Stimulating Creative Flow... with Toys

It may sound ironic that participants comprising of senior managment from various organisations expecting to glean some applications on how to improve organisational innovation in my recent China's 创新与创造力研讨会, ended up having most fun and learnings from playing with the toys.

Feedback to the seminar included the following:

- 通过发散性思维进行关联创新 Through brainstorming to make new connections

- Through experiential learning the success of seminar lies in "value creation"

- Creative association and case study

- 通过互动性的交流，能调动大家积极性 Able to dynamically stimulate and engage everyone

- 互动环节 (Interactive components) helps to market futurised concept game

With such a diverse group all with different learning needs, I thought that a good way to trigger creative thoughts would be through the use of simple stimulus so that everyone can share their varied experiences all leading to the same understanding of making new connections as a creative strategy. What I observed, however, was that through the function of the learning content, the context of such an event, the activity of the learners, and perhaps most importantly, the goals of individual learners, I noted that somehow, cognition was distributed.

Interestingly, the group's interaction with the toys led to a sort of "puzzlement" as being the stimulus for learning and this somewhat readily suggests both intellectual and pragmatic goals for learning for all. In a collaborative manner, the activity served as a mechanism for enriching, interweaving and expanding everyone's understanding of the particular issue I posed as the challenge. Just as Lebrow (1993) talked about shift in values when one takes a constructivist perspective, he noted that "the seven primary constructivist values of collaboration, personal autonomy, generativity, reflectivity, active engagement, personal relevance and pluralism (1993,p.5)."

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi questions the how creativity the place of creativity and highlighted that "creativity does not happen inside people's heads, but in the interaction between a person's thoughts and a sociocultural context (1996, p.23). " He also proposes that "centers of creativity tend to be at the intersection of different cultures, where beliefs, lifestyles, and knowledge mingle and allow individuals to see new combinations of ideas with a greater ease", the activity was in my view effective to arouse this creative cognitive distribution. Further, just as there was time to allow individuals to work on their problems by toying with the stimulus, the 'aha' was more visible after a period of immersing into "me and my toy" quiet moments. This was apparent as most participants settled down after the first few minutes of elation and puzzlement before their little creative exploration with their selected toys.

What was then observed was the 'flow' in which Csikszentmihalyi describes as the state of absorption in the creative process. He defines flow as “an automatic, effortless, yet highly focused state of consciousness”, which results from stretching our abilities in the pursuit of a meaningful challenge. The elements of creative flow include: clear goals; a balance between challenges and skills; total absorption in the task; a distorted sense of time; and an absence of distractions, worry and selfconsciousness.

When the participants were invited to share on their new creative ideas, many spoke eloquently and spontaneously about their improved solutions. Almost effortlessly I must say, others around could easily sense the intrinsic rewards of their experience. If one of the objectives of the seminar was to achieve the following- 为了加强个人适合的创新和变革的能力，在实际业务挑战上学习，应用工具和流程；为了个人和组织的成功变革，学习如何灵活运用, I think the participants will agree with me that at least for the seminar most were able to revisit the simple joys and fun of playing with creativity.

Csikszenmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention. New York: Harper Perennial.

Lebrow, D. (1993). Constructivist values for systems design: Five principles toward a new mindset. Educational Technology Research and Development, 41, 4-16.

From Whose Perspective?

I recently conducted a series of Innovation & Creativity Seminar in Hong Kong & China as part of a joint effort between TUV Rheinland (China) & Centre of Organisational Excellence (Singapore).

One of the most intriguing and insightful feebacks I gained was from Mr Wong Kin Hung, Sky Technology Co. Ltd (Hong Kong). Although throughout the workshop, he appeared passively uninvolved with the group activities, after the workshop he came forward to thank me for triggering a mindset shift as well as a list of possible solutions that may help him to resolve a critical challenge he faced in his company. All simply done through the use of a YO-YO.

Mr Wong highlighted two very useful insights of his yo-yo learning experience:

1) Power of Mindfulness

Although he appeared very detached during the seminar, he explained that it was because he was actually deeply thinking or 'mindfully' focussed. He further explained that although he was first introduced to the 'mindful' concept by Dr Langer of Harvard University years back, this was the first time he experienced this state of mindfulness so powerfully that he was completely engaged mentally in the process and highly alert to the new learnings. Yet, as he was simultaneously looking at his challenge intensively, he noted that he was intuitively and cognitively very open to the new information that was disseminated during the workshop as well as the multiple perspectives from the conversation of the other group members at his desk.

