"Being demoralized and offended...never propelled anyone further along the path of creativity."

This quote by Jean Flaherty in a blog from The Chronicle of Higher Education, caught my eye earlier this week. The rhetoric about education here in Texas when added to the economic realities most campuses are facing could easily lead people to feel demoralized, offended or both. This quote reminded me that my response to difficult times or comments is my choice. I can let myself be demoralized or I can choose to be creative in my reactions. I can hide my head in the sand and wish things were like they used to be or I can find ways to support the good work being done all around. Whether we realize it or not, we always have a choice in our response, at least in our attitude, even, or maybe especially in difficult times.

Our leadership task is to remember this fact and to help others find their way through the difficult times to creativity. Not one of the easier leadership tasks, but one of great importance. Good luck!

Best wishes,

Gage

The Creative Leader Workshop

Last week, I mentioned being intrigued by comments from participants in the workshop entitled the Creative Leader. Before I can share the comment, I need to explain about one part of the workshop.

Over time I have learned that there are many ways to teach leadership concepts and I have used two of my favorite activities as extended metaphors to engage people in an exploration of different aspects of leadership. Leadership Dance and Leadership Yoga are two of the more popular results of this creative effort. Based on comments over the years, this way of using activities or hobbies that I enjoy strikes people as very unusual, as something they are not able to do. So The Creative Leader is one workshop designed to help people demystify this creative process.

The primary activity is simple. I ask everyone in the room to put their favorite hobby on a scrap of paper and hand it over to me. I shuffle them while they get organized into smaller groups of 5-7 people. Then each group draws one hobby from those in my hands. Once we're clear on what the hobby is, some are a bit obscure, I announce that their task is to design a leadership workshop based on that hobby and they have ten minutes to do so.

To the amazement of most participants, they are able to complete the assignment. Some hobbies work better for the topic of leadership than others. Some groups get more involved in their workshop than other groups. Some are very funny and clever whether or not they will actually work. A couple of ideas have been sheer genius! But everyone comes up with enough that with very little work they could develop a full-fledged workshop.

The comment I want to share is a variation on this theme. - 'I never would have thought we could come up with so many workable (clever, creative, useable) ideas so quickly.' It reminds me yet again, that so often it is our ideas about what we can and can't do that limit us. Much more so than money, or time, or The Rules. Our preconceived notions about how much time brainstorming takes keeps us from using small bits of time well. Our conception about our creative ability or the creative ability of others can mean we don't even try something different.

Next time you're stuck and need an idea for a workshop or a presentation or an article, pull out your favorite hobby, something you know well and apply it to the topic at hand. Maybe it will work perfectly, maybe it won't. But I can guarantee you, it will help you find a fresh way of looking at the topic. And that's an important leadership skill for all of us.

Best wishes,

Gage

The Creative Leader

Last fall at a professional conference I led a workshop called The Creative Leader. I've repeated the same workshop with other groups since then and I've been intrigued by some of the insights and comments that have come my way in each of them.

The first insight happened when I heard myself saying to the first group that I had just realized that the title "Creative Leader" was redundant. It's not possible to be an effective leader if you don't exercise creativity of some sort. I suspect most of the people in that session either considered themselves leaders or someone else did and yet less than half of them raised their hands when I asked if they thought they were creative. Again and again, I realize how limited and limiting our ideas about creativity are. We rarely hear leadership talked about as a creative act, let alone a creative art and yet we consider vision a key leadership skill. Isn't vision the ability to imagine something different, a new product, a new process, a new something? Leaders are supposed to help us solve our problems and to do that, they have to be able to think of different ways of being, interacting, of working on the issue at hand. Yet, again, we rarely credit that as creativity.

Leadership and creativity go hand-in-hand. We shortchange ourselves and the people with whom we interact when we don't acknowledge acts of creativity. Denying our own creativity, we don't recognize it, let alone encourage it, in others. As a result we miss opportunities to make positive change, to develop healthy work places, to make our work more enjoyable, the list goes on and on.

Where have you seen creative leadership? What supports or hinders your ability to be creative in your work (paid or otherwise.)? Any chance it's just your definition that's getting in your way? I'm curious to hear your insights and comments. Next time I'll share some more of mine.

Best wishes,

Gage

Ideas and Actions

“Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.” Joel Barker

In the latest edition of the UTSA Student Affairs staff newsletter, I wrote about a woman who made a very large gift to the university to fund scholarships. Years earlier, she had heard students discussing the difficulties of paying for college. What makes her different from so many of us is that instead of ignoring what she heard, instead of feeling sorry for the students, instead of wishing the world was otherwise, she did something to make a difference. She started a scholarship fund with a small donation and she kept adding to it throughout her life, finally ending with a multi-million dollar bequest. She saw a need and took action.

