41 Comments to “Mini-Session 3: Five Things about Creativity”

1. March 12th, 2007 at 10:02 am
   Char said

   Mark - what are some activities you can do to get through a non-creative streak?

2. March 12th, 2007 at 10:03 am
   Mark McGuinness said

   Hi Liz, good question! I think it’s important for businesses to think about whether they REALLY want to prioritise creativity, and in what context.

   It’s easy to talk about creativity as a nice-to-have quality, but you really need to think about what kind of creativity you’re looking to promote, and what the implications are for other aspects of the business - like risk management!

3. March 12th, 2007 at 10:05 am
   Roger von Oech said

   Hi Mark,

   I’m out here on the West Coast trying to break through into Daylight Savings Time.

   What is the first sestina that comes to mind? (What is a sestina?)

   Roger

4. March 12th, 2007 at 10:07 am
   Steli said

   Mark - do you have any activity that triggers the “creativity state” for you? I noticed that if I consume a ton of information for a couple of days and then take a day off. Not thinking about anything important…just doing fun stuff…ideas start to come from “nowhere” and I can´t stop it. That way I learned to have always a notebook with me ;)

5. March 12th, 2007 at 10:08 am
   Mark McGuinness said

   Hi Char, ‘activity’ is a key word here - I find that if I keep playing around with ideas, or even get on with some mundane tasks related to the project, that helps the inspiration to start flowing.

   Physical activity is another good way of jolting your system into a different gear - it feels good and often triggers a new idea or insight. A change of scene is another good one - either a quick break from sitting at your desk or a longer one with palm trees and sea… :-)

6. March 12th, 2007 at 10:10 am
   Karin said

   Hi all

   Steli, you’re like me, notebooks everywhere!
   (Strang though, ‘best’ ideas I mostly get when I ‘retreat’ to the ‘wash-my-hands’ room)

   Mark, any ideas/thought on Eduardo de Bono? I ahve the big chance of going to a workshop of him next month

7. March 12th, 2007 at 10:11 am
   Mark McGuinness said

   Hi Roger, funnily enough I’ve been writing a sestina this week so that’s the first one that comes to mind for me!

   FYI a sestina = ’six rhymes’ in Italian. It’s a traditional form with 6 verses of 6 lines, and the same 6 words appear at the end of each line in a different order in each verse. If that sounds complicated it’s because it is! They can be fiendishly difficult but terrific fun to write! More about the sestina on wikipedia.

8. March 12th, 2007 at 10:12 am
   Carolyn Manning said

   Hi everyone,

   I also like Roger’s idea to work with random thoughts.

9. March 12th, 2007 at 10:15 am
   Karin said

   Random thoughts as in association ‘game’ (not sure if that the correct word used in English, it is in Dutch though)

10. March 12th, 2007 at 10:16 am
    Mark McGuinness said

    Hi Steli - yes taking a break is good, as long as you’ve done some work beforehand! :-)

    I often say that the difference between procrastination and creative incubation is that procrastination happens BEFORE hard work and incubation happens AFTER it!

    There are lots of ways to change your state - taking a break, physical activity (as per my reply to Char) are common-sense solutions. Hypnosis is a not-so-common option that also works very well. I think most creative people are actually very good at self-hypnosis without realising it…

11. March 12th, 2007 at 10:17 am
    Carolyn Manning said

    Mmm, that’s not the way I originally understood it, but, hey, it’s a great idea.

12. March 12th, 2007 at 10:18 am
    Ellen Weber said

    Mark, these are real keepers thanks. I especially liked… “What’s obvious to you is original to others – you’re often at your most creative when you stop trying to be original and say the first thing that comes into your mind.”

    Seems to me that also speaks to what I do behind the scenes of my life - so that when I need to dip and draw the idea - that pool is fast, fresh and free!

    My, leave it to Liz to get us all up and rolling with all this mental chemistry and electricity on a Monday morning.

    Thanks Mark for giving me a new reach today!

13. March 12th, 2007 at 10:19 am
    Roger von Oech said

    Thanks for the info.

    Have you thought about writing a sestina dedicated to the comments on your SOB Hour?

    Should I be looking for same on “Wishful Thinking” later in the week? http://www.wishfulthinking.co.uk/blog/

    BTW, you’ve got a wonderful blog. I still think of your post last December about “Enthusiasm.”

14. March 12th, 2007 at 10:21 am
    Mark McGuinness said

    Hi Karin, de Bono has some excellent ideas. I particularly like his Six Thinking Hats - you’re probably familiar with this - where each one corresponds to a different type of thinking. For maximum creatvity you can experiment with several different hats to see what different perspectives they give you.