2) Using Visual Connections to Radically Shift Mindset

What was most exciting was how the Yo-Yo through the activity of Visual Connections got him all started in his 'mindful' experience. When I first asked the participants to write down a challenge that needed some new breakthrough, he was initially reluctant to pen down his thoughts. However, I am thankful he shared this comment with me- "If a strategy really works, then it should be able to deliver the intended outcomes if implemented properly." After which, he wrote down the following- "How to get my clients back?" As he gave the Visual Connection Tool a chance, he simply grabbed the most colorful object on his table- the Yo Yo. As he listed the attributes of the Yo-Yo, he noted adjectives like- smiley face, retractable, colorful, produce clicking sound, etc, he found it easy to immediately connect each of the attributes to some new ideas. He also highlighted that it was initially not easy to observe the divergent ground rule of deferring judgment, he found the act of playing with the object easier to circumvent the mental barrier of not judging the silliness of the activity. However, the experience not only allowed him to deepen his thoughts on pulling out some ideas from each of the attributes but stretched his thinking further when he saw all the attributes as a whole. Excitedly, he shared that a mysterious shift of how he viewed the challenge occurred. With the clicking sound and his shaking motion, he was 'jolted' to a realisation that the past months of working on the problem was from HIS perspective, rather then that of his clients. Just as he felt that he and his team had some futile attempts to regain his clients, the activity led me to a realisation that their vision of the problem is very different from that of his clients. He further explained that some of the solutions that were offered were short term gains that other external factors such as competitors' offering could easily under-cut his discounts. However, the clicking sound led him to think of how to sustain a resonating relationship and how the smiley face got him to go back to the fundamentals of communication- looking at customers' satisfaction. Further, while he was playing with the yo-yo, he realised how inflexible their system was how there need to have an urgent review of their own sales cycle.

To conclude, Mr Wong's sharing led me to realise the common connection between business and learning- the essence of humility. He was humble and open to a new learning experience, even by playing with a simple toy. With mindful attention, even such a simple activity allowed him to re-perceive from his clients' point of view and deepen his own insights into a precious lesson on being more customer-centric. His sharing also showed me how Thinking Tools are great to evoke 'mindful playing'- with discovery of the joy of learning in a thoughtful and focused way.

Quoting from wikipedia (http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Mindfulness)- "Langer defines her version of mindfulness as a "heightened sense of situational awareness and a conscious control over ones thoughts and behavior relative to the situation" (Marzano 2003, p. 65). She explains that mindfulness is not about just paying attention. It is making a conscious effort to be "in the moment" and to not ignore the environment."

Personally, I gained a huge dose of humility and reminded me that I really do have a lot to learn about mindfully improving my craft.

Learn like an Inqusitive Child

Torrance ( 1979) quoted his student's definition of the elements he considered that were important to creativity. Some examples include-

• Creativity is wanting to know;
• Creativity is having a ball;
• Creativity is building sand castles;
• Creativity is singing in your own key;
• Creativity is shaking hands with the future.

These fun and joyful elements serve as timely reminders for us to return to our basics of looking at the child in us. Creativity has much to do with the freewheeling imagination that every child naturally embraces. Its like as we obseve a child busy at "work", we seem to notice how he/she can bring the intellectual, volitional and emotional functions into play all together! Rollo May (1975) believes that creative thinking represents one of the highest level of emotional health and is the expression of normal people experiencing the process of actualising themselves. Behold the "flow" of intense absorption and heightened consciousness!

Curiosity is the very basis of education and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly."
- Arnold Edinborough

Torrance, E. P. (1979). The search for satori and creativity. Buffalo, NY: Creative Education Foundation.

Photos taken from Singapore's first Science Busking Festival

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Singapore/Science-Buskers-Festival/24734317997

Praise First

Thinking is an art, with its own purposes, standards, principles, rules, strategies, and precautions. And it is an art well worth learning, for every important thing we do is affected by our habits of mind.

–Vincent Ryan Ruggiero

After a recent workshop, a teacher asked me in private, “Are we SERIOUSLY serious about fostering creative thinking in our curriculum?” A student jokingly commented that teachers are ‘2 fast 2 furious’ to point out flaws and judge ideas. A colleague felt proud that she has a brilliant idea to present to her team leader but at the same time felt a sense of vulnerability.

Transformational leadership (Downton, 1973) focuses on developing others to their fullest potential. In recent developments, Northouse’s (2004) listed intellectual stimulation as one of the main characteristics of transformational leadership. Based on his description that transformational leaders “stimulate followers to be creative and innovative”, are we - leaders shaping Singapore’s education landscape - providing sufficient room to “try new approaches and develop innovative ways of dealing with organizational issues” (p.177)?

What’s wrong with MY ideas ?!@#!

Do you know that you have a reptile living in your brainstem? Our “gator brain”, like that of the entire brain of an alligator is solely concerned with survival - food, protection, turf guarding , and yes…. reproduction. Animals comfortable in their natural environment will regard any change as a threat. Thus, their natural instinct in dealing with “newness” will include the following: kill it, eat it, and run from it (or mate with it).

