and standing inside it. In most cases, participants and the facilitator start a collaboration chanting the vertical mantra, “We must fix this.” But when they take this position too far or for too long and get stuck in cold remoteness, the facilitator needs to help participants consider how they are part of the problem and therefore have the leverage to be part of the solution.
Later, when the participants start to get stuck in the self-centered and myopic horizontal “We must each put our own house in order,” the facilitator can help them stand outside the situation to get a clear, nonpartisan, and neutral perspective on what’s happening.
Through this process of alternating between the plural and singular, a group can make progress. They can collaborate to get things done in spite of—and also because of—their diversity and differences. This approach isn’t straightforward, but it works.
ADAM KAHANE is director of Reos Partners, an organization that helps people move forward together on their most important and intractable issues. He has worked in more than 50 countries with teams of leaders from business, government, and civil society, and his methods have been praised by Nobel Peace Prize–winners Nelson Mandela and Juan Manuel Santos. He is the author of five books, including his newest release, Facilitating Breakthrough: How to Remove Obstacles, Bridge Differences, and Move Forward Together. Learn more at adamkahane.com.
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It’s easy to neglect your core responsibilities as a leader when it involves having uncomfortable conversations. Learn how to develop a maxim to overcome uncomfortable situations.
As a leader, one of your chief responsibilities is developing the members of your team. Great leaders build more leaders. You have to commit to their growth and create new opportunities for them to expand and learn new skills. That’s hard to do because for somebody to learn a new skill, you’re going to have to create an opportunity for them to do something they may not have done before. In doing that, you create risk because that individual might fail. And if they fail, that failure reflects on you. So a lot of times we’re afraid to take those risks on people to create growth opportunities.
That’s why you need a maxim to remind yourself that one of your chief responsibilities is doing that development work for the members of your team. My maxim to remind me that my chief responsibility is to develop people is, “It’s easier to correct course 100 yards into the journey than 100 miles.” I had a member of my team who was having some problems. One day he gave me some numbers and a report, and the numbers were off. I said, “Well, it doesn’t seem like a big deal. I’ll figure it out tomorrow.” I did this because I knew it was going to be a slightly uncomfortable conversation to have with him. A few days later, I heard about an interaction between this individual and a member of his team that hadn’t gone very well. I said, “I’m gonna need to talk to him about that. I’m not happy with what I’m hearing, but I’m not gonna do it today. Maybe I’ll do it next week.” The following week, I went past his office and he was berating a member of his team. He was speaking to them in a very condescending tone. I said, “I’m really gonna have to talk to him about this, but I’m not gonna do it today because he’s not in a good mood. The feedback won’t be well received.” I put off that more difficult conversation. I kept avoiding times when I should have given this individual some feedback.
Well, one day he came to me and said he was resigning. He had found another job and he was going to go work elsewhere. I was so excited because my problem was now gone. On the way home, I called one of my colleagues and I was relaying the good news, saying, “Hey, he quit—the guy who’s been giving me all the trouble. I don’t have to deliver the feedback now. He’s leaving the organization.” My colleague called me on it. He said, “Mike, you failed.” And I said, “What do you mean? How did I fail? He left. The problem is gone.” And my colleague said, “You failed every member of his team because your job as a leader isn’t just leading that individual. It’s leading the entire organization. Those people were getting beaten up on a regular basis. He was hurting their morale. And they were probably looking to you to solve that issue. You failed every member of that team. You have to remember that correcting course is easier 100 yards into the journey than 100 miles. You should have had the difficult conversation sooner because you could have either corrected performance or taken appropriate disciplinary action if he didn’t change the way he was operating.”
My colleague was right. I had failed the members of that team. So this maxim reminds me that when development conversations need to happen, I need to get over the fact that it’s going to be an uncomfortable conversation. I need to just have the discussion. It’s hard to do, but this maxim has changed my behavior on several occasions. There have been times when other members of my team since then have done something that I wasn’t exactly happy with. And my initial instinct was, “Well, I’ll just wait. It’ll fix itself.” And I said, “No. My maxim says I need to go have that conversation right now.” When I’ve done that, I’ve been very happy with the result because we correct behavior, get people pointed in the right direction, and do so before the problem gets bigger.
As you think about your team and about your responsibility to build leaders, to develop and challenge people, how are you going to remind yourself to take those kinds of risks? How are you going to remind yourself to have those difficult conversations when they need to happen? Has there been a time in your past where you created a growth opportunity for somebody and they succeeded well beyond your wildest dreams? Or a time where you avoided giving some tough feedback and there were bad consequences that occurred because you didn’t step up to the plate as a leader? Within those situations is where you’re going to find your maxims. Find that trigger. Find those words that were used in that conversation or the name of the project where the person succeeded. That phrase, that trigger, is what’s going to bring you back to that situation. It’s what is going to remind you of those feelings and get you to behave in a different way.
I know my maxim does that for me. When I have that difficult situation and I think of my maxim, I remember how uncomfortable that conversation was with my colleague when he told me I had failed. I remember how embarrassed I was of my failure as a leader. Those feelings drive me to change my behavior now because I never want to be that disappointed in myself again or that embarrassed. So you know what? I’m going to take action today. That’s how having a maxim based on something in the past can drive your performance in the future.