She saw a need and took action. I don’t think this characteristic by itself defines a leader, but I’m beginning to wonder if it is possible for leadership to exist without it. Last week I wondered if the term ‘creative leader’ was redundant, since leaders have to be able to see new possibilities, new ways of doing, new ways of being and that seems to be the very definition of creativity. Here is the definition from dictionary.com “the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination”. I still think creative leader is redundant, but it’s not enough. Having a new idea is fantastic, seeing a new way to meet a need is wonderful, but without the next step of ‘taking action’, there’s not much leadership in evidence. While lead is not always a verb, in this context, lead is an action word. A person has to be moving us forward in one sense or another for us to consider it leadership. It may be from one state of being to another, but I think change is required.

And, as I’ve said before, there have to be other people involved. If I walk out of the room saying ‘Follow me’ and everyone stays in their chairs, there is not a whole lot of leading going on!

Yesterday I had the privilege of attending TEDx San Antonio* and I listened to more than a dozen people who exemplified leadership. Their initiatives ranged from addressing hunger to ending the death penalty, from fostering creativity in children to helping people who are paralyzed walk – they covered a very wide range of issues and ideas. All of them have their own style, their own focus, their own way of thinking about issues, but all of them have these characteristics:

^They pay attention to the world around them.
^They see a need and believe they can make a difference.
^They find others who know about and care about this need they have identified.
^They are willing and eager to learn.
^They are able to step out on their own if need be, but able and willing to connect with others.
^They envision a world that is different from and better than the one that currently exists.
^They take action.

If the quote above is right, these folks are going to change the world by changing their part of it – sounds like leadership to me.

Best wishes,

Gage

*http://www.tedxsanantonio.com/

"Vacation used to be a luxury....

... however, in today's world, it has become a necessity." Unknown

Today, I’m wrapping up my vacation and tomorrow I head back to work. I’ll pay for being gone. When I left the office, I managed to get my e-mail inbox down to zero – it won’t be zero now and it will be a while before I’m caught up. There are some tasks that I let sit for two weeks and I’ll need to get started on them again. I know I have a workshop to lead on Tuesday and a committee meeting on Monday in addition to regular meetings so there will be no easing back into the action when I return.

That’s not meant to be a list of complaints; it’s just the reality of taking time away from a busy job. As a result, many people choose not to take vacation or they only take little bits of time away. Then even when they are away from the job, they spend time answering e-mail and working on projects - not much of a break. People in leadership positions are particularly prone to this behavior. After all if they are gone, someone else must pick up the work and keep things going. This can create one of two worries – either we worry that the work won’t get done right without us or we learn that we aren’t indispensible. It’s hard to know which worry is scarier, so some people worry about both!

Yet the reality is that we all need time away and perhaps effective leaders need the time away more than most. Have you ever been frustrated working on a jigsaw puzzle? Then you get up and walk away for a while and when you come back not only do you find the piece immediately, you can work a large section quickly. It also works with crossword puzzles and anytime you are stuck in a project. Time away, no matter what you do with it, refreshes your vision, your ideas, and your perspective in many ways.

Think for a moment about the word ‘recreation.’ One dictionary defines it as ‘refreshment of one's mind or body after work, through activity that amuses or stimulates’; another defines it as ‘refreshment of health or spirits by relaxation and enjoyment’. But there’s a third way to think about it. When you split the word it becomes re-creation meaning re-newal. And that’s the most important reason to take vacation. It may be hard to get away, it may be hard work when you come back, but to continuing being effective creative leaders, we need to take a break – a real one – and come back renewed and refreshed and ready to do our best work. Vacation as a leadership skill - who knew?

Take care,

Gage

"You can not lead where you do not go." Don Ward

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a professional conference and presented a program there. I hadn’t submitted a proposal in some time, but decided that I needed to start again. I’ve realized that if I’m tired of sitting through ‘sit and listen’ presentations on the same old topics, I need to step out there and do something different. So I submitted a proposal to present ‘The Leadership Dance’ even though there was a possibility that no one would show up or like it if they did.