If you want to think creatively, then you had better break away from old mental habits - think ‘out of the box’! Many people automatically kill new ideas when they start thinking “Mine-is-better” and it does not help that our tendency to over-rationalize (even at the expense of compounding a mistake), or simply to give in to irrational prejudice by way of stereotyping. Unfortunately, they also destroy the possibility of innovation, creativity, or improving morale with such early closures.

Back to our ‘gator brain’: Thankfully, we are blessed with a neo-cortex (the “innovative brain”) which has the capacity to override the primitive instincts of the brainstem. That means, MAN can be creative by treating “newness” with curiosity, defer judgment and identify possibilities in new ideas. In short, we can be smarter than gators- if we choose to be. Instead of dampening the spirit of creativity, if you spot the “holes” in the ideas first- ideas that seem too “fresh” or dangerously too risky, use Praise First to evaluate and strengthen an idea to give it extra bite!

Praise First- Pluses, Potentials, Concerns, Overcome Concerns (PPCO)

Praise First is founded on the principle of affirmative judgment. The technique allows the expression of both positive and negative responses to an idea without crushing its potential – or its originator. Instead of jumping in to critique an idea, seek first the value in it. Express what you like about it. Think about what might be possible if it worked. THEN, present your concerns as questions to invite further thinking. Praise First is a great way to strengthen the idea (and the originator) by identifying key shortcomings and highlighting key advantages by laying the cards on the table. It is also a powerful tool for the team to brainstorm on how to overcome concerns together.

Praise First is not only a great tool to analyze and improve ideas by transforming them into workable solutions, it is also very useful to provide feedback on behaviour products or proposals. (Refer to www.think-learn-grow.blogspot.com for an example of how I used Praise First during a classroom boservation)


Thomas Edison once said, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” The deliberate work to affirm new ideas is such an opportunity.

The Future is in Your Mind

I bought a shapes chunky puzzle for my 10 months old daughter. While she was toying with the pieces, my wife with all good intentions commented, “Darling, you cannot fit a round block into a square hole.” Shortly after, the baby amazingly took some scrap cloths to pad the base of the block and managed to make that supposedly impossible fit. The point is, to envision the possibility of change, evaluate ideas in an affirmative and developmental approach. As the former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden said, “Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”

References:

Downton, J. V. (1973). Rebel leadership: Commitment and charisma in a revolutionary process. New York: Free Press.

Miller, B. J., Vehar, J. R.; Firestien, R. L. (2001). CPS facilitation: A door to creative leadership (3rd Ed.) . Williamsville, NY: Innovation Systems Group.

Northouse, P. G. (2004). Leadership: Theory and practice (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Puccio, G. J., Murdock, M. C., & Mance, M. (2007). Creative leadership: Skills that drive change. Three Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

My Seventh P of Creativity

Definition of PROVOKE (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/provoke):
1 aarchaic : to arouse to a feeling or action b: to incite to anger
2 a: to call forth (as a feeling or action) : evoke b: to stir up purposely c: to provide the needed stimulus for

Based on the article 'The internet and Malaysian politics: The perils of modernity" (http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10854822) no one can undermine the influence of the Internet- not even the government. It was reckoned that close to 60% of Malaysia flooded the internet with "an unusual combination of high internet penetration and pliant mainstream media" and influencing the 8th March 2008 elections. The internet is indeed a powerful tool to provoke people to take actions.

As a platform for community building, the internet informs, arouses curiosity and drives some people to action. Through a more interactive Web 2.0, human knowledge is expanding so rapidly students today leverage on it for endless learning at their finger tips with search engines like Google, Alta Vista, and Ask Jeeves. Ironically, many too becomes inundated with the flooding of emails and with increased time to process at rapid fire type of response needed with each mail. This invitably, creates within some an invinsible wall of apathy leading to a resistance of new ideas. While some may be provoked to making a creative difference, others nonchalently are provoked to the other extreme - indifference.

Mel Rhodes articulated the 4 P’s of creativity- Person, Press, Product, Process (1961). Simonton's 5th P-Persuasion, plays an integral part in a product (the physical manifestation of an idea) being adopted into a domain of the press. Runco (2006) identified social factors that can support, undermine, or do neither for its acceptance into a given domain. For product to gain acceptance into the domain, it then integrates as part of the press, where it becomes either internalized by the person in the form of a value or a perception of the press or as a tangible tool. (note: Runco advocated the 6th P as Potential)

Building on Simonton’s Persuasion as the 5th P, I am conceptualising the idea that Provocation may be a possible 7th P- to effect beyond persuasion to 'buy-in' an idea. To me, Provocation connotes a higher level of persuasion that strongly forces individuals to take action. This is becoming even clearer with the practical instantiation of the shift in new technologies that permit individuals greater control over the creation of content and interaction with others not confined by geographical boundaries.

