creativity – Emerging Perspectives

At the end of the day, our clients’ conference room was lined with flip chart paper, sticky notes, and dry erase boards, all marked with words and phrases written in colorful markers. Paper, pens, and index cards were strewn about the tables. It was, in a word, messy. And it was quiet. Until, finally, the head of the organization slapped her hand on the table, and said, “Well, I was just going to shut the door of my office and write the strategic plan myself. But this was so much better…and more fun!”

Many people think of strategic planning as a dry, methodical endeavor. At Emerging Perspectives, we approach planning as a creative and collaborative process that serves as a bridge from the current experience to a future that can be envisioned but isn’t yet realized. We work with clients to illuminate the opportunities and challenges that can be foreseen, to create a plan that will guide them into the future, and to cultivate a sense of collaboration and community among stakeholders.

We believe that it’s key is to include the diverse perspectives of all stakeholders – staff, board members, partners and clients – to create a plan that addresses the hopes and concerns of everyone in the system, including those who fund and implement programs and those the program is designed to serve.

Our work is inspired by complexity science, systems thinking, and neuroscience, using an approach that is emergent and collaborative. Specifically, we seek to engage our clients’ capacities for openness, curiosity, imagination, focus and reflection as essential tools for collaboration, sense-making, and planning. Used early in the planning process, openness, curiosity and imagination encourage broad reflection and creative idea generation while minimizing self-limiting thoughts and ideas. Once we have as many ideas as possible on the table, we work with the planning group to begin to narrow the focus and target salient areas and ideas to move forward.

Tara recently had the honor of judging a short story competition. As she read story after story centered around the theme “tree,” she began to see some commonalities emerge. By the fourth story told from the perspective of a tree, she began to suspect that… maybe sometimes we’re not as original as we think we are.

And that’s okay. An idea doesn’t have to be completely unique to be implemented well. But there are ways we can enhance our originality and learn to think more creatively.

According to organizational psychologist Adam Grant, original thinkers have three surprising habits:

1) Originals take their time.

People who are moderate procrastinators tend to be rated the most creative. Why? A bit of procrastination can let your ideas percolate in the back of your mind, allowing you to make unexpected connections and new links.

(We at Emerging Perspectives call this slowing down to create space.)

2) Originals improve on existing ideas, as opposed to trying to create entirely new ones.

Originals open themselves up to something new. Being open allows you to look at old ideas with new eyes. According to Adam Grant, Vuja de is the opposite of déjà vu. Vuja de is when you look at something you’ve seen many times before and all of a sudden see it with fresh eyes.

Our perspectives and development can be limited by our assumptions and past experiences, creating habits of thinking and reacting. Cultivating openness can help us become more comfortable with uncertainty and prime our brains and nervous systems for out-of-the-box thinking and to be more expansive. Being open allows us to look at an old idea in new ways.

“New ideas come from interconnections among old ideas.”

-Robert Epstein, research psychologist

3) Originals are afraid of failing, but they try anyway.

The greatest originals fail the most because they try new things the most. They generate more ideas. Some ideas will work, some won’t. The more you create, the more you find the really great ideas.

This is where imagination comes in handy. Expanding our capacity to imagine alternatives and possibilities before taking action generates more options and confidence for moving forward.

Want to learn more about creativity and being an original thinker?

Watch Adam Grant’s TED Talk The Surprising Habits of Original Thinkers here.

Build on an existing concept and learn to Steal Like an Artist.

Read about five science-backed ways to be more creative.

Here are six more things you can try to boost your creative thinking.

Learn more about the neuroscience of creativity in this Q & A.

Learn more about how Emerging Perspective’s approach to cultivating openness, curiosity, imagination, focus, and reflection can help you be more creative and approach your work or projects in new ways.