Want to learn more about developing your leadership philosophy? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning how to develop your leadership philosophy. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
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Years ago, Charles Darwin noted that “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one most adaptable to change.”
Regardless of your current career situation, change is always challenging you to adapt…to stay coachable.
Staying Coachable is the key to your growth and development.
And the truth is that everyone starts out coachable – it’s what allows us to reach the growth and plateaus and positions and views that we now enjoy…
But occasionally we become complacent.
And complacency is poisonous to your personal development.
The trouble is that we don’t always recognize our own complacency.
And so here, in a brief excerpt from the book, is part of the story and a few of the take-aways that Staying Coachable offers readers… Read more
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A “Hunter” salesperson must have five non-teachable, non-negotiable traits to persevere in the face of rejection. Here’s how to identify them before you make an expensive hiring mistake.
You’re ready to hire a new salesperson and you know the stakes are high. While the economy seems to be moving in the right direction, surging COVID numbers are stirring up a lot of uncertainty. Whether more lockdowns happen or not—and whether the sales force returns to the office or not—you’re absolutely going to need a strong candidate who can bring in new clients in a tough business environment. Read more
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To build and foster a high performing team, sometimes you have to step back and let your people do their thing.
For you to get the most out of the members of your high performing team, you need to empower them. Remember, on a high performing team, those team members are typically very self-motivated, and they like being self-directed. You need to understand how letting go of your agenda, creating space for them to flourish, and then accepting that there are different ways of doing things is going to bring out the best in your people. Read more
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Once you’ve established your commit goals, you should also set stretch goals. Learn how to use the one-third, two-third method to set a stretch goal.
In addition to setting a commit goal, you should also set a stretch. A stretch goal is what’s going to push people to achieve more. It still needs to be achievable when you go back and look at SMART goals, but it won’t have a guarantee of success. More often than not, you’ll fall short of your hitting your stretch goal. If you’re always hitting your stretch, you’re not stretching far enough.
So why should you set stretch goals? Well, if you only set a commit goal, the team might coast once you reach it. They’re going to say, “Well, we hit our goal. We don’t have to push ourselves so hard. Let’s just relax and get to the end of the year.”
A stretch goal gets them to continue performing. Once they hit the commit, there’s still something more that they can go out and achieve. A stretch goal can motivate and excite people. When they hit it, it creates a sense of shared achievement that’s going to build morale and team identity. Stretch goals force people to think differently.
Many times, a commit goal is based upon what people know they can do. They don’t challenge constraints or look for new ways of doing things. A commit goal is about getting things done and doing it the way we’ve always done it. A stretch goal gets them to challenge assumptions. They’ll look at the business differently. They’re going to be willing to make large changes and they’re going to take risks to achieve that stretch. A stretch goal helps them build new skills from trying new things.
So by combining a commit goal that they can achieve and they can deliver to the organization, and a stretch goal that pushes them to improve their performance, you’re getting the best of both worlds.
The one-third, two-third method for stretch goals
I often get asked, “How can I set a good stretch goal?” I like to tell people to use the 1/3, 2/3 rule. For the gap between your commit and your stretch, your team should have a good sense for how they might close 2/3 of that gap, and no idea for where the other 1/3 will come from.
Why 1/3, 2/3? Well, if it’s more than 1/3 that they don’t know where it’s going to come from, they’re going to give up and just say, “This is too hard. I don’t have any ideas.” If it’s less than 1/3, it may be too easy and they might coast. To create this list and understand what this 1/3, 2/3 is, gather a list from your team for ideas beyond the commit and add them up.
Let’s walk through an example. Let’s say we set a commit goal of X, and now we’re trying to figure out what the stretch is. I tell the team, “I need all your best ideas for how we’re going to drive revenue beyond that commit event.” The team goes off, they come back with their ideas, and they come up with $2 million worth of ideas. Now these will be hard, but they have a reasonable idea of how they can capture $2 million. That two million is my 2/3. What I need to do next is add another third beyond that. When you look at the math, you just divide that two million in half and add it. So I would add another $1 million, and then I’d have a total stretch goal of three million. Now let’s look at that 1/3, 2/3. 2/3 of that $2 million, they have ideas. 1/3 of it, $1 million, they don’t know where it’s going to come from. They’re going to have to innovate to find that incremental $1 million.
When you set your stretch goals, following this 1/3, 2/3 rule will help you identify ideas and make that stretch feel like it’s something they can get, but it will still push them beyond the ideas they’ve already got, and hopefully drive incremental innovation.
Want to learn more about setting team and employee goals? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning how to create a culture of strategy execution. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
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Looking for a job is one thing. Looking for a job after an extended absence is an altogether different thing. From facing down impostor syndrome to explaining the hiatus, job-seekers face their own set of challenges when returning to work. The good news? They also bring with them their own set of advantages.
If you find yourself in this camp, there are steps you can and should take to find your next role. But one of the most important is that initial step to embrace a “possibilities mindset.”
Many people put constraints on themselves at the outset and view their time away from the workforce as more of a liability than an asset. But they didn’t hit ‘pause’ on themselves while they were away. They developed other skills and connections and outlooks. And I think that serves returners really well. Read more
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