I’ve mentioned this workshop before (Stepped On Anyone’s Toes Lately) and in its full form it takes at least an hour and a half. I only had 60 minutes which meant I would not be able to do the full workshop. Instead I started by explaining the history of the workshop and its purpose of creating an opportunity for participants to experience the partnership aspect of leadership. I explained kinesthetic learning (briefly, it is learning by doing rather than by listening or reading). Kinesthetic learning is an appropriate style for this workshop since there is really only one way to learn to be an effective leader and that's by actually practicing leadership. Then I told them that they were the brave group who would choose to attend a session with the words lively, interactive, and dance in the description and asked them to move the chairs back against the walls.

There was a fair amount of nervous laughter at this point and one person actually left the room, but the rest stayed and were good enough sports to give it a try - though one person told me later he had been pretty resistant to the idea at first. For the next 30 minutes we had a dance lesson and each person had a chance to serve as a leader and as a follower and then we talked about their experiences. Based on their comments and evaluations, participants both enjoyed the session and learned something, so it was a successful endeavor.

I share this story for two reasons. First, when you do something that is unusual, you take the chance that some people will be resistant to the idea. However, while some people will walk away from the opportunity presented, others will hang in there. Of course, those who hang in there may not like it. But that's no reason to refrain from taking the chance. If we can just get past our fear that we'll look foolish or that people won't understand what we're trying to do, our possibilities to be creative, to teach, to lead will expand immensely.

This is, of course, the second reason to share this story. Some participants said they gained a new understanding of leading and following. Others commented that they would now try to find creative ways to do their work. Still others asked for further information about the exercises in the larger workshop. In other words, they were engaged in learning. I've presented the Leadership Dance many times to a wide variety of groups, some of which were very surprised by what they were expected to do. But as one person told me, they may joke about having had to dance, but they remember it and that's more than usually happens after a speech. Learning something new often requires the learner to be a bit uncomfortable; seems only fair that the teacher ought to be a bit uncomfortable sometimes too.

So what are you not doing because it's a bit risky? Is there a time or a place when you might just risk testing out that new way of doing things? After all, a significant part of leading is asking a group to go someplace or do something new; shouldn't leaders be willing to try something new as well?

Take care,

Gage

Ideas with Flair

As I’ve written before, for years I was one of those folks who would answer ‘no’ to the question ‘are you creative?’ That is until my husband pointed out that I was a good problem-solver and that problem-solving requires creativity. Ok, sounds pretty obvious, but I had a narrow definition of creativity and not until this discussion did I understand that.

We value problem-solving in the organizational world meaning we value creativity, though like me, many people don’t frame it in that way. Conversely, we often say we value creativity in brainstorming and yet traditional group brainstorming exercises often aren’t very creative. In fact several articles I found on the internet say that individual brainstorming often results in more ideas and more creative ideas than the group process. There are several reasons for this result, group think, worrying about others’ opinions, losing track of your own ideas, spending time evaluating other’s ideas, etc. In my experience the biggest impediment to true creativity is the need to have some level of realism in the process. No matter how much we tell the group and ourselves that any possibility should be thrown out, we can’t quite do it.

In one of her books, choreographer Twyla Tharp talks about a creativity exercise she uses that illustrates an important element I think is often left out of brainstorming exercises. She says, “If you find yourself caught in a bigger rut, what you really need is a new idea, and the way to get it is by giving yourself an aggressive quota for ideas.” She finds something backstage like a stool and gives her audience or class the challenge – two minutes to come up with sixty uses for the stool. Here’s what she writes about this exercise:

“A lot of interesting things happened when you set an aggressive quota even with ideas. People’s competitive juices are stirred. Instead of panicking, they focus, and with that comes increased fluency and agility of mind.

“People are also forced to suspend critical thinking. To meet the quota, they put their internal critic on hold and let everything out. They’re no longer choking off good impulses.”

Tharp goes on to say she has found a consistent order to the quality of ideas produced this way –

“the first third of ideas are the obvious; the second third are more interesting; and the final third show flair, insight, curiosity, even complexity as later thinking builds on earlier thinking….(I’m not knocking first ideas. They’re often the best. But they’re rarely the most radical stretch and that’s the purpose of this exercise.)”

I’ve written before about the idea that boundaries actually help us be more creative (Coloring Between the Lines and Rules and Creative Leadership) and it applies in brainstorming as well. It all depends on the boundaries we set. Sometimes boundaries can cut off creativity, but well designed they can have the opposite effect. So the next time you need some creative thinking, from yourself or your group, try this exercise and see where it leads you. The fun part of it is that you never know where you’ll end up. I used this activity during a workshop and someone suggested that we could ‘eat’ the stool, but also on the list were some ideas that were both radical and possible, even useful as well as some ideas that showed “flair, insight, curiosity, even complexity” and that’s what we need in all of our organizations, isn’t it?

