Keeping Creativity Alive

A book review by: Keri Marrs Barron

Graduate Student

International Center for Studies in Creativity

Could you imagine a childhood without playing outdoors? What if the television was the only spark given to your imagination? Creating images in clouds, dreaming of being rescued by a super hero or being the next president are all images that might not be created following this author's ten step process of destroying a child’s imagination.  Esolen, an English Professor from Providence College, writes the non-fiction book Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of your Child, focusing on how our current society is destroying the imagination of our children.  Each chapter concentrates on one of the ten methods using major themes through our everyday society (the environment, machines, sex, heroes, patriotism, politics and man & woman).   After discussing the method of destruction, Esolen references examples of literary characters who would not be desired in this non-imaginative society.  Then he sarcastically implies this is the outcome our society desires.   Esolen reviews the nine other methods the same way: society, character, sarcasm.

One of Esolen’s methods of destruction is titled, “Keep your children indoors as much as possible" or "They used to call it ‘air’.”  The chapter documents how children are more interested in playing with video games, televisions, and even cell phones than exploring outside adventures, which provides little to spark the imagination.  Society has had a large impact on this method.  Now, more families have both parents working outside the home and the children are instructed to stay inside until a parent is home from work.  The day begins with school, where students are instructed to color in the lines, sit down, go to lunch at this time, do this and do that, all indoors.  After school they stay entertained by the technology boxes (phones, television, video games) until the parent gets home and then may run off to another conforming event (possibly soccer practice or band practice).  The child has no time for fresh air or to just observe the outdoors.

During the summer months the imagination is constrained even more as the technology box is the main focus of entertainment.  No school, just time on their own in a house, no outside time. The concept of being able to walk down to a park or to a hangout with friends and partake in some crazed adventure is taken away by a safety concern for the child.  When the opportunity arises to enjoy the outdoors, the child is not interested in being outdoors, as his stimulation is from the box and not from his imagination. One book and character that Esolen references by keeping our children indoors is Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. Sawyer is a young boy who plays outdoors on the Mississippi River building his independence in discovering the outdoors and creating mischief, yet, he also develops his self reliance and confidence to explore and succeed in the world.  In keeping our children indoors we are defining the imagination by the box and sheltering the development of confidence and self worth rather than providing the opportunity to develop their own imagination comparative to Tom Sawyer.  

As a parent, I was sold by the title and wondered how this book could help me be more aware of the destruction we are causing to our own children’s imagination and creativity.  The book is profound but very true.  In trying to protect our children and educate them to be good students and citizens, we are trampling their creativity and imagination by teaching them to conform.  After I read the first method, I took my book, laptop and my kids to play outside to observe nature rather than our inner walls. 

A very well researched book, I was not expecting the author to have referenced examples throughout literature, from Chopin, Chesterton, and Lewis to the Holy Bible. Written by an English professor, I should have expected no different but I was a bit bored by the numerous literary references.  In all fairness to Esolen, I am an implementer (a preference in the Foursight® creative problem solving analysis). When I read an idea and have evidence, I am ready to move on to another topic, as opposed to reading several more references of characters we would be destroying.  As a parent and former educator, I was interested in any suggestions or solutions, to remedy the problem. Unfortunately, this book did not address solutions.  

My one imaginative takeaway could not have been better said by my three-year-old daughter when she left Sunday school: “He swallowed me whole, he swallowed me whole.”  I thought about what she said for a few minutes and realized even the Holy Bible utilizes the imagination; she was singing a song about Jonah being swallowed by the whale.  Ironically, Esolen’s final method references this same story of Jonah and the whale.  The more I thought about the imagination and creativity, the more I continued to wonder why as a society we are working so hard to conform and eliminate the imagination.  For many years, our most well known innovators such as Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Walt Disney, and Steve Jobs were known for their imagination not their conforming, so why are we so insistent on conforming?  Children need to know that if they think outside the box, or color outside the lines, they should not be penalized, rather encouraged for their creativity. Imagination can be restored and we do not need to read about negative topics like destruction of the imagination.

References

Esolen.A. (2010). Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of your Child.  Wilmington, DE:  Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

About Keri Marrs Barron 

Keri Marrs Barron is a current student in the Master’s program at the International Center for Studies in Creativity at Buffalo State University.   She is a former administrator in Higher Education. Her positions ranged from the aspect of Student Services from recruiting, advising, teaching and directing Student Activities.  Her current full time position and hobbies are caring for her family and finishing her degree.  Marrs Barron resides in La Porte, Indiana with her husband, 3 sons and 1 daughter.    