    Another excellent creative thinking model that uses similar prinicples has been devised by a certain Roger von Oech ;-) - he suggests that at different stages of the creative process you need to adopt the mindset of the Explorer, Judge, Warrior or Artist.

15. March 12th, 2007 at 10:22 am
    Robyn McMaster said

    Mark, you’ve shared some excellent tips. I’m interested to know more of what you mean by “the best managers [manage] the creative process for others?

16. March 12th, 2007 at 10:23 am
    Sandy Renshaw said

    Wow - the sestina looks fun and difficult. Bet we’ll see a sestina contest soon…

    Can you talk more about the random thoughts?

17. March 12th, 2007 at 10:25 am
    Mark McGuinness said

    Thanks Ellen - re the obvious quote I should acknowledge Deborah Frances-White, who’s an excellent improvisation teacher here in London. I was getting stuck on an improvised scene and she told me to ‘just say the obvious, your obvious is your talent’ - I think that applies to so many situations. Her website is: http://www.the-spontaneity-shop.com

18. March 12th, 2007 at 10:27 am
    Mark McGuinness said

    ha ha Roger maybe I should have a go at the ‘comments sestina’, it’s a busy week though so may not manage it very quickly… thanks for the kind words re Wishful Thinking

19. March 12th, 2007 at 10:30 am
    Ellen Weber said

    Thanks Mark - I was linking it more to intrapersonal intelligence - which is part of each of us and is the knowing that occurs and is developed inside us. Thanks to amazing new studies - they now see in MRIs that we develop and grow this intelligence well past senior years. Cool! It also affirms your words:-)

20. March 12th, 2007 at 10:32 am
    Mark McGuinness said

    Hi Robyn, sure that’s a bit of a hobby horse of mine - I think managers don’t always get the credit they deserve for facilitating creativity in others. We tend to glamorize the ‘artist’ and often don’t notice the role a manager (or director, or producer) has played in the creative process.

    I’ve been doing a research project around this, interviewing managers in creative businesses (advertising, film, computer games etc.) about how they get the best out of their creative teams - the podcasts are here: http://www.wishfulthinking.co.uk/research

21. March 12th, 2007 at 10:36 am
    Roger von Oech said

    These are the word endings for the same-used six words in different stanzas (from Wikipedia)

    stanza 1: 1 2 3 4 5 6
    stanza 2: 6 1 5 2 4 3
    stanza 3: 3 6 4 1 2 5
    stanza 4: 5 3 2 6 1 4
    stanza 5: 4 5 1 3 6 2
    stanza 6: 2 4 6 5 3 1

    Mark, this is like a magic number square. Amazing!

    I know you’re a big advocate of using constraints to stimulate the creative process. This is almost like creative wrestling while wearing a straight-jacket. If you can do this (write sestinas), you can probably handle almost any constraint. Indeed, ordinary problem-problem solving must seem like a cake walk after a 2-hour sestina writing session! (How many metaphors was that?)

22. March 12th, 2007 at 10:38 am
    Ellen Weber said

    Mark, I am VERY interested in your findings - can you elaborate a bit more? Did you see the new work about creative people not thanking managers in this month’s Harvard Business review?

    http://www.brainbasedbusiness.com/2007/03/clever_people_wont_thank_leade_1.html

23. March 12th, 2007 at 10:39 am
    Mark McGuinness said

    Sandy - Roger has a great post about random thoughts acting as an ‘oracle’: http://blog.creativethink.com/2007/01/use_a_random_id.html

    I think horoscopes tend to work in the same way - they prompt us to look at our lives from a different angle, and to notice aspects that wouldn’t normally be evident. (I guess this is the inverse of the line about ‘looking for the obvious’ :-) )

24. March 12th, 2007 at 10:45 am
    Mark McGuinness said

    Ellen - very interesting stuff! Both the ‘intrapersonal intelligence’ and HBR piece about ungrateful creatives.

    By the way I discovered your blog last week, it looks fascinating, I need to have a good look around. You’re doing a great job of making neuroscience accessible to people in business.

    Re my findings - I’ll be publishing the research paper as a free download on my blog soon. But one of the things several of the interviewees said was that they had never really talked about the issues I was raising - management tends to be ‘in the background’ while the creatives hog the limelight.

