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So today,
I have two questions to start, and they're just a conversation starter,
so we can take it from there. This is what we get our five minutes
or so.
(laughter)
And we go back and forth. But as you think about
how your creativity expertise has helped you,
assisted you in your area of focus or areas of focus, is one of them,
and the other is, what is the easiest and hardest aspects
of your journey from,
from learning about creativity to implementing it and all the other
things you do
professionally.
So it's
one of those things that takes longer than five minutes, but we can take a shot at parts of it.
Are you going to start for us? - I can.
How has creativity expertise assisted me
in areas of focus?
I think it
has, more than anything,
allowed me to not always come up with
a reason why something
can't be done,
to force myself to think of possible solutions,
and
to try to encourage other people to do the same.
And
I think that would be one of the hardest part of the journeys also, when
you are talking to a friend or just a
mild acquaintance and you're saying, "Well,
what other way could you do this? What other things have you thought about?
What are some possibilities?" You know,
people kind of get tired of me asking questions,
and they'll say, "Well, just give me an answer." Especially with students. And I'm saying,
"Well,
i want to hear what, what you think." And so I think that's difficult, because
people aren't used too
having someone ask them probing questions,
especially if you're in a school environment.
I have heard many times, I don't know about Joette and Sue, but I've heard
students many times say, "Well you're the teacher you're supposed to know."
And being a science teacher and I'm saying, "Gee, that's a wonderful idea.
Wonder what would happen if we try it."
And they're like, "What is wrong with this woman?" (laughter)
So that's,
that's the hardest part. The easiest part is
thinking of solutions.
Someone tells me something and I have to really, just like,
sit and be quiet because
I'll come up with like five possible solution and it, it just kind of flows.
But that's not, I don't think that's what creativity is supposed to be about, you giving solutions, but
helping other people reach them.
So do you work a lot with your consulting business, and you do a lot of questioning
your clients, and
what kind of things do you do with...? - Yeah, that's one of the reasons why I finally kind of said, you know, I
think I like this executive coaching thing,
because you,
you want to help people reach their full potential.
You want to ask them questions for them to discover.
"Oh, okay, yeah, I do
spend too much time in the office and not enough time with my family."
Versus me
telling them, "Well, if you just change and here's your schedule
and everything will be fine." That
self-discovery part is just,
you know, you get the a-ha moments, the wows,
and then they can move from there. So yeah,
that point when someone's paying you to ask them questions, I think that's a little
easier
than
when you're getting paid to supposedly give knowledge to students,
and they don't
want you to ask them questions.
And can you talk a little bit about, 'cause, you know,
I just love your dog,
(laughs) - Can we get a close-up of my dog?
Which camera could I...?
- Yeah, put him on there for a second! This is Ava.
You got her? - He said yes.
Tell us about the process of training,
training that,
the dog as part of your project. - Okay, well,
Ava is now seven and a half years old. We got her when she was seven months old,
and
one of the things that the breeder that we got her from, well first of all, it's
almost like
planning to have a child. You, I,
you do all this research, I was reading all kinds of books about the breed, she's a rottweiler, I
was reading research,
And
I wanted to make sure that we got a good,
a dog that really came from a good line,
that it wasn't an aggressive dog.
And one of the things that our breeder
suggested, that we might want to have her be a therapy dog. So then I had to do
research to find out, well what's a therapy dog?
And as I told you earlier, once I started, I'm like, "Wow, this would be a great thing." Because
it would incorporate my teaching skills,
but it would also
allow me to share the breed and help people who
may need that extra little
touch to get them to communicate.
And you asked me how did I,
because I'm going on a rabbit trail here, what was your original
question? - So just to say a little bit about that process
of training your dog. Was that difficult, or
did you,
did you find it was,
worked out well for project?
I found out
that I needed,
that I thought I knew how to,
to manage a dog or train a dog.
And so going to a professional trainer, I found out a lot of my voice intonations, and
a lot of my body language was sending mixed messages to the dog.