Take care,

Gage

The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life by Twyla Tharp with Mark Reiter (2003) New York: Simon and Schuster

“If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. It’s the hard that makes it great.” Tom Hanks in A League of Our Own.*

I’ve always liked the movie . It’s a wonderful story about many things – leadership, reaching for a dream, making a difference, the list goes on – and the quote above is one of my favorites (along with "There’s no crying in baseball.”) Both quotes attest to the challenges the women faced while participating in the All-American Girl’s Professional Baseball League during World War II. I was reminded of this quote today as I thought about the various writers who when talking about the life of a writer say they much prefer having written to the actual work of writing. But the concept applies to many aspects of our lives, doesn’t it?

I think most people know leadership can be hard work. Does that mean we shouldn’t be leaders? I think some people are surprised to find out that creative work can be difficult – it’s not just talent that makes a great writer, painter, artist or creative leader. Does that mean we shouldn’t try to be creative in our life – at work and elsewhere? Of course it doesn’t. I think that we often deny ourselves opportunities because we don’t think we can do it, we don’t think we have the time or we don’t want to put forth the extra effort. The psychiatrist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, has studied the concept of optimal experience, more familiarly known as flow. He has found that if the skills required by an activity are too simple for our abilities we become bored. There is much more to the idea, but for today’s essay this one part of his work is enough – it is the challenge that makes the act worth doing. It is why the answer to the question ‘why climb Mt. Everest?’ really is not ‘because it was there.’ The answer really is ‘because it was a challenge.’

So the next time someone asks you to try something that is a challenge, or the next time you find yourself saying, ‘but that will take too long,’ or ‘I don’t know how to do it', or any other version of ‘it’s going to be difficult,’ stop yourself and remember that "there is no crying in baseball" and give it a try. And when you succeed, then you can help remind the rest of us that "it’s the hard that makes it great."

Take care,

Gage

*I do know that movie titles are italicized, but I can't make the title italicize....

Feeling Our Way to Thoughtful Decisions

Think-Decide-Feel. Or is Feel-Decide-Think better? Maybe Decide-Think-Feel is the best?

Actually, anyone of the six combinations formed by reordering these three words will work just fine. Think-Decide-Feel is the name of a workshop I attended many years ago which focused on the way people process information. My pattern is Think-Feel-Decide which means I like to think about the decision, then feel – try it out for size so to speak, and then only after having done that do I want to decide. The advantage is that my decisions are pretty solid; the disadvantage to this style is that decisions can take a while and then it can be hard to change my mind. My friend Glenn made decisions differently. He liked to pick a solution, then collect the data and if he needed to he’d pick another option and test it out. Don’t make the mistake of thinking Glenn was wishy-washy – far from it. His decision making style was just different from mine.

One day Glenn and I met together to try to sort out a difficult university disciplinary situation. The conversation was going nowhere and we were both frustrated. Finally, Glenn looked at me and said, ‘I know why this isn’t working. I haven’t made a decision yet. Okay, let’s suspend them.’ Luckily for both of us, I understood what he meant and knew that he wasn’t trying to derail our discussion. We talked about all of the issues surrounding a decision of suspension, agreed that wasn’t the best answer, and moved on to something else that we both agreed was a better solution. Our supervisor, who had a different style from both Glenn and I, let us work our way through it. She didn’t try to short cut the discussion we had to have and she trusted that we would work our way through our differences. Her leadership supported and valued the different perspectives we brought to our jobs to the benefit of everyone.

To lead creatively and to lead for creativity, we need to understand and value the many ways that we differ and to create an atmosphere that not only makes room for such differences, but truly values them. Each of us brings our own perspective, talent and skill into the mix. We also bring our decision-making style and our thought processes along with us. And as challenging as that can be, it’s essential to good work and creativity.

So whether you Feel-Think-Decide or Think-Decide-Feel, it’s important to understand your own thought process and style and respect those of others no matter what your role in the organization. And as a leader, it’s important to go even further to value those differences and make room for them in the organization.

So how do you feel this? Or what do you think about it? Or can you decide?