    I think a good manager can have a tremendous influence on employees’ creativity through their day-to-day interactions. E.g. helping them focus on goals, setting meaningful challenges and deadlines (see Roger’s comment about constraints), asking probing questions, listening attentively and giving feedback. I’ve just started a blog series introducing business coaching, where I’ll go into this in more detail.

25. March 12th, 2007 at 10:47 am
    Mark McGuinness said

    Roger - yes the sestina is magical isn’t it? A lot of the magic of poetry comes from the formal patterns made by the words - one reason I love sonnets, sestinas, villanelles, ghazals etc.

    It can be a bit of a straight-jacket - or (to mix in another metaphor) it can be a bit like a dance. I sometimes think of the sestina as a folk dance, in which the words line up and dance around each other.

26. March 12th, 2007 at 10:48 am
    Sandy Renshaw said

    This is intriguing.

    Do you think you can manage what time of day creativity happens? I tend to be creative at night… which doesn’t always work well for scheduling.:-(

27. March 12th, 2007 at 10:52 am
    Mark McGuinness said

    Sandy - I think daily rhythms can have a big influence on creativity, although I find it easier to notice when I’m naturally at my most creative and schedule round that rather than try to change the pattern.

    I’m most creative in the morning, so I tend to get up early to write and schedule meetings for late morning or afternoons. I’m full of admiration for anyone who can come up with an original thought after 6pm!

28. March 12th, 2007 at 10:53 am
    Karin said

    As we are supposed to bring a link ;-)
    Roger, you might be interested in Kent’s series on good management on his blog:
    http://kentblumberg.typepad.com/kent_blumberg/
    (He’s at element 10 at the moment, two more to go, but read them all, it’s worth it)

29. March 12th, 2007 at 10:55 am
    Sandy Renshaw said

    LOL - and I admire those of you who think well at 6 am. If I work through the night I’m good then! Thanks. Great stuff in this session.

30. March 12th, 2007 at 11:00 am
    Carolyn Manning said

    I feel like such a lurker, but sometimes it’s better to let others do the talking. Sandy’s right; wonderful stuff in this hour.

31. March 12th, 2007 at 11:01 am
    Mark McGuinness said

    Karin - thanks for the link, Kent writes some excellent posts on management.

    Ellen - just looked at your post re ‘not thanking’. I think there’s some truth in that, although I wouldn’t say it applies to everyone. If you’re going to be an outstanding performer I think you need a certain independence of mind.

    On the other hand I think there are lots of ways a manager can help a high achiever and have a good working relationship with them. High achievers love to be challenged and stimulated, they also love attention and being made to feel special - so there’s plenty of opportunity for setting inspiring goals (challenge), using questions and feedback (stimulation) and active listening (attention) to get the best out of them.

    Personally I love working with high achievers - they’re stimulating to work with, and usually have an interesting angle on things.

32. March 12th, 2007 at 11:02 am
    Mark McGuinness said

    Ha ha good job Liz didn’t ask me to do this in the evening, I might have been lost for words…

33. March 12th, 2007 at 11:04 am
    Mark McGuinness said

    Hi Carolyn, nice to see you here!

34. March 12th, 2007 at 11:07 am
    Steli said

    Yes of course!
    Hypnosis is a great way to tap into untouched resources within us! As far as I can tell - no musician is in a conscious state while writing AND playing music!

35. March 12th, 2007 at 11:10 am
    Mark McGuinness said

    Steli - it certainly looks that way to me, they often show lots of signs of being in deep trance!

36. March 12th, 2007 at 11:45 am
    GP said

    i have found that creativity is created for me, when I’m doing a physical activity, getting away from it… riding the horse running; even sometimes just getting up away from the computer and doing some inn-cleaning.
    Lots of ahas!

    Off to ride the Thoroughbred for some more unprecedented opportunities for creativity
    GP in Montana

37. March 12th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
    Mark McGuinness said

    Hi GP - if only I had a horse here in London! Getting up from the computer is often a great start though…

38. March 12th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
    Yoav said

    Hi all,

    My 2c about managers not getting thanked by creative people:

    If you are a good manager than you understand that the biggest “thank you” can get from creative people is that they continue to work with you. Creative people have many options if you are not a good manager that they appreciate they will go to work with someone else.

    As my chairman always says - “I made millions by pampering Prima-donnas”

39. March 12th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
    Mark McGuinness said

    Thanks Yoav - good point and a great quote!

40. March 13th, 2007 at 10:45 am
    PDF to Excel conversion and other stuff » 17 Mostly Useful Links that Will Increase Your Blogging Powers said

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41. March 16th, 2007 at 3:05 am
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