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San Diego Inventors Forum August 2009 Presentation (Powerpoint)

• Flash of insight moments often materialize unexpectedly “through an unconscious shift in mental perspective that can abruptly alter how we perceive a problem.”
• Researchers have found that sudden insights “are the culmination of an intense and complex series of brain states that require more neural resources than methodical reasoning.”
• It seems that our brains may be the most active when our minds are wandering, when we’re just daydreaming, and we’ll spend maybe around a third of our day daydreaming.
• Daydreaming may be a more creative state than an active, focused, and methodical reasoning state as the unfocused mind may more readily allow new ideas and different, unexpected associations between ideas.
• EEG recordings show a distinctive burst of gamma waves from the right hemisphere of the brain one-third of a second before a person consciously experienced their moment of insight.
• No one really knows why problems sometimes trigger an insight or what makes one person more inclined to one and someone else not, but a prepared mind does favor flashes on insight.
• People in a positive mood were more likely to experience a flash of insight.

The importance of daydreaming was also written about in a book I’ve referenced before in podcast episodes, The Creative Spirit, by Daniel Goleman, Paul Kaufman, and Michael Ray, in the section titled “Perchance to Daydream.” They wrote that daydreaming and relaxation is useful in the creative process, but it can be hard to get away from other people trying to control your attention, either at school, work, or even just watching television. It’s important to get away from the noise, turn off the TV or radio, relax without intereference, and just let your mind wander.

]]> http://explodingcreativity.com/2009/06/daydreaming-leads-to-creativity/feed/ http://explodingcreativity.com/2009/06/unleashing-employee-creativity/ http://explodingcreativity.com/2009/06/unleashing-employee-creativity/#comments Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:52:23 +0000 Robert W. Sharp http://explodingcreativity.com/?p=289 In the current issue of Inc Magazine, there’s an article on how a company got its employees to come up with product ideas: http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090601/managing-unleashing-employee-creativity.html.

The company first tried to get emloyees to offer suggestions on the company’s wiki and on forms in their break room, but when that didn’t produce the results they desired, they held a company-wide competition which did produce an idea pipeline. The groundrules they established were:

• Make participation mandatory as ideas can come from even the unlikiest of employees.
• Pick a slow time of the year to minimize lost productivity.
• Assemble small, diverse teams of employees, ideally from different parts of the company. They created teams of three people by randomly picking names out of a bowl.
• Keep the rules of the contest short and simple while providing guidelines to keep the contestants on track.
• Give specific feedback, explaining why each idea works or doesn’t work, while emphasizing their positive attributes.
• Let the contestants vote for their favorite submission and reward the winners with a small prize (e.g., a $100 gift card for the team to share) and lots of recognition.
• Establish a system for vetting the ideas thoroughly after the contest.

Creativity is morally neutral; it is neither inherently moral or immoral. It is how you use it that gives it its moral character. Morality is usually subjective, depending on the person making the judgment and when they make it.

Some possible dark sides, or down sides, of creativity or of being creative:

• Collaborating with the wrong person. Be careful who you collaborate with and how you collaborate with them. The podcast episode offers some suggestions on how to avoid partering with the wrong person:
  • Look for obvious red flags: do they have a history of being active, do they have basic business behavior, do they network, do they have the energy to contribute, are they overly paranoid or defensive.
  • Do a background check and a credit check.
  • Use the services of a good business attorney (not some other kind of attorney) to get a buy-sell agreement in place, corporate by-laws indicating what the expectations of everyone is, etc.
  • When in doubt, just don’t do it. Other opportunities will come.
• Working when tired, creating more problems than you solve.
• Drug use to be creative, whether sleeping pills or other drugs.
• Being open to bad or harmful ideas.
• Being affected by over-negative or over-positive emotions. Be careful of “Compliance Practitioners” who try to manipulate you.
• Lack of critical thinking. It’s good to inhibit critical thinking for creativity purposes, just don’t turn it off permanently.

References used in this episode:

• Leaders, by Richard Nixon, page 330 on leadership and morality.
• Google motto of “Don’t Be Evil”
• The Power of a Positive No: Save The Deal Save The Relationship and Still Say No, by William Ury, pages 12-13.
• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, by Robert Cialdini.
• Masaru Emoto and his water experiment.
• Quantum Entanglement.
• Particle Wave Function.