You know, like I'd say, "Ava, come here,"
and she's like, "Yeah, right.," you know?
So I learned that I had to speak firmly and have a, and have that firm look when I
really wanted her to do something.
The hardest part of the process
was
learning how to be a good master for the dog,
and the other hardest part was knowing when to stop my project. (laughter)
That was very difficult.
And Dr. Mary Murdoch
said to me, "Sandra, it isn't,
it's not over. You can continue doing this, but can you just give me this and
let me sign it?" Like, because it was like,
"This is mine. I'm going to keep working on it, you know, I'm gonna keep working on it."
And I was one of the first of two students to do the master's project,
and so I wanted to set a good example of what project should be like.
But I know I have a tendency to, to get
like this big, and I didn't think that was fair for students to come along
and someone said,
"Okay, your project should look like this," when
the original guidelines were like this.
Then once she,
you know, made me feel comfortable with "This is your project, you don't
have to worry about setting a standard for anyone else. Let them set their
own standards." Then
I went forward. And that was, that was like
took a big weight off of me. - And that's when we changed from a six credit to a three
credit project. So you were looking at the... right?
- Oh, now they only get three credits? Three credits, yeah.
(laughter)
Well that's good advice for students. Alright, thank you! -Well, given that the,
the company exists to
encourage and support creativity,
knowing about creativity is really quite useful. I'd recommend it if you want to
do that.
However, within
the sort of broad
field of creativity, I'd say the thing that has proved to be
probably most useful for us and for our clients
would be
the application of Adapter-Innovator Theory. I think
when Kirton's work came out, and
obviously there are other theories which touch on aspects of differences and
style as well, but particularly
when Kirton's work came out it gave
a dramatically different way of thinking about
innovation
in general. And this ,has proved to be hugely important
particularly working in the
large government
and also the not-for-profit sector,
because what it does is it gives you a way
of
communicating with
your clients and framing
change initiatives and
problem solving processes
in a way which will make sense to them.
So as a for instance, one of the organizations we worked with relatively
recently was
a refuge for domestic violence. And that was,
it was in the US, in this case.
And it's not unusual in
charities or not-for-profits that have grown relatively rapidly
to find that the founder and a few of the key staff
will have
a
personality preference which is distinctly different
from the people who are subsequently recruited in to work in the organization.
And this would be at classic example of where you would get a mismatch in, say,
Adapter-Innovator preferences,
which often result
in
conflict, or at least confusion.
If the people who hired you are distinctly different from the people who
subsequently have to
implement
the ideas that are generated, let's say,
it's very easy to add to the problem rather than solve it. So I think
the concept of
style, particularly Adapter-Innovator Theory, has been hugely important.
And another aspect of this, which is not really covered in
the master's program, but
if you want to be involved, probably
if you just want to be involved in doing good in the world, you really need to
understand, is
politics.
Organizational politics.
And that exists
wherever you get more than one person, basically. Now,
the organizational politics in a structure such as the United
Nations
is,
is quite astonishing,
not so much because it's that different from other large
organizations, but because of the level of complexity. So, for instance, when we're
working
with the part that we work with a lot,
when I'm discussing with people, "What would we have to do to get this decision
implemented?"
they'd say, "Well, first of all, we have to get the ambassadors from 37
different countries to agree to it."
And this adds a level of complexity which really did
just make me feel very tired.
However,
the flip side to this is,
by working with organizations like that, it gives you a whole different
appreciation
for long-term planning.
Because I will talk with colleagues, and I say, "This is what we've got to do."
And they say, "Yes, we quite understand. But it won't happen for two and a half years."
And I say, "Alright,
why not for two-and-a-half years?" And they say, "Well,
because the presidential elections in this country
will happen in two years' time, at which point they will elect this person,
who will reappoint the ambassadors over here,
and that will allow this to happen.
And so it gave me,
what I saw initially
as just a very
stuck
organization,
and you see this in many places, is actually populated by people who have a
completely different understanding of political processes.
