Linda Naiman's Whole Brain Thinking workshop

This week I am attending Linda Naiman's "Whole Brain Thinking: Cultivate 21st Century Creativity & Leadership" at Royal Roads U. It is a full two-day workshop examining creativity, neuroscience and the enterprise, starting with change at the personal level.

We started with the statement "If you always know everything, you never learn." It is challenging to seek out your own assumptions and biases at the best of times. When it comes to the personal space of creativity, where many feel insecure, emotional ties to ideas can run high. To then attempt to bring a holistic mindset of possibilities into an organization can seem like career suicide.

Yet disruptors - technology, visionary, social - mean the 21st century is a marketplace about possibilities. To not explore innovative and alternative ideas /mindsets /approaches is the real bringer-down-of-thrones.

I am not entirely sure what an enterprise model for innovation and creativity could look like from a practical standpoint. It will need to be begin with changing behaviours and expectations that imagination should be part of our job descriptions in every case /level /industry. Our concepts of R&D need to be challenged. We need a common lexicon. We might both say "blue" (innovation) and see different shades /meanings. The model will need buy-in at the top and bottom. It will require trust and autonomy. It will mean guidelines and not rules.

Just thinking about the possibilities is making me itch to figure it out!

Creativity is literacy

Creativity is not a luxury. It is the heart of problem solving. It is the soul of ideas. Creativity makes both music and mathematics become art forms instead of remaining as skill sets.

Creativity is literacy in its highest form.

UNESCO has been busy analyzing and ranking the areas of their work by priority, with those areas that receive the lowest ranking being marked for elimination. The Creativity programme, within which arts education falls, was ranked at the very bottom of UNESCO's 48 priority areas and is at risk of elimination. Sign the petition if you can.

And please keep creativity alive, encouraged and cherished everywhere.

Creativity

Everyone is creative. Everyone.

Keep in mind that there are two kinds of creativity:

1 – Bringing to light something net new /something from nothing – fewer of us do this

2 – Evolving something new from something existing – all of us do this

Problem solving is creativity. Advice is sharing past creativity. Mentoring reflects creativity.

Robin Altman of Radiate Coaching has a great video outlining the difference between creativity (problem solving) and being artistic (a talent like the ability to dance well).

Everyone can get better at creativity and everyone has the capability to develop their talents. Not all of us will evolve talent from chopsticks to Carnegie Hall… but there are many milestones between the two spaces.

When a mentoree (or mentor) says: “I can’t”… maybe they really mean: “I’m scared.” If you have passion for the subject, chances are you can advance your ability. Ask “why” or “why not?”  That simple conversation alone will lead to more creativity in your approach.