SCAMPER is an acronym:

• S - Substitute
• C - Combine
• A - Adapt
• M - Magnify/Minify/Modify
• P - Put to other uses
• E - Eliminate
• R - Reverse/Rearrange

The various techniques aren’t necessarily exclusive of each other — a substitution might also be a modification, for example — and the techniques can be used together, for example, applying a combination idea along with an elimination idea.

To use SCAMPER, first isolate your subject, e.g., by stating the problem you’d like to solve or the idea you’d like to develop. Then go through the SCAMPER list and ask questions about your subject.

For what can be substituted, think about things such as: process, procedure, rule, person or people, place, time, color, approach, part, shape, texture, sound, smell, name, people’s feelings or attitudes towards the subject, power, force.

For combination, think about things such as: what ideas, purposes, or parts can be combined or merged, what assortments, materials, people, or appeals can be combined; can a blend be created with something else that will create additional uses; can different talents be combined.

For adaptation, think of such things as: what else is like your subject, but in a different context; what other ideas are suggested; how can circumstances be adapted to; what ideas can be incorporated, what can be copied or imitated, who can be emulated, what different contexts can the subject be put in to.

For magnification, think of such things as: what can be made larger, extended, exaggerated, overstated; can more time be added; can it be made higher, longer, stronger, more frequent, thicker; can additional features or value be added; can something be duplicated.

For minification, think of such things as: what can be made smaller, more restricted, understated, streamlined; can something need less time, go slower, be made lighter, can it be made lower in height, weaker, less frequent; can a feature be removed or less value added and have the thing be used for a new purpose; how can costs, time, effort, or waste be minimized.

For modification, think of such things as: what can be altered for the better; can the meaning, color, motion, shape, package be changed; can the name change; can some plan or process be modified.

For putting to other uses, think of such things as: what else can the product, process, or idea can be used for; what new ways can the thing can be used as it already is, or any other uses if the thing is modified somehow; how can it be used by people other than those it was originally intended for, or by a child, an older person, or a person with disabilities; what other markets or industries could it be used by, perhaps with modifications.

For elimination, think of such things as: what’s not necessary, what can be omitted, divided, split-up, separated into different components; what rules or processes can be eliminated; how can it be simplified; what can be removed without altering its basic function; how can waste be eliminated.

For reversing, think of such things as: what are the opposites of the idea; what are the negatives; can you turn something around or backwards or upside down; can roles be reversed; can something unexpected be done; what if the subject was used for the exact opposite of what it was intended for.

For rearranging, think of such ideas as: what ways can another arrangement be better; what parts can be interchanged; can another pattern or layout or sequence be created; can the pace or schedule of something be changed.

References used in this episode:

• Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques (2nd Edition), by Michael Michalko, Chapter 9, SCAMPER.
• Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius, by Michael Michalko, pages 95-104.
• SCAMPER technique training for lateral thinking
• Creative Problem Solving with SCAMPER
• SCAMPER
• Wikipedia article on Alex Osborn

The June 2008 issue of Inc Magazine had two articles, Making Inspiration Routine, by A.G. Lafley and Ram Charan, which is more about creativity as a process, and How the Creative Stay Creative, by Leigh Buchanan, which is more about how to help those flashes of insight more likely to happen.

Lafley, Proctor & Gamble CEO, and Charan wrote The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation which “describes dozens of mechanisms for keeping the idea pipeline full”. In the Inc Magazine article, they describe scaled-down strategies more appropriate for a small business:

• Look for an underserved market. Segmenting your market can be a creative exercise itself. Try to identify a segment that is rarely treated as a segment.
• Use social networks to bring in ideas, as opposed to just using them to push out marketing messages.
• Brainstorm with employees’ network members to generate ideas; the more diverse the members the better. Promising ideas are flushed, written up, and submitted by a pair of employees who team up for collaboration on the idea.
• Ideas are formally evaluated based on their projected revenue and profit goals.
• For ideas that are chosen to go forward with, the ideas are prototyped and tested with the employees’ social networks.
• As the company grows, the innovation process scales upwards, e.g., with additional training on the creative process, hiring of more creative people, team structure, feedback.

In the How The Creative Stay Creative Article, Inc gives some insight on how top innovation consultants stay creative:

• Get multicultural
• Encourage risky behavior
• Provide lots of free time to think
• Hire people with good problem solving skills and who are open to criticism
• Have a way for employees to share their ideas
• Bring in outside experts to get their perspectives
• Be very flexible in how a team organizes itself and how it operates
• Mix teams up with people from other teams

Collaborating with others is a fundamental principle of creativity. In this blog, you’ll find many references to this — just click on the tags “Brainstorming”, “Decision Making”, “Diversity”, and “Innovation”, for a sample.

