Nov/Dec 2006
|
|
| |
|
|
Nov/Dec 2006 | |
|
| ||
|
Finding the Ideas That Make a Difference An Interview with Sam Harrison
"Never stop creating. Never stop exploring. Never stop appreciating."
In addition, he presents seminars and keynote talks to agencies, companies and associations. He is on the advisory council for the HOW Conference and a speaker at that conference for the past three years. He has worked with such clients and affiliates as NFL, Major League Baseball, Hallmark, Microsoft, American Express, Merrill Lynch, Quicken, Hasbro, John Denver Environmental Groups, U.S. Humane Society, Arts Alliance and Zoo Atlanta. We kind of build an alter to "creative geniuses" in business, especially entrepreneurs, but are most people more creative than they think? Neuroscientists say we all have the cognitive abilities to be creative. We may not be able to paint like O'Keefe or write like Hemingway, but we can be creative and make a sliver of difference in our particular fields of focus. Those same scientists indicate we may only be using 10-15 percent of our creative capabilities--so there's room to grow!
To get past this judgment, we have to become aware of what I call the Negative News Network, that internal broadcasting system telling us why our ideas can't and won't work. "Our doubts are our traitors," wrote Shakespeare. The more we train ourselves to switch off the Negative News Network, the more our creativity flourishes. Several places in Ideaspotting you talk about the need for leaders and managers to see things through their customers' eyes. So why don't more executives spend some time working in their company's call center? Surely even one shift of hearing what those people hear would be extremely eye-opening, right? Yes, of course! Likewise, one morning at a table in the factory break room would provide executives with heaping helpings of insights about employee views and attitudes. Or one afternoon in the marketplace of end users would provide armloads of insights about buying habits and behavior. So why aren't these things done more often? Partly because we all fall into the trap of thinking we know all there is to know about our customers, employees shareholders and other audiences. And partly because we get so caught up in our daily routines and professional obligations that we forego ethnography and other fundamental ways of gaining insights. Too often we overlook and underrate the obvious. Like many people, I've worked in a company which based its employee reviews on goals and results that could be quantified, so my most creative staffers--the ones who found innovative solutions to tough problems--had to be graded lower than the ones whose productivity metrics looked better. How do you foster more creativity in this kind of environment? Google is a great example. It lets employees use twenty percent of their time to work on anything they want--no questions asked. But there's a huge payoff for Google. Managers have carefully tracked this policy, and according to CEO Eric Schmidt, the creative free time generates virtually all of Google's new ideas. From my years in creative fields--often within the walls of corporations--I've found it helps for creative people to have a methodology that articulates how their ideas are generated; otherwise, management only sees a black hole. Don't get me wrong--there's no formula or cookie-cutter solution for creativity--but there is a somewhat consistent flow in the generation of ideas. I have a five-step process I've used for many years and it's actually the framework for my two books: Explore (research), Freedom (brainstorming), Pause (incubation), Embrace (editing) and Life (refining and selling the idea). Such a process helps individuals and teams best allocate time and travel toward creative solutions and the same methodology can help executives understand how time is being spent and the steps necessary to garner ideas. Of course, creative staffers must recognize that a corresponding ROI must accompany their creativity. No firm can afford to indefinitely underwrite creativity for the sake of creativity. There has to be a payoff. The onus is also on creative staffers to explain and sell their ideas. It's not enough to just toss out an idea and then complain that management "doesn't get it." As the advertising guru David Ogilvy once said, "It's useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can sell what you create. Management cannot be expected to recognize a good idea unless it is presented to them by a good salesperson." In your speaking and consulting work, what are the signs that a company is doing it right in terms of fostering creativity? There are a number of signals. A culture that focuses on its audiences rather than on itself. A healthy disregard for the way things have always been done. An avoidance of the Not Invented Here syndrome. A high level of exuberance, passion and humor. A relatively flat structure. A low level of judgment and cynicism. A physical space that facilitates brainstorming and collaboration. After quarterback Vince Young's incredible performance in the Rose Bowl last year, a reporter asked his coach Mac Brown this question: "When did Vince Young really become a star?" And the University of Texas coach answered: "When I got out of his way." When it comes to fostering creativity, companies should take heed.
The most creative people I interview for my books also tend to be the most avid readers. When interviewing Kristy Moore, a creative director with Martha Stewart Living, she summed up the power of reading in two sentences. "Not only are books and magazines filled with smart ideas," she said, "but the reading process develops my thinking process. And smart thinking leads to smart ideas." What do you think of cubicles in the workplace? That's a healthy approach: sometimes we can be most creative in a crowd, other times in a cave. The best workspaces accommodate both needs. As a nation, we don't travel much compared to other developing countries and there's been a lot of press on how much earned vacation time we don't even take. Can a lack of travel hurt our ability to be creative and excel at our jobs? And, as you mentioned, our creativity yearns for travel to new places. Mark Twain said that travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness--the very things that clog creativity. So I urge people to travel to new places and--from time to time--travel alone. It's great to travel with friends and family, but traveling alone allows us to totally focus on the experience. Consequently, it's easier to spot insights and ideas. Many of our readers are students earning a graduate degree in business or technology. What advice would you offer to someone who is reinventing themselves and their career with a new set of credentials in hand? Never stop creating. I yield the floor on this piece of advice to Peter Robinson, whom I quoted in my latest book as saying: "Sometime during the two-year curriculum, every MBA student ought to hear it clearly stated that numbers, techniques and analysis are all side matters. What is central to business is the joy of creating." Never stop exploring. Einstein was once asked if he were given an hour to come up with an idea to save the world, how would he spend the time. He said he would spend 55 minutes exploring and five minutes coming up with ideas. Never stop appreciating. In his commencement addresses, the writer Kurt Vonnegut urges college graduates to "always notice when you are happy." I can't top that advice. ### Interview conducted in November, 2006 by Timothy Leffel, managing editor. To see more about Sam Harrison's books and to get advice on ideaspotting, visit ZingZone.com. |
Get Ideaspotting at your favorite bookstore or buy it here: Fishpond
Get Zing! at your favorite bookstore or buy it here: Fishpond | |
 |
|
What seems to hold back most people is judgment--both internal and external. We block our creative abilities by being concerned about what others might think about our ideas, and by too quickly judging our own ideas. Samuel Goldwin, the colorful movie mogul, once started a meeting by saying, "I had a great idea on the way to work this morning--but I didn't like it." I love that line, because it's the perfect illustration of how we'll have an idea one second and condemn it the very next second. 
You talk a lot about the importance of reading. There are signs all around that people are reading less and what they are reading--especially younger workers--is in short bursts of information on the Web. What effect do you think this could have on our creative abilities?
