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February 2007
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Creativity and Your
Organization
"Throwing away ideas too soon is like opening a package of flower seeds and then throwing them away because they're not pretty."
— Arthur VanGundy, Ph.D. (Idea Power, 1992)
Welcome to the February issue of Potentials, a
periodic e-newsletter designed to help you unleash the human potential in your organization. This month’s issue features information on the concept of creativity. Some believe you either have creativity or you don’t. However, according to recent articles and research, that may not necessarily be the case. So….open your
mind and let the creativity flow in your organization. Enjoy!
Todd McDonald
President – ATW Training & Consulting, Inc. |
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The National Center on
Education and the Economy released a report entitled “Tough
Choices or Tough Times: The Report of the New Commission on the
Skills of the American Workforce” in 2006. In this report, the
Commission makes a bold and startling challenge to the United States
in deciding how it wants to compete in the globalization of the
world’s economy.
"A worldwide market is developing in low-skill labor and the
work requiring low-skills will go to those countries where the price
of low-skill labor is the lowest. If the United States wants to
continue to compete in that market, it could look forward to a
continued decline in wages and very long working hours.
Alternatively, it could abandon low-skill work and concentrate on
competing in the worldwide market for high-value-added products and
services. To do that, it would have to adopt internationally
benchmarked standards for educating its students and its workers,
because only countries with highly skilled workforces could
successfully compete in that market.”
If the United States chooses to compete in the worldwide market for
high-value-added products and services, then its education and
workplace systems must prepare people to live and work in that
world. The Commission describes this world as “. . . in which
comfort with ideas and abstractions is the passport to a good job,
in which creativity and innovation are the key to the good life, in
which high levels of education – a very different kind of
education than most of us have had – are going to be the only
security there is.”
Considering this, the Commission obviously recommends critical
thinking and creativity skills as essential skills in preparing
people for the 21st century.
(Source: www.skillscommission.org)
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Many organizations make the mistake of equating creativity with being playful. It’s
not; but what if it was? Is being playful such a bad thing? Not if it is done correctly. Linda Naiman offers the following Top Ten Reasons to Play. When you are done reading them ask yourself whether playing would be good for your organization!
1. Play is the path to fun and profit.
Play opens up new channels of creativity and increases the level of satisfaction we experience at work. How employees feel about their company is directly related to their level of productivity and creativity. Research shows that highly motivated employees are up to 127% more productive than averagely motivated employees in high complexity jobs. — Fortune Magazine, January 1998.
2. Fun is the new status symbol. *
Studies show, if you want to attract and keep talent, you need to have a fun, challenging and creative workplace environment. It's your talent that sets your business apart from the competition.
3. Non-stop work is for losers. *
Play is as important as work. The quality of our work suffers if we don't take the time to play. We live in a workaholic society in North America. Being addicted to busyness is a product of low self-worth.
4. Even God rested on the 7th day!
And universities have a tradition of offering sabbaticals.
5. We need time to be idle.
Taking time to do nothing lets problems incubate and allows for creativity to flow. Children who are allowed to daydream develop a higher IQ.
6. Play helps us find our genius.
Our childhood passions are the key to our genius. In the midst of play we experience unlimited possibilities.
7. Play is crucial to attaining a work/life balance.
A work/life balance (not money) is the number one concern of employees at all levels, in Canada and the U.S. The ability to achieve this is the top determinant in whether they are happy on the job, and whether they stay or leave.
8. The bow kept forever taut will break. - Zen saying
Play helps us relax and let go. Play generates joy. Play replenishes and revitalizes our human spirit. It clears the mental cobwebs that keep us from thinking clearly.
9. Play is smart corporate strategy for solving problems.
Play frees us from worry and stress, relaxing the brain and making it easier to be more creative. Solutions that seemed so evasive earlier now appear effortlessly in the midst of play.
10. Play keeps our passions alive in the workplace.
* Source:
Report on Business Magazine, Aug. 1999
www.creativityatwork.com
Our training session on Critical Thinking and Creativity will help cultivate your intelligence and creativity.
Participants will learn:
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How to cultivate
curiosity in the workplace resulting in business innovations and
services.
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How to use
"mind mapping" - a whole brain thinking technique for
brainstorming, strategic planning, product development, or
innovative service systems.
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How to reframe
problems into opportunities in overcoming obstacles.
You will not only use your brain in this session, but your hands,
eyes, and hearts.
Join us on March 8th in Des Moines. Contact
Mark in our office at
515.987.1169 for details.
This session is ideal
for:
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Executives looking
to enhance their critical skills thinking.
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Managers who want to
think outside of the box in project management and supervision.
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Employees who want
to unleash their stifled ideas in a professional manner.
| Why
Didn't I Think of That II Training Program |
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Purchase Price:
$595.00Ask
about a FREE Preview! |
Many people fail to realize that creativity and imagination lie within each one of us. But the original creativity we all had as children tends to fade unless we feed and nurture it.
Why Didn’t I Think of That? II is a video-based training workshop that can help your employees discover their creative abilities and spirit. Cultivating the creative spirit sometimes takes specific tools to help you view your surroundings in a new light. But once those tools are mastered, your employees can unlock their natural creative abilities to help solve everyday problems in your organization.
The host of this video demonstrates how your employees can stretch their thinking skills by applying the
4 key actions to increase creativity: change your viewpoint, break mental habits, generate alternatives and look for similarities. These actions are practiced through a series of challenges that illustrate creative problem-solving methods. For example, when you see an object such as a stapler in extreme close-up, you probably can’t recognize it. However, if you change your viewpoint and step back a few feet, the object becomes very familiar to you. The host continues to present more appealing challenges to increase creativity by using the other 3 key actions.
Training Points
- How to break the well-worn
habits of thought to enhance creativity.
- How to stimulate others to
share ideas and generate alternatives.
- How to avoid paradigms that
influence the way you look at problems.
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Materials Included:
Video, Training Leader's Guide, and How-To Book Why Didn't I Think of That?
To Order, Click here
or call 515.987.1169 today! |
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Critical thinking and creativity are elements of intelligence that have been used by human beings since the beginning of time. It is a basic human instinct to be curious, ask questions, and
make things. However, it is one thing to have the instinct and another to cultivate it. Leonardo da Vinci has been ranked by many historians as the greatest genius of all human history. Why?
Because his life is a model of how to learn and cultivate intelligence and creativity which resulted in his many inventions, discoveries, and art that impact our lives today.
How does one improve their critical thinking and creativity? It involves an approach to learning and the cultivation of intelligence and creativity in skill areas such as curiosity, learning from one’s mistakes, refinement of the senses, embracing ambiguity, whole-brain thinking, and seeing the interconnectedness of all things (systems thinking). These skill sets are now recognized by leading educators and employers as vital in living and working in the 21st century.
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