Threadless is a great example of this, where the “customers end up playing a critical role across all its operations: idea generation, marketing, sales forecasting.”

This is also an example of Creativity as a Process, where Threadless’s process is maintaining the on-line community, and having the community members submit and choose the designs to be printed.

1. Engage employees from all departments in brainstorming sessions. I addressed this in the episode on brainstorming.
2. Encourage and enable employees to pursue outside interests. This was touched on in the episode on leadership.
3. Create an inspiring work space. This was mentioned a bit in the brainstorming episode in relation to the environment for the brainstorming session. And of course, having an inspiring work space in general helps spur creativity.
4. Fund extracurricular projects or classes. Related to encouraging and enabling employees to have outside interests.
5. Lower cubicle walls. This is similar to the traditional Japanese model where there are no cubicles, where peoples’ desks are just put together in a large room. The idea here is that it helps foster teamwork. (I would note that it’s also nice to have a quiet, private place to work.)

A mind map helps you visualize the challenge at hand: some problem you’re trying to solve, some plan you’re trying to develop, something you’re trying to understand better or look for new ideas for. It helps you formulate and remember things to do. It may be used as-is for remembering and organizing things, or it can be used as the basis for other things, like to-do lists, or a more formal type of plan, like a project management plan or a marketing. Mind mapping can be used in problem solving, decision making, and writing. You can do mind mapping alone or with other people in a collaborative brainstorming session.

This episode discusses:

• What mind mapping is and its uses
• The mind mapping process
• Mind mapping tools

References used in this episode:

• Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques (2nd Edition), by Michael Michalko, Chapter 8, Think Bubbles.
• Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius, by Michael Michalko, pages 51-68.
• Wikipedia article on Mind Mapping.
• Wikipedia article on Mind Mapping Tools.
• Adventures of the ITIL Imp blog posting on Mind Mapping.
• Exploding Creativity episode on Diversity.
• Unified Modeling Language Resource Page.
• Wikipedia article on the Unified Modeling Language.

Example Mind Map:

Among other things, Christensen says in the interview:

• Today’s economic downturn will have a huge positive impact on innovation as:
  • It forces innovators to not waste as much money as they normally would innovating by keeping them focused on their goal
  • “Breakthrough innovations come when the tension is greatest and the resources are most limited. That’s when people are actually a lot more open to rethinking the fundamental way they do business.”
• Private companies are more likely to produce disruptive innovations than public companies, as public companies tend to focus more on short-term performance to please their shareholders and are not as likely to risk near-term performance reductions in rolling out such an innovation.

• Lessons From 40 Years of Education ‘Reform’, Wall Street Journal, December 1, 2008, by Louis B. Gerstner, former CEO of Intel and former chairman of the Teaching Commission, “which reported on ways to improve the quality of public school teaching.” Gerstner writes that after decades of reform efforts, America’s K-12 schools as a whole have not improved in terms of high school and college graduation rates, test scores, and the number of college students majoring in science and engineering, and he’s worried about what this means for America’s future workforce. He then writes about things that can be done to improve education: abolishing all local school districts, establishing a national standard for a core curriculum (starting with reading, math, science, and social studies), establishing national testing days, establishing national teaching standards, measuring student and teacher performance, and extending the school day and the school year.
• Bill & Melinda Gates Go Back to School, Fortune Magazine, December 8, 2008, by Claudia Wallis. Wallis describes Bill and Melinda Gates “crusade to fix schools”. Mr. Gates is quoted as saying that the reason “America has been so successful with such terrible education” is that we pamper the elite 20% who attend the top colleges and the best public high schools and private academies. (Does anyone else find that as insulting as I do?) Gates says that has to change now with low-skill jobs vanishing and global competition on the rise. Mrs. Gates said their goal “is to double the number of low-income students who earn post-secondary degrees or credentials that let them earn a living wage” in order to make a dent in poverty in America. The article then describes their ideas to do that: performance-based scholarships, business-college partnerships, and rapid mediation. They also talk about a common set of standards and teacher quality. Intel chairman Craig Barrett is quoted as saying global corporations like Microsoft and Intel are already finding the talent they need off-shore, and that they “don’t need the U.S. to be successful”; I guess it’s implied that they would still, however, like the U.S. to be successful.