Getting to know "The Innovative Team"

A book review by: Adela Vangelisti
Graduate Student
International Center for Studies in Creativity

Do we really need another leadership book?  Many widely-read books have been written about the subject, ranging from New York Times Best Sellers like John C. Maxwell’s The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership (2007) to scholarly texts like Leadership: Theory and Practice, by Peter G. Northouse (2010).  Chris Grivas and Gerard J. Puccio wrote The Innovative Team (2012) because they believe that some authors approach the topic by giving too much weight to following rules and guidelines, and too little to nurturing our innate leader.  Thus, it is helpful to have several books covering the same territory with different perspectives.

The authors restore the balance by exploring, in detail, the activities of a fictional group. Using a breakthrough thinking process and a self-awareness framework the group deals not only with the client’s demands for innovation in their organization, but tackles today’s collaboration challenges when working in a team environment. The authors contend that, “the potential of any working group is defined by its members—not just individually but collectively” (p. 237).

The subtitle, “Unleashing creative potential for breakthrough results,” calls attention to another natural skill: creativity. The authors noted in the book’s foreword, “among many insights, one undeniable fact has emerged—creative thinking is a teachable and trainable skill” (p. xvi, foreword). Throughout The Innovative Team, Grivas and Puccio demonstrate a unique ability to describe the ways in which the science of creativity holds the key to organizational survival.

The biggest contribution of The Innovative Team is the effortless way in which Grivas & Puccio manage to bring the team of fictional characters to life. The authors place the team of Juan (senior business analyst), Elaine (business analyst), Damon (marketing analyst), Maya (associate business analyst), and Amy (data integration specialist) into a typical organization’s setting, with a writing style that is relatable to every reader. Unlike other books in the genre, which portray teams as experimental subjects utilized to describe confusing observations or complex theories, Grivas and Puccio depict them as real people, with real problems.

The Innovative Team begins as the team is informed by their senior partner, Tony, that their new team leader, Kate, who is in charge of the organization’s innovation efforts, has been assigned to work with the team on their biggest client’s account: Consolidated. Tony starts out by giving the team harsh feedback: “…what we’ve given her [Alicia, the senior VP at Consolidated] so far is nothing that another firm couldn’t have delivered for half the price” (p.16). The team members are surprised: they turned in their recommendation to the client on time, checked their usual sources, and wrote a comprehensive report.

Kate leads the team through the Consolidated challenge using deliberate processes and tools. Grivas and Puccio masterfully guide us through the sequence of the four-stage breakthrough thinking process that “simply puts names on the stages of innovation that we all do naturally” (p.47). We are also given a number of practical tools and concepts along the way to facilitate the journey. Of particular importance is the use of the FourSight framework (www.foursightonline.com), which transforms the team’s dynamics.

FourSight brings awareness to our individual strengths and challenges as we move through the breakthrough thinking process. Each individual in the group (including Kate) feels energized at one point in the process. The group must learn to not just focus on one particular stage when contributing, but to make an effort to work on all the stages to collaborate effectively. The team is very fortunate to have Maya among them who, according to FourSight, is an Integrator, or someone comfortable with all stages. Her all-encompassing preference helps to bridge the gaps between the other members.

Even though, Grivas and Puccio manage to effortlessly, shine a light on what team innovation looks like, the book is not perfect. The authors emphasize the physical characteristics of the individuals down to their dressing style, “…Tony Martin, the senior partner ….cut a handsome figure with his tanned complexion, graying temples, and designer suit” (p.16).  However, their personalities are not as extensively developed. Also, I understand the true purpose of describing their thinking styles as single faceted to illustrate the four FourSight preferences in their purest form. Yet, the pieces of the puzzle come together too quickly.

On the other hand, I give high marks to Grivas and Puccio for backing up the claims they make with well-researched, hard facts in the second half of the book. Using clear explanations and concise bullet points, the authors provide the reader with a common language to describe both the breakthrough thinking process and the FourSight framework for both discourse and application. Also, sprinkled throughout the book are signs of Grivas and Puccio’s passion to demystify creativity as “fantasy,” and to share the power of discovering some of your own solutions trough creative thinking.  Kudos!

References

Grivas, C., & Puccio, G. J. (2012). The innovative team: Unleashing creative potential for breakthrough results. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

About Adela Vangelisti

A Guide to "Transformative Scenario Planning"

A book review by: Eva Teruzzi
Product Marketing and Business Development
Fiera Milano

Published in 2012, Transformative Scenario Planning: Working together to change the future is a non-fiction book that can greatly benefit anyone interested in designing and facilitating multi-stakeholder change in “stuck” contexts, especially political and social ones. The narrative approach chosen by Adam Kahane makes the readers dive into a powerful storytelling experience, where methodological learning is combined with a vivid narration of actual projects.

One doesn’t need to be a scenario expert to understand the evolution Kahane brings about in this book. While scenarios are created as “objective” stories - to be used by management for strategic planning purposes - Kahane posits that scenario creators can be “passionate” change makers at the same time.