Take care,

Gage

Rules and Creative Leadership

I don’t believe that ‘rules are made to be broken.’ However I do agree with Emerson that “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.” (Notice the important word foolish; it often is left out.) Organizations, large and small, need rules to operate effectively. However, we all know of situations in which someone’s insistence on following a rule rigidly stops us from doing something that needs to be done and that benefits the organization, the staff, and the purpose of the organization. Also situations change and almost always faster than rules do. So what’s a leader to do to help staff members follow the rules and yet not practice that ‘foolish’ consistency?

It seems to me there are two elements necessary for anyone to find that balance – clarity and creativity. It’s important to understand the underlying principle for the existence of the rules in the first place. That clarity will help us make better decisions as we try to apply the rule. For example, some outside organizations want to use university facilities for events. However, state universities have a number of rules for different circumstances that all have the same underlying principle - state property can’t be used for personal gain. When you understand the principle, all of the arcane rules about external groups using campus facilities make a little more sense and can be applied more reasonably. It’s also important to be clear about the purpose of the situation to which we are applying the rule. We might have one idea about the purpose and the person we’re working with might have another idea which can lead to confusion as we try to apply the rules.

Once we have clarity of principle for the rules and purpose for the situation, then creativity comes into play. The rules might prohibit us from having this event on campus as it is currently designed, but perhaps if we found a way to redesign the event, it would fit within the rules. The clarity of principle and purpose allows us ways to find solutions to these kinds of problems.

The leader’s tasks then become making sure organization members understand the underlying principles and creating an environment which supports creativity in applying the rules to varied situations. The environment also needs to be comfortable for individuals to make suggestions about redefining rules to meet those changing circumstances.

Working creatively within the rules really is possible for all of us when we are clear about the principles behind the rules and the purposes for the activities we want to do. Helping organizational members find this clarity and be creative is a critical leadership task. So, where have you creatively (and legitimately) found a way to do something when the rules were working against you?

All the best,

Gage

"One hundred percent of the shots you don't take, don't go in." Wayne Gretzky

As I write this, I’m listening to a CD by Susan Boyle. In case you don’t remember, she is the woman who became a YouTube sensation after she blew everyone away on Britain’s Got Talent. It’s a fitting CD to listen to now since I had the idea today to write on the subject of risk-taking.

What is risky varies for each of us – I can speak in front of a large audience with no qualms. I can perform a ballroom dance in front of friends or strangers without hesitation. Sing a solo anywhere outside of the car, no way! As I listen to this soaring voice through the speakers, I think of Ms. Boyle standing in front of an audience prepared to laugh at her because of her looks. I don’t know if she saw it as a risk or not when she stepped out on that stage, and some might say she had little to lose, but at the very least she was risking her dream. When you think about it that is not a little risk at all!

Where are you in your ability to take risks, large or small? Both creativity and leadership are risky ventures. Both require us to imagine a different reality for ourselves, our department, or our organization and then to step out onto one kind of stage or another and try to make change happen. Once we try to make a change, we have risked failure. We have also risked success which sometimes is even scarier! To be a creative leader – one who can envision another way and help move the change forward – we have to take risks.

To undertake this leadership task, it helps to have a clear understanding of our willingness to risk, our tolerance for the messiness and conflict of any change effort, and our ability to help others. We also need to have an appreciation for those factors as experienced by others who will be impacted. Perhaps most important, we need to have an ability to stick it out through the entire process until we truly know whether or not we have succeeded. Change takes time and we need to be committed to a longer time frame than we might be used to. Just think about your New Year’s resolutions if you aren’t sure what I mean! (FYI, I Googled “change efforts” and the first listing was entitled “Leading Change: Why transformation efforts fail”. http://www.power-projects.com/LeadingChange.pdf)

Susan Boyle risked her dream and now has a number one CD to her credit and it has sold over three million copies. What dream or idea do you have? What change can you envision for yourself or your organization? What’s stopping you from giving it a try? Is your assessment of the risk accurate? Find a trusted friend or colleague and talk with them about it. For most of us the risk is not as big as we might imagine. I had the idea to do a blog for quite a while, but I wouldn’t start. I told myself it would take too much time, but it was really more about the risk of looking foolish. What if no one reads it? Well, I finally figured out no one could read it if I didn’t write it and so I started. Some people are reading, a few are kind enough to tell me they enjoy it and get something useful. And now I have a few followers who are people I don’t even know! (Welcome to each of you!) And all I had to do was step out onto this stage and see what happened. Turns out to be quite fun and not scary at all.

So - what risks are you avoiding? Maybe there’s a small one you can try and see what good things might happen. And then why not use the comment section to share your story, so we can all share your good news.