Here’s a creativity exercise: open those articles in your browser and search for the words “creativity”, “individual” (in the context of treating students as), “leadership” (in the context of teaching to students), “entrepreneurship”, “art”, “music”. What?? Can’t find them? Neither could I. Hmmm…

I wonder what Gerstner, the Gates, and other billionaires/business titans/masters of the universe/education experts are teaching their own children. Do you think they’re preparing them with plenty of math and science so they can join the workforce and work for other billionaires/business titans/masters of the universe? I would bet not. I suspect they’re teaching their own children such things as the importance of meeting people and maintaining relationships, entrepreneurship, leadership, finance, and marketing. And where is their concern for the creativity and expression of the individual, or even freedom, for their global workforce?

If I was cynical, I would say the business elites are advocating a system for creating interchangeable, inexpensive, and disposable employees — those who are one minute away from termination and one paycheck away from homelessness. However, I’ll be charitable and assume they really do have the best interests of our children at heart. Yet, unfortunately, this really is the best we can expect from business elites in looking out for our childrens’ best interests. Thank you for your concern, o holy masters of the universe with huge bank account balances…now step away from our children!

And also, unfortunately, based on my own observations and personal experiences, I don’t think the education establishment has it right either. It seems to me they want to have an assembly-line educational system where the good eggs go through and the bad eggs are identified, disciplined, and disposed of. Teachers want a room full of good “girls”, who sit quietly and listen, don’t make a fuss, and don’t talk out of order. Their education on education seems to be one of keeping their thumbs on the students in order to maintain control at all times; students are shepherded through classes, and woe be unto the uninterested, disinterested, talkative, disruptive “boy”.

I don’t have all the answers, but I think it would be good to start with the basic principle of treating our young people as the individuals they are. Out of that could come curriculums and schools tailored to the interests of the individual student, ultimately leading our young to the heights of their potential, causing an explosion of creativity in this country. And that means not everyone comes out of school readied for an employee-at-will position at intel, Microsoft, etc. We’ll also have musicians, painters, dancers, and other artists, along with the mathemeticians, scientists, and engineers…and doctors, lawyers, politicans, teachers, business leaders, etc.

These kimonos are quite fascinating. Instead of painting on canvas, Kubota-san tie-dyed landscape images onto silk kimonos he created, giving the images a three-dimensional effect. The kimonos are very intractely designed, taking a year each to be finished. These kimonos aren’t for wearing (some are quite huge); they’re purely for display as an art-form.

After January 4, 2009, the exhibit moves on to the Cultural Center for the Arts in Canton, Ohio. If you’re in the San Diego area soon, or in the Canton area February-April, definitly check it out if you can.

• Interrupting sleep seriously disrupts memory-making.
• Taking a nap may boost a sophisticated kind of memory that helps us see the big picture and get creative.
• Particularly important is “slow-wave sleep,” a period of deep sleep that occurs before REM sleep, which can occur even in a power nap.
• Even a 12-minute nap can boost some forms of memory.

Having worked from home the past three years, I’ll often take a power nap around 3 pm, which helps me finish the day stronger than if I didn’t. Sometimes I’ll fall into a deep sleep and maybe wake up a 1/2-hour or so later, but typically I’ll rest for only about 15-minutes, which works great for me. Working from offices before that, though, even ones with couches available, I can’t say I’d feel comfortable stretching out in front of everyone (no one else did).

On a more enlightened note, Google employees are encouraged to take naps. Check this out.

Winston Churchill was big on naps. He’d work late into the evening and needed afternoon naps to keep himself fresh and productive.

Thomas Edison was also famous for his naps. He was known to work and nap around the clock, even sleeping right on his workbench.

Brainstorming is used to expand the number of choices to choose from. The guiding principle is that quantity of ideas breeds quality of ideas. Brainstorming separates the creative act of coming up with ideas from the critical act of deciding. The key to this is to defer judgment, to suspend all assumptions, preconceptions, and criticism.