Creativity and change professionals will find many familiar concepts embedded in a practical guide coming from the life-long experience of Adam Kahane.  Kahane is a scenario expert who worked for 20 years as head of Scenario at Royal Dutch Shell, and, for about the same time, as transformative scenario facilitator at international level.

The book is organized around 9 chapters addressing transformative scenario planning insights, process, tools and tips.

In chapters 1 and 2 Kahane reminds us that “necessity can be the mother of creativity,” while telling us how he created his methodology, and what differentiates it from traditional scenario planning. It all started in the ’90s while he was helping South Africa transit from Apartheid to the Mandela's era.

In chapters 3 to 7 he presents his five-step transformative process. Creating the team - chapter 3 - is a key step: in fact, 50% of Kahane’s projects failed during the multi-stakeholder team creation step. The approach will sound somewhat familiar to the creativity expert: (i) to create mutual understanding we must “suspend assumptions,” and (ii) creative change projects are  “emergent” and arise from iterated conversations.  

Chapter 4 is about “building up a rough shared understanding of what is happening in the system by enabling more people to see more of the whole.” Specifically, we must look for driving forces and say things that, if impacted even by a small change, can produce major changes in the system variables. According to Kahane, we must  “breath in” current reality by freeing  ourselves “from prejudice and old perceptions,” then we must “let new perceptions cook,” and finally, we must “draw conclusions about what to do next.” Creative Problem Solving experts will see some connections  with their methodology, and also some tools to consider, e.g. (i) asking team members to bring a physical object, to metaphorically address their understanding of the situation; and (ii) making the team do a “learning journey” in order to discover something useful they didn’t know.

Once the team has its driving forces, it can start working on creating stories about “plausible futures” (chapter 5). Stories must be “relevant, challenging, plausible and clear,” and  can be generated “deductively or inductively.” The deductive approach produces “adaptive” scenarios. Instead, the inductive approach produces “creative” scenarios, applying creativity tools such as brainstorming and clustering.  Kahane provides also some tips for effective scenario communication, such as to “choose names for the scenarios” that provide metaphorical power, and to document them so that they can be easily understood and remembered.

Chapter 6 introduces the key discontinuities with traditional scenarios: how teams can make sense of stories and identify what they can and must do in the future. Much of this step resonates with chapter 3 content.

In chapter 7, Kahane provides examples of actions taken in his projects “to multiply a new way of working,” while in chapters 8 and 9 he reminds us that only “new stories can generate new realities,”  which, eventually, “can mutate into myths,” thus giving us more courage to act.

I found the book easy to read and dense at the same time. More reflections on how to prevent projects from failing during the team creation phase, and how to make the process work in corporate environments, would have been beneficial.

I think Transformative Scenario Planning methodology can be effectively used together with CPS, especially in the Clarification and Transformation phases, as it provides add-on tools and insights – e.g. how to create mutual understanding, identify and select challenges, and create the vision.  I also think that Kahane would benefit from CPS knowledge to make his implementation step  more robust – e.g. with tools for exploring acceptance.

Kahane’s book effectively turns scenario planning into a tool for enacting change in “stuck situations.”  In doing so, he reminds us about the need of suspending judgment and the importance of storytelling in fostering shared understanding,  collaboration and creativity. One of Kahane’s greatest insights in the book is the recognition of the power  of “pattern interrupting practices…of non-working periods” as highly creative and productive moments.  This book reminds us that the “future cannot be calculated or controlled, yet, it can be investigated and [creatively] influenced." A call for creative action!

References

Kahane, A. (2012). Transformative scenario planning: Working together to change the future. San

Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

About Eva Teruzzi

Eva has worked in high-tech and service companies, and experienced the challenge of being a professional, a manager and an entrepreneur for almost 30 years. As a result, she has grown a sound understanding of how to make things happen in organizations. 

Today, she is in Product Marketing and Business Development at Fiera Milano, Italy.

Her core competence is change management, which she sees as an overarching competence, necessary for being proficient in almost anything. 

She holds an M.A. in French and English literature and languages, is a certified coach with I.C.F. and is currently  enrolled in the M.Sc. in Creativity at SUNY, Buffalo, NY.

Exploring Visual Thinking

An independent study by: Jody Fisher
Ideation Strategist
Nestlé Purina PetCare

“Draw Your Ideas”

Several years ago, I participated in an ideation session for a new product, lead by an innovation consultancy called Gravity Tank. At this session, we were each handed a stack of 8½- by 5½-inch pieces of paper and were told to “draw your ideas.”

This was the first time I’d been in a session where the ideas were approached in a visual way. My experiences up to that point had involved Post-It Notes, Sharpies and words—lots and lots of words.