So if you want to make any sort of
medium-scale
change, and this could be down at your local town board,
you've got to understand the reality of politics, and you really have to pay
attention to it,
and how good your ideas are,
or the ideas that your group that you're working with,
is irrelevant
unless you understand the winners and losers from that
and the,
the reality of the politics. So, and
Adapter-Innovator Theory, I think, is a really interesting way of thinking about
people's perspectives,
and it has given me a huge respect for people who have very different
preferences from my own.
They're not being resistant; they simply see the world in a different way,
and the real taste of whether you're mastering your
creative
capabilities, is whether you can truly defer judgment around somebody who
has a dramatically different point of view,
and
incorporate their thinking.
It's very hard to do,
but that's when you know, I think, that you're actually making progress.
And in terms of the things that I think have been
easy to do,
it's actually very easy to talk with people about
creative thinking,
And, I was discussing this with some colleagues the other day, and
I suspect that when you're working with organizations, particularly when they're
under a lot of pressure, which is when we tend to be asked to come and work with them,
one of the things that you really bring,
if you have an
understanding of Creative
Problem Solving,
is you bring a sense of hope.
You are introducing into an organization
the possibility that change
might be, we might be capable of actually doing something about the situation.
We are not necessarily constrained
by our initial perception
of the problem. And
that's a wonderful thing, to be able to bring a sense of hope.
But you also have to be very careful about that, because
if you go back to the political realities and you find that you're
working at a level within an organization
that is not supported by people who are more senior or in a different
division,
you can actually do more harm than good,
because
what you actually do is
give people, if you like, a false sense of hope, which then results in cynicism and a
disengagement
in the process.
Now,
this was brought home to me when we were working,
in fact out in Sudan,
and
we were talking with some
colleagues out there, and they sad,
"It's all very well for you to go talking about this Creative Problem
Solving stuff,
but you need to understand, when you're talking about risk, and you're talking
about it with colleagues back in Rome or anywhere else,
their perception of risk is very different. If we implement an idea and we
get it wrong, people will die." Now,
when you're doing your risk mitigation work on any sort of
Creative Problem Solving, when you working through the implementation and the action
planning, it's relatively unlikely with clients, say, in the developed world
that's outside of the medical environment, that you have to worry about
people dying.
But if you want to do something in terms of affecting social
change,
this introduces a whole level of risk that you
have to have respect for, and
this is where it sort of
knocks up against a degree of cynicism if
the rest of the organization can't, for instance, get the resources which are required
in order to successfully implement this.
So
in a way you can be sort of playing with fire. It's really, really interesting to
try and take this from
post-it notes on the flip chart in Chase Hall,
to somewhere where people's lives on the line and
see that you can actually make a significant positive change. But this is
taking off all the training wheels, and what you're doing can can be dangerous. So, various thoughts. -Thank you.
I actually have a dream job right now.
I teach children, kindergarten through fourth grade, critical and creative
thinking skills
in relationship to content.
They've switched my content every year just to keep my,
you know, keep like exciting and spice up my life, and now they've
changed it to a health
content,
which has really opened a door for me because
it really leads itself almost hand-in-glove to what Creative Problem
Solving is.
I've also been fortunate enough over the past twenty years to be able to write my
own curriculum.
Therefore, I patterned it after what
Sid Parnes did
and taught us in the beginning program since 1970,
and opening up doors for your mind and for kids' minds.
The easiest part is designing the curriculum.
It has been so much fun.
The delightful part has been watching the kids' faces when you actually allow
them to think,
and they come up with things, and they are delighted to be there, and they are
delighted to learn,
and they are so excited and so happy.
I'm a divergent thinker, Sandra, so I can understand the "this." It takes me a
really long time to do the convergent thinking thing.
But as you were talking,
I noticed that
oftentimes when we get into Creative Problem Solving, our divergence can kind of take
us away from
what the reality is. And
one of the things that I think I learned from the Creative Problem Solving
process,
other than Sid constantly
whispering in our ear, "Trust the process,"
is that every step of the way,
when you have divergence, you have to have
convergence
immediately.