This episode discusses:

• History of Brainstorming
• Purpose of Brainstorming
• Brainstorming Process
  • Define Your Purpose
  • Selection of Participants
  • Selection of Facilitator
  • Selection of Recorder
  • The Three-Phases of the Brainstorming Process
• Solo Brainstorming
• Brainstorming Tools

References used in this episode:

• Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques (2nd Edition), by Michael Michalko, Chapter 34, Brainstorming.
• The Creative Spirit, by Daniel Goleman, Paul Kaufman, and Michael Ray, page 38, on the importance of humor and playfulness when brainstorming.
• Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius, by Michael Michalko, pages 257-28.
• Management: Skills and Application, by Leslie W. Rue and Lloyd L. Byars, pages 81-83.
• Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, by Roger Fisher and William Ury, Chapter 4, Invent Options for Mutual Gain, for a good discussion on brainstorming, and brainstorming with the other side and how to mitigate the associated risks.
• Manager Tools Podcast Episode on Brainstorming, Part 1 of 2
• Manager Tools Podcast Episode on Brainstorming, Part 2 of 2
• Wikipedia Article on Brainstorming
• Exploding Creativity Episode for discussing Creativity as a Process
• Exploding Creativity Episode on Emotions
• Exploding Creativity Episode on Decision Making
• Exploding Creativity Episode on Diversity
• Exploding Creativity Episode on Leadership

P&G is the world’s largest consumer products company that wants to expand its reach to younger consumers who spend more time with online media, and Google wants a bigger portion of P&G’s $8.7 billion annual advertising budget, which is currently dominated towards television. In order to help each other help each other, they’ve swapped about two-dozen employees, who spent weeks attending the other company’s training programs and planning meetings. This is an interesting variation of diversifying your team, as I discussed in Episode 5: Diversity and Creativity.

As described In Episode 5, you can bring in outside stakeholders (clients, suppliers, service providers, investors, etc.) as team members or advisers on an as-needed basis. P&G and Google took this a step further and actually swapped employees temporarily. Giving “outsiders” such intimate access to company confidential information has got its associated risks (and I assume P&G and Google had an anti-poaching clause in their Non-Disclosure Agreement), but I certainly admire their creativity and courage to do this.

Of course, similar activites you can do internal to an organization to help spur innovation are swapping employees between different parts of the organization, where people get experience working in different aspects of an organization’s operations, and bringing in people from different parts of the organization to form a cross-functional team.

The article Experts: Lack of playtime is hurting children discusses how the average American child has 8-12 fewer hours of free play today than they did in the 1980s. This is due to things such as parents’ reluctance to let their kids play outside due to fear of abduction or injury; parents’ scheduling of lessons, organized sports, and other structured activities; kids watching more hours of TV, playing video games, using the Internet and cell phones; the shortening or elimination of recess at many schools; and more emphasis on formal learning in preschool and more homework for elementary school students.

Some excerpts:

• Play equals learning. Creative, spontaneous play is vital. It fosters innovation and creative thinking.
• The most vital form of play for young children involves fantasy and role-playing with their peers. They’re inventing abstract thinking before the world tells them what to think.
• Lack of play in early education “could be the next global warming” crisis. It puts American children at a disadvantage in the global economy.
• Diminished time for free play with other children is producing a generation of socially inept young people and is a factor in the high rates of obesity, anxiety, attention-deficit disorder, and depression in our youth.
• Organized sports do not necessarily breed creativity and can lead to burnout and frustration.
• Lack of free play at preschools, with more emphasis on academics, reduces children’s chances to learn on their own about fairness, kindness, and other social interactions.

One thing that caught my eye is “playing video games.” Isn’t “playing video games” playing, and therefore being in a creative state? Are they “creative, spontaneous play” and “fantasy and role-playing with peers”? I suppose some could be. Games do involve fantasy and you can role play with peers. The peers may be on-line and not face-to-face, and the peers could be complete strangers who happen to be on-line and playing at the same time. The fantasy involved in a lot of games is the killing of people in a crime or combat setting, though games for younger children are more tame. The kids are still playing someone else’s game, someone else’s set of rules. Are the kids developing innovative, abstract, and creative thinking? Are they learning about fairness, kindness, and how to be social? If a kid can sit down and play a video game for hours, can they be diagnosed with ADD? Can video games be addictive? Can they change a child’s behavior, cause anxiety or depression? You may want to check out:

• Computer games stunt teen brains - CON
  • Video game “brain damage” claim criticised
• Your brain on video games - PRO
  

The author, George Gilder, is a venture capitalist, and his article is about entrepreneurship, creativity, and four emerging technological areas he expects huge growth in. Here’s some quotes from it I thought were interesting for this blog:

• “The real source of all growth is human creativity and entrepreneurship…”
• “No amount of knowledge about the present can predict the specific profile and provenance of innovation.”
• “If creativity was not unexpected, governments could plan it and socialism would work. But creativity is intrinsically surprising and the source of all real profit and growth.”

The four technological areas he writes about are cloud computing, graphics processing, nanotech engineering, and energy-saving construction materials.

So is all this creativity stuff important? Heck yeah!