Good luck,

Gage

A New Year's Challenge

Are you thinking about a resolution for New Year’s? Many of us say we don’t, but we still think of the new year as a chance to change things, to get things right, or do things differently. We say we don’t do resolutions because we never keep them. Usually, of course, the problem is that we have too many resolutions because we’re going to ‘fix’ everything this year.

But I have a suggestion for you as a way to support any changes you do want to make this year. It’s something from Julia Cameron’s books and it’s a simple tool though it does take a commitment. The tool is called ‘Morning Pages’. All you need is a spiral notebook or blank filler paper and a pen. Each ‘morning’ you sit down and write out long hand (no computer) until you fill three pages. Fill three pages with what you ask? It doesn’t matter. Just write. About anything, anything at all. It’s whatever is on your mind. Keep your pen moving until you’ve filled through pages.

For some of you the idea of writing like this will make you a little crazy. For folks like me the idea of getting up a half hour early to fit this in will be the stumbling point. But I’ve been doing this for seven or eight years. I haven’t been constant. There have been long stretches of time when I didn’t want to mess with it. But I keep coming back to writing my morning pages. Here are some of the benefits for me when I do Morning Pages faithfully.

• A better start to each day.
• I feel more grounded.
• I accomplish more over time.
• I find answers to questions and solutions to problems.
• I’m more creative.
• I do my job better.
• I live my priorities better.
• I live my values more clearly.

It isn’t really magic, but there are times when it feels as if it were magical. I know that I miss doing the pages when I don’t do them for some reason. I know the ups and downs of life are easier to manage when I am doing them. And I know that I am braver in both my leadership and my creativity when I do my morning pages regularly. If you are looking for a way to keep yourself going on your resolutions or if you want a way to be a bit more creative or any other change you want to make, I have no doubt this tool will help you.

If you are interested in learning more, here’s a site http://paperartstudio.tripod.com/artistsway/id3.html that will help explain it. This is one of those things that you have to try in order to understand, that you have to commit to for a while before you experience the changes. But after all that’s true of any change we want to make isn’t it. It doesn’t cost much, it doesn’t hurt, and you don’t have to give up much (just a little sleep) to start. Already that makes it better than most New Year’s resolutions, doesn’t it? Good luck if you decide to give it a try and either way I hope you have a very Happy New Year!

Gage

Planning vs. Creativity

For years I was a planner; planning is my natural tendency, but my work also required orderly thinking and the ability to manage and design processes. It was important for me to know that I was going to end at point X and to know all of the steps along the way. Then I began to read Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. As I read this book and others I began to broaden my definition of creativity and to understand how the need to plan every detail got in the way of my creativity on two levels.

A breakthrough came when I had the notion for the Creative Leadership Workshop. I had this cool idea for a 12 week workshop for students modeled on The Artist’s Way, but with a different purpose. I wanted to find a way to combine what I was learning about creativity with leadership. It was early August and classes started in just a couple of weeks, so I could work on it during the fall semester and offer the sessions in the spring.

And that’s when I had the truly radical idea that instead of waiting I could do it now! Of course, the planner part of me kicked in with all the reasons that it wouldn’t work to do it this semester, but for once I ignored them. I sketched out the basic ideas and went back to the office ready to try it. So I invited a group of students to participate and 20 of them were brave or crazy enough to give it try. When we started, I had an outline of what we would do though I had no idea which things would work and which were too crazy. The workshop turned out to be an incredible experience and the list of things we all learned is much too long to share here, but part of the reason it worked so well was because there was room for new ideas as we went along. It’s also true that my idea of success was much too limited for what really happened.

So that was the first level of learning – it’s possible for things to work without a plan. Having the outline but not the plan allowed for more learning than I could have imagined.

The second level came when I offered the workshop again. I’ve offered the full workshop three other times, once for staff and twice more for students. The staff group was a great event, but the second and third sessions of the student version were never as amazing as the first. I think it was because I now had a lesson plan; I was reaching for a specific result now. I had told the first group that we were making it up together and that they were part of the creative process so they approached it in that way. It was a truly participative experience. Not having a complete plan allowed others the freedom to be creative too.

Creativity – it takes an odd mix of planning, freedom, openness to other’s ideas and to the possibilities of the moment. So what event might you chose not to plan?

Making Time

This weekend I’ve already made a double batch of chocolate chip cookies and the plan for today includes a double batch of thumbprint cookies – the kind you put jam in. If you know anything about my domestic inclinations (they are few in number), you know that cookie making signals the end of the fall semester. It’s the one time of the year that I find time to bake.