On a personal 'provocative' exploration, my interest in blogging stemmed from as a journal of reflections (http://john-yeo.blogspot.com/) and propagated to several domain areas- each serving a different purpose/audience. I find blogs as an excellent way of sharing information and useful platform to build communities. As a change agent for creativity, I was glad that my workshops for creativity have built a community of teachers who are keen to learn more and for this reason, http://think-learn-grow.blospot.com/ was created. To share on innovative practices, ‘http://create-teeth-buzz.blogspot.com/, generated some energy where people were beginning to look deeper into how we sustain innovation within organisations.

Edward de Bono contributed greatly to the provocation by re-branding creativity. Yet, being dissatisfied with the term “creativity”, he reasoned that it was too broad and had a biased value judgement to what it means. He redefined creativity as a way of Lateral Thinking, which was an ability to look at things in different ways. He coined the term PO as technique to directly & deliberately provoke lateral thinking. He intended PO not just for suspending judgement, but to allow one to jump outside judgement system and conscious call to “shift” thinking. Though simply just a word to announce the desire to shift from the current track of thinking, the use of PO vocally provokes creativity.



In conclusion, I read with great interest a recent report on 'REDEFINING PEDAGOGIES FOR THE FUTURE' on how Provocation is key to impact education of tomorrow. The report was derived from a group of Singapore educators who embarked on a project to explore teaching approaches and teacher competencies necessary to engage students of the 21st century. Led by Mrs Lim Lai Cheng, Principal of Raffles Junior College, they studied the characteristics of what makes a Creative Society tick. I quote from the report

"The world, they said, has moved from being static to dynamic, from mass media
to masses of media, manipulation to relation, objective to subjective,
professional to amateur and consumer to participation. Before, we were
consumers of political messages. People these days want to participate. The role of producers and consumers has changed. In the last 5 years, trust has shifted from authorities such as media and government, to peers like you and me."

The emerging provocative forces from globalisation, transnationalism, increased connectivity with technological advances and a shift towards becoming an innovation driven economy, liberates the motivation of the creative individuals to impact new changes. From an educational angle, the above report provides evidence that Provocation will accelerate educational reform since its driven by the changing dynamics of classroom participation in this Knowledge Age.

Pictures from http://www.friendster.com/photos/38502027/1/360060383#pic=01217992268

Tapping into Personal Creativity

Profiling surveys has provided me a deeper understanding on creativity- and how it is drawn from all areas of human consciousness.

For example,

• MBTI: Extraverted Intuition with Feeling (ENFP): Allowed me to see how I relate spontaneously and flexibly with the outside world and enjoy using imagination and feelings to see new possiblities;.
  
• Emergenetics: My bi-modal profile for social thinking (47%) and conceptual thinking (42%) allowed me to appreciate why my wife is God-sent with a perfect complementary profile of Structural thinking (63%) and analytical thinking (30%). Behaviourally, her firmness and level of assertivness synergises my animated expressiveness and open-minded flexibilty, and we usually make very balanced decisions together as a team. (Of course, you do recognise the potential for conflicts too!)
  
  
• Foursight: My energy invest naturally as an ideator and developer-intuitive, global and conceptual in thoughts, which allows me to understand how I can best contribute to a team and the need to stay focused, apply affirmative judgement while keeping the novelty alive
  

I have recognised that creative processes are neither strictly cognitive nor are they wholly affective. An individual’s creativity often proceeds “intuitive leaps” precisely because it draws from the different faculties of ‘our mind and consciousness that are not wholly regulated by rational thought’ (Robinson, 2001, p154).

Creativity can be framed as an interactionist model- not a purely cognitive intellectual process, and that it may be enriched by other personal capacities or experiences and in particularly by feelings, intuition and by a imagination (Woodman & Schoenfeldt, 1999). Thus with a heightened awareness of my inner resources, abilities and limitations, I can then better develop my creative potential and inspire others to explore their inner search for creativity.

References

Robinson, K. (2001). Out of our minds: Learning to be creative. Oxford: Capstone

Woodman, R.W, Schoenfeldt, J.F. (1990), "An interactionist model of creative behavior", Journal of Creative Behavior, Vol. 24, pp.279-90.

A creative video of being a Singaporean Hero

Singapore celebrated our 43rd National Day on 090808 and the National Heritage Board created a very creative yet genuine video of the hero in being a Singaporean... a candid twist of the less 'propagada-ish' national day songs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLqVWEI7ovc

Its good to laugh at ourselves, and yet, give ourselves a pat on the good job done. A nice product of the many years of national education and campaigns. Ha3.

We are truly a FINE country- and I mean well! :)