In the article, the author, Cari Tuna, writes that frontline workers are often better at identifying problems and suggesting creative solutions to fix those problems, but when managers micromanage, employees become complacent. She writes of a company founder saying that when he micromanaged his team previously, his employees stopped making suggestions because they were afraid they’d be shot-down. Another company found their employees purposefully not following orders as they were resentful of the boss’s micromanagement.

Complacency…fear…resentment…yep, micromanagement sure sucks!

From the perspective of being micromanaged, I can only recall a couple of experiences. One was a boss who micromanaged only in certain things, every so often. It could be annoying, but overall no big deal. He’d do his bit of micromanagement on people and then leave us alone to get work done.

But I have had the experience of a CEO of the company I worked at who swooped down to my mid-level management position, sat in meetings with me and the folks I lead, and gave detailed instructions on what everyone was to do. Was I resentful? Resentful is too gentle a word. This was a creativity killer, morale killer, team killer, project killer. The CEO really had nothing better to do? Really??

From the perspective of micromanaging, it is kind of easy to micromanage a junior team member, though you may think of it as teaching. This is where you have to be mindful of exactly what it is you’re doing. Are you helping them learn something, or are you doing it for them? Maybe letting them make a mistake is a good way for them to learn, and maybe what they’re doing isn’t a mistake anyway, just a different way of doing something than you’d do.

Is there ever a case to be made for micromanagement? Is it ever the appropriate thing to do? I’m not creative enough to see it, I guess. If you want to make a case for micromanagement as a way to improve someone’s performance, be a real leader and give feedback and coaching instead. If you want to make sure that things just “get done right,” then don’t have employees and do everything yourself, or accept that you can utilize other people so you can focus on higher-level, better, more important things and let people do their jobs. If you’re using micromanaging as a way to force someone to quit, again, be a real leader, take responsibility that you made a bad hiring decision, and show them the door.

Tuna writes that the “best managers help employees learn to work independently by giving them meaningful responsibilities,” that managers “should give employees goals and leave them to work out the details”. Of course, there’s a place for feedback, coaching, and teaching, but NOT micromanaging.

This episode discusses:

• Selection, hiring, and interviewing
• Organization culture, values, morale, and motivation
• Developing trust
• Advocacy vs. Inquiry
• Belbin Team Roles: Coordinator, Shaper, Plant, Team Worker, Implementer, Completer-Finisher, Monitor-Evaluator, Resource Investigator, Specialist
• Situational leadership
• Leadership styles: Visionary, Coaching, Affiliative, Democratic, Pacesetting, Commanding

References used in this episode:

• Management: Skills and Application, by Leslie W. Rue and Lloyd L. Byars, for a history of management and a good “Management 101″ book.
• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t, by Jim Collins, and First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, for a discussion on the importance of selection and how to select people.
• Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else, by Geoff Colvin for a discussion on talent and how to improve it. There is a good book excerpt in Fortune Magazine.
• Leadershiptraq podcast on leadership.
• Management Powertools by Harry Onsman for good descriptions of Vision, Mission, and Values statements for an organization and many other topics.
• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable, by Patrick Lencioni, for a discussion of what great teamwork is comprised of.
• Manager Tools podcasts on Communication for discussions on the importance of communication with personal relationships andmotivation, plus much other good stuff. Specifically, check out the episode on Virtual Teams.
• What You Don’t Know About Making Decisions, by David A. Garvin and Michael A. Roberto, a Harvard Business Review article on Advocacy vs. Inquiry for decision making.
• Belbin Team Roles.
• Rapid Development: Taming Wild Software Schedules, by Steve McConnell, and Death March (2nd Edition) (Yourdon Press Series), by Edward Yourdon, for a discussion on team roles.
• Primal Leadership - Realizing The Power Of Emotional Intelligence, by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee, for their descriptions of the various leadership styles.
• The Discipline of Market Leaders: Choose Your Customers, Narrow Your Focus, Dominate Your Market, by Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema, for a discussion on how to focus company resources to be either a leader in operational excellence, product innovation, OR customer intimacy.
• U.S. Global Investors Funds Annual Report, June 30, 2008.

We all fall into a rut from time to time that limits our creativity. Diversity is a way to break out of that and look at something from perspectives we might not have otherwise.

