Before & After : Creative thinking in business

I now understand the reason for Rudy Giuliani’s snazzy hair style. You can’t have vision with hair in your eyes.

I’ve often equated vision with imagination. So, I guess we now know the secret to extraordinary creativeness.

The former New York City Mayor was stumping in my city over the weekend. The gist of his remarks, if I trust my local newspaper, was vision.

According to the Providence Journal, “Leadership, (says) Giuliani, who wrote a book by that title, has two ingredients: a vision, and the ability to execute that vision.

If you’re all vision and no execution, you’re a philosopher, (Giuliani continued,…) Are you all execution and no vision? Then, he suggested, you should work for somebody with vision.” (He wasn’t recruiting campaign drones, was he?)

I don’t care about your political leanings, only the first two paragraphs into this article and there’s a lot of wisdom for those of us always trying to hone our creative edge.

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A former media director of mine started her advertising career at a big New York ad agency on the US Postal Service account. In a feat of heroics, late one evening this resourceful rookie overnighted an important package to her client, only to get a call from the Postmaster General himself the next morning asking to speak with the SOB who had sent a package to postal HQ via Federal Express.

Today, only a few short decades after this powerful fellow made a federal case out of the above ordeal, now the US Postal Service uses FedEx themselves when it absolutely, positively can’t be delivered to foreign address in 2 days or less.

A strange partnership?

That’s sorta my point, if this slightly gargantuan, 200+ year old institution can be open minded enough to see where they can’t deliver to their public, so to speak, and can make the right strategic alliances to fill around their limitations, then what the heck is stopping you’re slightly less bureaucratic organization from figuring out such dilemmas. (more…)

It’s not this simple, and it’s absolutely this simple. The reason a huge proportion of people in business are frustrated, creatively, is because there simply aren’t enough jobs where creative thinking is highly valued.

Think about it. Most people who use their minds to make a living have strong desire to have their ideas heard and accepted. Most jobs don’t offer this. Almost all companies offer jobs that are creatively fulfilling. At most companies, however, those jobs make up a pathetically small percent.

The good news is for managers. If you can offer a fertile creative environment, you get the pick of the litter among the workforce.

The bad news is that it’s extremely competitive for this relatively small pool of jobs, so that too many people are on the outside looking in. (more…)

We all have it. The creative block. The Immovable object that gets in the way of us realizing our best ideas. Maybe you have a lot of them. But what’s the biggie?

It could be a negative force from the outside; people you work with or for, a company’s low tolerance for fresh ideas, industry regulations, whatever. Or it could be what psychologists call inner driven limits; self judgment, fear of failure,… I don’t know, fear of success.

What is it that inhibits you creatively? I’ve been asking this question of people and organizations for years. I’d love to hear from you. If you’re not the type to leave comments at a blog, check out the poll I kicked off last week in my eNewsletter. The poll takes less and a minute.

If you’re leaving a comment, tell us the things that discourage, limit, prevent fresh ideas in your professional dealings. Don’t get too specific with proper nouns. Even cruel, evil people have feelings. And lawyers.

I’ll publish the poll results after I’ve heard enough of your quantifiable bitching. All this may give me some material for future blog posts too.

You know my favorite way of being creative?

Bumblebee sex.

You’ve seen bumblebees going from flower to flower. They think they’re sampling the buffet of sweet nectars from the garden. The flowers know better. They’re creating.

That’s pretty much how I like to work out a creative challenge. Or better yet, a few challenges at once. (I’d guess I’m drafting 6 or 8 blog posts at this very time.)

Besides being one of the most effective and efficient paths to fresh ideas, and in spite of it’s seeming on-again/off-again appearance, this method is also a pretty fast way to find creative solutions. And in these time-pressed times, who isn’t looking for a way to manitain creative quality. (more…)

So far the leading contender for top prize in the coloring inside the lines, guitar case history contest is Marge Simpson on the French Riveria by Sue Sward.

See my “What do you see” post below for contest rules and other fun entires.

I told yuz I wuz offering extra points for color.

(“So now it’s a contest, heh?”)

What is the best creative path?

I’ve often thought of how we can best realize our creative potential. Do we do it by focusing our energies in a single area of creative practice? Or is it better to sample a smorgasbord of creative activity?

For years as an advertising creative director I doled out the same advice to all the kids who said they’d do anything to get into the industry. “Hey, you better figure out what you want to be.” I’d tell them, “Because if I can choose from someone who is focused and putting all their energies into, say, art direction, I’ll take that person over the flounderer who ‘will do anything’ most every time”

Now I have a nephew about to embark on a career. He’s a film and animation major. But he’s also a graphic designer, a photographer, a DJ, a music composer, an actor and singer. And, did I mention that he’s very good at all of them? (That’s him above, Michael Langan, in a frame from his demo reel.) So, what should I tell him? (more…)

I used to conduct creative camps back when I first got into the creative coaching field. These camps were more about personal creativity than creative thinking in business, but, the majority of attendees were people from the business world, so I guess it’s okay for me to use one of our camp exercies to make a point at this blog.

This exercise I intermittently called “guitar case history” or “coloring inside the lines.” In the exercise I’d give participants a worksheet and a box of crayons. The worksheet had a dozen guitar case outlines, each at different angles; each with a little number next to it, 1 - 12. The assignment: what do you see in this shape? (See worksheet and various executions below.) (more…)

One of the best gifts I got this Christmas is Twyla Tharp’s “The Creative Habit.”

Like most good self-development books, the premise is very simple and speaks to a universal truth: you want to create more, create more often. Like, everyday.

Of course, most of us know this. But do we practice it? I mean do we really practice it?

For Twyla Tharp the daily canvas is her “white room,” as she calls the dance studio where she starts every creative project; alone, only accompanied by the potential of a great dance. What’s your canvas? Are you working at it daily to stay sharp? (more…)

Let’s see, we’re leaving 2006 and SNL’s “____ in a box” and we’re looking forward to 2007 and CBS’s “Armed & famous.”

This is progress?

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