I used to teach them separately, I now teach them, even to kindergarteners, I
teach them
convergence, divergence.
We do,
we do all kinds of What
Now - Robert Marzano's terming of non-linguistic representations.
I very seldom teach in one learning style;
I teach in at least five
per lesson.
It's not difficult. All you have to do is look at their faces and know what to do,
and they will
tell you what to do depending on the children in your class. And
as you probably are aware now we have inclusion children,
who, when
they were first put into my class,
I thought I was going to probably hang myself because
I didn't have any training
in education
back then.
My best training in education was
taking the courses in creativity
and getting my degree,
which, by the way, didn't exist
when I first started,
so we kind of created it along the way. We made it up as we went along.
And
it's just helped me immensely to see that
the way that
education is going,
and again I'm trying to take an incredibly positive point of view,
with the testing,
and test scores,
and the reporting,
and the data,
and the data teams, on children who are five years old,
is really sad. So you have to balance that and say, "Well, this,
this is kind of convergence, but how do we allow children to grow?"
These are the children of the future who are
facing
all kinds of problems.
We need divergence.
We need to teach them to think divergently, and
we need them to teach convergently to deal with the politics of the world,
which are not getting any easier,
more sophisticated,
by the day.
And I think just using the Creative Problem Solving process
has allowed me to do that, even with the kids.
And by the way, my kindergarteners know the words divergence,
convergence,
criteria.
We apply it with conflict resolution. They love it.
We sing,
for I'm a Little Teapot, "I'm a Divergent Thinker,"
we do the locomotion in the upper grades, "Come on baby, do creative thinking with me," we
have all kinds of things going on, they love it, they're up singing and
dancing.
It is a lot of fun
and
-And you play the guitar, don't you?
Oh, I take, I take all kinds of songs, I'm probably going to get copyrighted forever
because of the conflict resolution song to the 59th Street Bridge song, but boy, do we
have fun with it.
I really do. It's really a lot of fun.
But when you talked about the concept of hope,
when I received a phone call about
six or seven years ago from the Creative Education Foundation, which
used to be at Buff State, which is and affiliate with the Center, International
Center,
asking me to go to South Africa to do a program
for young
middle school-aged children in Cape Flats,
"You have three and a half days.
Make a difference."
Talk about night being able to,
to breathe.
I thought, "What can we do in three and a half days they can make a difference with
these kids who, for all
intents and purposes, are really hopeless,
because they live
in huts, they live in cardboard boxes,
they have nothing?"
But they, we, they a grant, they bought the children a brand new set of
sweats and toothbrushes and sneakers and
brought them over to a really wonderful
prep school
near Capetown,
absolutely beautiful place, and these kids have never seen anything like this
before.
So I thought, "Okay, we have three and a half days with them, what can I do using the Creative
Problem Solving process?"
And our theme was hope.
I thought if there was ways to bring hope,
then we could do that. So we did a series of divergent and convergent
thinking techniques with hope,
we talked about their situations, who they were, where they could go,
and it was also,
pending on this was, if we did an OK job the first year, we could probably get it for
five.
We completed our five,
and the kids
were amazing,
just completely amazing.
And how they've responded to it, because they were not used to thinking.
They were very,
they sat there, literally, and what we heard was, "Yes ma'am,
no ma'am,"
did not even know that you could
think and respond in that type of way. So teaching divergent thinking, here
I am thinking, "Okay, I'm going to go in there
and we're going to be doing all these things."
Just to give them
the door
to their own minds, to help them open up to divergent thinking, was miraculous for
them. So convergent thinking came a little easier for them.
And over the years, over the past thirty years and all the thinking
experiences that I've had, including consulting in
various parts of Brazil, Rio, an
San Paolo, with
corporations like Electrobras,
that process, the divergent-convergent process throughout every step of the
process, I would say is the
key and critical
component.
It sounds so simple,
but it is, just the execution of it and the implementation of it is critical.