This episode discusses:

• Applying diversity to yourself
  • Seek different kinds of people to interact with, different kinds of knowledge, learning, and experiences
  • Break out of your routine
  • Be an active observer
• Applying diversity to your team
  • You can diversify by gender, age, culture
  • You can diversify by job function. This produces a Cross-Functional Team aka Business Team. Team members can include, as appropriate, a representative from marketing, sales, finance, production, engineering, technical documentation, QA, etc.
  • You can diversify by team role. Doing/Acting Roles (Implementer, Shaper, Completer/Finisher), Thinking/Problem Solving Roles (Plant, Monitor/Evaluator, Specialist), and People/Feelings Role (Coordinator, Team Worker, Resource/Investigator)
  • Can add others to your team, like customers, investors, and other stakeholders, but try to keep team smallish, maybe 6-12 people, and keep communication complexity low.
  • You can diversify by personality types. This may come anyway, but by paying attention to it, you can optimize for it. Be aware of conflict sure to arise from people of different personality types (and even the same types) and the need to manage conflict. Personality models briefly discussed:
    Social Style Matrix, PIAV (Personal Interests, Attitudes, and Values), Jung-based models and the Jung Type Indicator, DiSC.

References used in the episode:

• The Managerial Decision-making Process, by E. Frank Harrison, for discussion on falling into ruts and breaking out of them, advantages of working with a group (page 232), and communication complexity vs. creativity (page 226).
• Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius, by Michael Michalko, for a discussion on how creative people look for alternate ways to think about a subject, even when the old ways are well established, that they will create a large number of different perspectives and then pick one they want (page 285).
• MovieMaker magazine I mentioned.
• Rapid Development: Taming Wild Software Schedules, by Steve McConnell, for a discussion on team members and roles (pages 282-284, kinds of teams (pages 300-301), and Business Team structure (page 304).
• Death March (2nd Edition) (Yourdon Press Series), by Edward Yourdon, for a discussion on team roles (page 115).
• The Creative Spirit, by Daniel Goleman, Paul Kaufman, and Michael Ray, for a discussion on diversity by age, geographical region, political faction, and culture (pages 171-174).
• Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques (2nd Edition), by Michael Michalko, for a discussion of diversifying people for brainstorming (page 297).
• Belbin’s Team Roles
• Social Style Matrix info
• Selling: Building Partnerships, by Barton A. Weitz, Stephen B. Castleberry, and John F. Tanner, Jr., for a discussion on the Social Style Matrix (pages 153-157).
• PIAV article in Wikipedia
• PIAV info from The Coughlin Group
• Jung Type Indicator info
• Jung Typology Test at HumanMetrics
• Jung Type Indicator article in Wikipedia
• Myers-Briggs Type indicator Wikipedia article
• DiSC Wikipedia article
• Manager-Tools DiSC info. This contains some free DiSC resources. The podcasts are all free, though for the specialized ones you’ll need to register as a member (which is also free). There’s also some handy PDFs that can be found there.

• Lots of fighting with WordPress to get my feed without oddities and then linking it in with Feedburner.
• Saturday I loaded and switched over to the xMark theme by Lisa Sabin-Wilson. I found this through Lisa’s Book, WordPress for Dummies. I also installed several of the widgets discussed in the book (some you see on the blog, some you don’t), and I’m really quite happy with the way the blog looks now. Thank you, Lisa!
• After some final touches on the blog, today I registered the podcast with iTunes, Podcast Alley, Podcast Pickle, and several others. For anyone else interested in doing such a thing, definitely checkout this Podcast 411 link.

For upcoming shows, my immediate plan is to next record shows on (titles subject to change) “Variety, Personality Styles, and Creativity” and “Leadership and Creativity.” These episodes will close out a good run of Fundamentals of Creativity episodes, needed for next discussing a series on Creativity Tips and Techniques. The first two shows I plan for that series are on Brainstorming and Mind Mapping. I’ll do some more shows in Creativity Tips and Techniques and then start on interviewing.

I’ve got a couple of people lined-up already for interviews, and I’ve already apologized to them for running so far behind of where I thought I’d be by now. Developing the blog is time-consuming by itself, and producing the shows is very time-consuming by itself (but both are highly rewarding!). Coupled with doing some part-time contracting work, time becomes very precious indeed. Anyway, little-by-little things are coming along nicely.

I also have in mind a couple of pages (as opposed to posts) I want to write-up. Plus I’d like to put in a Wiki or a Forum so that others can share their creativity fundamentals, tips/techniques, experiences, etc. More on all this later.

Thanks for reading!

Bob

You can and will use creativity in decision making, and you will make decisions in your creative pursuits, and depending how you look at it, creativity and decision making look a lot alike.