‘Find time to bake.’ It’s such an interesting phrase isn’t it? Equally intriguing is its cousin ‘to make time.’ We hear people wishing for more than 24 hours in the day or saying they don’t have enough time to accomplish everything on their list let alone add something. We also know people who seem to have more time than others, at least based on what they accomplish, and we wonder if they ever sleep.

One of the realities about time that I’ve learned over the years is that we find time for the things that are important to us. But that only works when we are clear about our values, and yes, when we exercise a little self discipline. I have a busy schedule and a long commute and yet you’ll see a dance lesson on my weekly schedule and frequently time out dancing with friends. Dancing is important to me. Reading is important which is why you might find me reading while I blow dry my hair in the morning. My work consumes many hours and time with my husband is important so I try to be sure we find time to do things together even if it’s running errands.

What’s important to you? Do you make sure it fits into your week? Spend a little of that precious time reviewing the way you spend your time and be honest with yourself. When you look at the list, do you say ‘yes, my actions match my values’ or do you realize instead that what you say is important doesn’t match where you spend your time?

Now, what do you want to do about it? What are you willing to change? Where are you willing to ‘make’ time which really means where are you willing to change how you use your time. If you say you don’t have time for exercise, maybe spending less time on Facebook will ‘make’ time for exercise. Spending more time with family could create opportunities for exercise if you spend that time on a bicycle or a walk. At work, you may find that the way you are answering e-mail gets in the way of reading new information on-line. It is different for each of us and does indeed take creativity to make it all work.
Take a little time to make a little time next time you hear yourself saying you can’t find time. While you may not find all the time in the world, you may find you have time enough to do just what is important to you.

Keep making time,

Gage

Easy Does It

Nearly four years ago, I had an idea for a book. I loved this idea – it brought together many things I enjoy and am interested in. As an added bonus, it let me talk with my colleagues all over the country and learn from them. It’s a good idea for a good book, if I do say so myself. I invited 50 people to talk with me and 30 of them said yes. So, in the summer of 2006, I interviewed them and during the summer and fall I transcribed the interviews. I was on a roll. Then in December, I accepted a new position. We moved in January and I started the new job in February. And the work on the book slowed down – imagine that.

But I keep coming back to it. I still love the idea. I have a complete draft now and this fall, I’ve been brave enough to let some people read it. They tell me two important things I need to know, both of which I know in my heart of hearts but need to hear from someone else: ‘It’s good. Keep going.’ and ‘It needs work. Keep going.’

I find the editing and rewriting part of writing part of a book to be the hardest part. It feels overwhelming. I’m very lucky that the people who have read it have given me concrete suggestions both large and small. The task for this weekend was to get started on ‘fixing the book’ and it’s now 5:00 p. m. on Sunday and somehow, I’ve been busy all weekend!

Finally, I remembered what I know, something I’ve learned from many talented people – pick one task and do it. I wrote about this last week as a way to cope with a limitless list. This practice is at least as important as a way to make progress on a creative project. In the same way a list that’s too long can be managed by focusing on one task, a project that is too big can be started by picking one little part to work on.

I can’t find the citation, but I’m certain it’s Julia Cameron who wrote that we misunderstand the phrase ‘Easy does it.’ We use it to mean take it easy. But when read literally, it means that easy gets it done. We don’t have to cart the entire wheelbarrow full of our project all the way up the hill in one trip; undertaking a few little pieces of the project at a time will work just as well.

I don’t have to rewrite an entire book this weekend, I just have to find one piece and take care of it. Easy does it. Easy will get it done. What great idea are you ignoring because you don’t have time to get it done today? Where might you make some progress if you gave your self permission to take it easy?

Take care,

Gage

Coloring Between the LInes

When I lead a workshop on Creative Leadership, one of my favorite exercises is one that often perplexes people at first. I spread out a selection of mandalas, ask them to choose one that interests them and take it home to color. [“Mandalas (the name comes from the Sanskrit word for circle) are symmetrical geometric designs, usually enclosed within a circle, a square or a rectangle, that serve as…focal points for meditation.” Mandala Designs by Martha Bartfeld.] Workshop participants take their choice home and color it. It’s fascinating to see the varied reactions to this assignment. Some are gleeful – the idea of coloring takes them right back to happy memories. Some are skeptical – why in the world should they find time to color. But the exercise does have a purpose and many potential benefits.