This episode discusses:

• A definition for the term “decision”
• Intuition, judgment, and emotions
• Interpersonal intelligence and courage in decision making
• Intuitive Decision Making
• A Rational Decision Making Process
• Considerations of who is involved in implementing a decision and who is involved in making a decision
• How to maximize creativity in decision making
• The Wisdom of the Crowd

References used in the episode:

• The Managerial Decision-making Process, by E. Frank Harrison, for many topics on Decision Making, including the definition of the term Decision and the rational decision making process described in the episode. Jung’s and Freud’s perspectives on intuition are also discussed here (pages 203 and 204).
• Primal Leadership - Realizing The Power Of Emotional Intelligence, by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee, for their discussion of intution.
• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell, for a discussion on the fallibility on intuition. He refers to this as the Warren Harding Error.
• Inc Magazine article on the Wisdom Of The Crowd.
• Wikipedia topic on the Wisdom Of The Crowd.

References used in the episode:

• Primal Leadership - Realizing The Power Of Emotional Intelligence, by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee, for understanding the importance of emotions, recognizing your and others’ emotions, and managing them.
• Beethoven (Revised Edition), by Maynard Solomon, for a biography on Beethoven. Beethoven’s Heiligenstadt Testament is where is discusses his dispair.
• Wikipedia article on Vincent Van Gogh.
• Wikipedia article on Edgar Allan Poe.
• Wikipedia article on Ernest Hemingway.
• Wikipedia article on Apollo 13.
• The History of English Speaking Peoples {4 Vol Set} The Birth of Britain, The New World, The Age of Revolution, The Great Democracies, by Winston S. Churchill, for the history of Napoleon. The quote I gave is in the volume “The Age of Revolution,” page 339.
• Wikipedia article on the Tiune Brain Model.
• Paul MacLean’s triune brain hypothesis.
• Men’s Health article on Addiction.
• Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques (2nd Edition), by Michael Michalko, for the description of the Tick-Tock techniques and the Affirmation techniques (in chapter 1).

References mentioned in the episode:

• Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World, by Jill Jonnes, for the quote of Nikola Tesla (page 110). This book is very entertaining. It is part biography, part history, part science, and part business.
• Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius, by Michael Michalko, for a discussion on Einstein’s and Mozart’s techniques. This is an excellent book on creativity tips and techniques.
• Beethoven: The Man and the Artist, As Revealed in His Own Words, edited by Friedrich Kerst & Henry Edward Krehbiel, for the quotes from Beethoven (pages 24 and 29). An interesting book if you’re a Beethoven-phile.
• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell, for a discussion about left-brain/right-brain.
• The Creative Spirit, by Daniel Goleman, Paul Kaufman, and Michael Ray, for a discussion on creativity and schools.
• How to Change The Way Kids Learn, by Clayton M. Cristensen, in Forbes Magazine, August 11, 2008, for a discussion on creativity and schools.
• The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done (Harperbusiness Essentials), by Peter F. Drucker, for a discussion on Management Theory.
• First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, for a discussion on Management Theory.
• Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques (2nd Edition), by Michael Michalko, for the discussion of the publishing house study (in chapter 1).

Here’s a pic of the small notebook I’m currently using.

Here’s a pic of the cover of one of my large notebooks.

Here’s the cover for a notebook I bought some time ago for patent use. I don’t know if the publisher of this notebook is still around or if they still publish this notebook. If you’re looking for something like this, just Google for something like “invention notebook”.

And here’s an inside look of the above notebook. Note the witness signature block at the bottom of each page:

Follow this link to the book I mentioned in the episode, Nolo Press’s “Patent It Yourself”.

This is a podcast on helping us improve our creativity, as well as helping us help others to improve their creativity. We’ll look at:

• The Fundamentals of Creativity. For example, the nature of creativity and the relationship between creativity and things like decision making and leadership.
• Creativity Tips and Techniques. This covers topics like the use of notebooks, brain-storming, mind-mapping, and many others.
• Other Worlds. I’ll interview people in various creative endeavors, finding out their ideas on creativity, their creative tips and techniques, among other things.

Here’s the link to my LinkedIn.com profile.

Here’s a link to the United States Patent and Trademark office: http://www.uspto.gov/.

And a link to their patent search page: http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html.

A correction to the show: I mentioned I bought a piece of royalty-free music from “sounddog.com” — it’s actually “sounddogs.com”: http://sounddogs.com/.