If people are asked about being creative in their work environment, my experience is that they give many reasons why it’s not possible, but the most common is some variant on 'it won’t work': bureaucracy, rules, time, money, an entire list of constraints that make creativity impossible. Of course all those constraints do exist. No matter the size of the organization, mammoth bureaucracy or mom-and-pop shop, there are constraints. Outside of work, there are just as many barriers: time, family, chores. The list can feel endless and it’s real; the sky is rarely the limit. There truly are always constraints. And that’s the point of the mandala exercise – to practice creativity within the barriers, to color within the lines.

Piers Ibbotson in The Illusion of Leadership: Directing Creativity in Business and the Arts says it this way, “Necessity is the mother of invention; if we are not working up against some resistance, if we are not up against some sort of boundary, then we are not creative.” In fact, according to Ibbotson, defining those boundaries is a critical leadership task. “Creative leaders need to be able to identify, articulate and express constraints that provoke the team to creative responses….Describing the nature of the boundaries in the right way allows us to control the direction of the effort while allowing sufficient space for the unexpected or the superb to emerge.”

The mandala exercise has several purposes. On one level it is to encourage workshop participants to remember how it feels to be childlike in the sense of being open to new ideas and willing to try something without worrying about the result. There’s no 8right or wrong and no grade or evaluation. On another level, when participants are willing to spend a little time on this, it is a door to some quiet time in their busy lives. Most of all though, this exercise is an illustration of Ibbotson’s point and as participants see the amazing results of their work and that of their colleagues, it becomes clear that great creativity, in some cases great beauty, can appear in spite of and because of the constraints defined by the lines on the page.

So, the next time you hear yourself complaining about the limits you face, stop for a moment and reframe those limits as opportunities for creativity. If you can’t do ‘this’, what might you do instead to reach your goal? When the rules won’t let you do ‘that’, what might you do within the rules to help you attain your purpose? If you are in a leadership role and have to enforce the rules, your task becomes finding a way to help people see the opportunities for creativity. Coloring between the lines doesn’t have to be limiting, it can be the basis for great beauty, for “the unexpected or the superb to emerge.”

Keep coloring,

Gage

The mandalas at the top are some I colored several summers ago. They are from the book Mandalas for Meditation edited by Zoe Frances.

"Curiosity is the key to creativity." Akio Morita

Last week I wrote about curiosity. Over the past few years, I’ve come to understand that curiosity’s companion, creativity, is also an essential part of effective leadership.

I know how some of you are reacting as you read that because I’ve seen and heard so many reactions in workshops when I bring up this topic. And, to be honest, those scoffing noises would have been coming from me not so long ago. Some time ago I said to Peter, my husband, that I was not creative and he looked at me in surprise, saying ‘when someone brings you a problem you come up with 15 different solutions; you’re one of the most creative people I know.’ My response was that’s not creativity, that’s just problem-solving. Of course, what is obvious in this story to everyone but me is that we have to be creative to solve problems! I share this story now, and when I teach my workshop on Creative Leadership, because it is just one example of the many ways we define creativity so that it doesn’t apply to us.

Thanks to Peter’s insights and the many books of Julia Cameron, I’ve come to understand creativity in a much broader way and to agree with Cameron that all of us are creative. Some of us squelch aspects of it, some of us nurture it, but all of us have creativity, are creative. In her book Walking in the World: The Practical Art of Creativity, (notice the word in the subtitle, Practical, that’s putting creativity to work), Cameron says this, “Creativity is inspiration coupled with initiative…”* Sounds like another good definition for good leadership.

Like curiosity, we need creativity in our organizations. We need people to wonder, we need people who are willing to imagine new ways to do tasks, new ways to be together, new ways to serve. Part of the job of a leader is to imagine the way things could be – we usually call that having vision – but it sounds like creativity to me. Part of the job of a leader is creating (there’s that word again) an environment that encourages curiosity and imagining and wondering. Instead of finding that scary, a true leader is willing to put some energy behind new possibilities. A true leader might even get out of the way and let others initiate change.

Have you felt an urge to be creative lately? Did you squelch it or nurture it? If you find yourself squelching your creativity, Julia Cameron suggests we try one little change that we’ve been wanting to make. It could be a new picture in your home, a new color in your wardrobe or a new way of organizing your desk. It’s all creativity. Remember what movie director Frank Capra said, “A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something.” So next time, listen carefully to what your creativity is trying to tell you. I truly believe that bringing our creative selves to our organizational life will, over time, improve life for everyone.

Keep dancing (and creating),

Gage

*Walking in the World: The Practical Art of Creativity, Julia Cameron, 2002