At the end of the day, I asked one of the Gravity Tank partners about why they used the “draw your ideas” method. She told me that it came out of the fact that most of the staff had backgrounds in industrial design, so they were naturally inclined to draw. But, she said, they had also found that it really helped distill the idea down to its core. Without words, there was no room for fluff or distractions.

It was powerful. But why?

Why is a visual thinking experience so different from a linguistic-based one? What do we mean we say “visual thinking”? What does it take to become a visual thinker? And why are so many people afraid of it?

This summer, I embarked on an independent study to find some answers.

Why Visual Thinking?

For the purposes of my study, “visual thinking” is not “visual learning,” which is about how information is taken in (Felder, 1993). Visual thinking is about how information is processed and expressed. "Visual thinking is a way to organize your thoughts and improve your ability to think and communicate. It’s a way to expand your range and capacity by going beyond the linear world of the written word, list and spreadsheet, and entering the non-linear world of complex spatial relationships, networks, maps and diagrams" (Gray, 2013).

A lot of our mental resources are dedicated to what we see—much more so than any other sense (Eagleman, 2011; Roam, 2011). We think in images first: even our conceptual mind is pre-linguistic (Margulies & Maal, 2002). The origins of our written language began more than 32,000 years ago with a simple drawing of a bull on a cave wall. Over time, those simple pictures evolved from representing a word to representing a sound, and the images themselves evolved into a symbolic alphabet (Roam, 2011).

At some point, the written word became the standard mode of communication. But using words alone to express ideas constrains our thinking (Gray, Brown & Macanufo, 2010; Roam, 2011). The written word is linear: lines on a page, progressing predictably from left to right. To express an idea visually—to create a picture— is to “make use of a massive range of cortical skills: colour, form, line, dimension, texture, visual rhythm, and especially imagination — a word taken from the Latin imaginari, literally meaning ‘to picture mentally’” (Buzan, 1993, p. 73).

Why Aren’t We All Visual Thinkers?

If visual thinking is “natural” to us, why is it so hard for so many of us to approach problem solving from a visual point of view?

“I can’t draw.”

If this is what you think, welcome to the club. That’s what I thought going into this study. Roam (2009) pointed out that the only group of people who willingly and enthusiastically say they can draw are kindergarteners.

There’s a widely held (mistaken) belief that either you know how to draw, or you don’t. Discomfort among adults regarding drawing is due to the fact that they haven’t got the “grammar” of it (Roam, 2011). The “grammar” is more simple than you might think. Rohde (2013) has broken down “drawing” into five basic elements:

If you can draw these, he said, you can draw anything.

When it comes to “drawing,” we are bogged down by intellectual and emotional baggage. It raises questions of good and bad, right and wrong, pretty and ugly. We get caught up in judgment and forget the point of visual thinking: to express ideas not more beautifully but more clearly and intuitively. "The point of problem-solving pictures isn’t to create great art. We’re not trying to show ourselves and others what things look like ‘out there’ (in the real world); we’re trying to show what things look like ‘in here’ (what we see in our own heads)" (Roam, 2009, p. 261).

Sketchnotes

When I started this independent study, one of the first things I read about was sketchnoting — in part because I know and have worked with the sketchnote evangelist Craighton Berman (www.craightonberman.com). “Sketchnotes are rich visual notes created from a mix of handwriting, drawings, hand-drawn typography, shapes and visual elements like arrows, boxes and lines” (Rohde, 2013, p. 2).

Sketchnoting requires you to think like a reporter, an information designer and an illustrator, all at the same time (Berman, 2011a). But “sketchnotes are about hearing and capturing meaningful ideas, not how well you draw” (Rohde, 2013, p. xiii).

I attempted my first sketchnote after I had spent some time learning the “grammar” of visual thinking.

There’s definitely room for improvement — I need more icons, for example, and my structure isn’t clear — but I can say just from creating this and a few other sets of notes that the process of sketchnoting is a richer, more engaging note-taking process. It demands active listening while putting you very quickly into a convergent state: is this information important?

Mind Mapping

Mind Maps are “a system for generating and organizing any ideas” (Margulies & Maal, 2002, p. 10). The term “Mind Map” is a registered trademark of the Buzan Organization. Buzan (1993) described Mind Mapping as an external expression of a natural function of the human mind—what he calls “Radiant Thinking.” Because of the way thoughts are captured in a Mind Map—with just one word or symbol per line—the creator must distill ideas down to their core essence (Margulies & Maal, 2002).

While I’ve used Mind Maps as tools for divergent thinking in ideation sessions — as fuel for forced connections — I’ve never before deliberately created one to help clarify a problem.

The development of this mind map (partially shown) was an interesting exercise in highlighting the essence. Because I wanted it to be more visual, I created icons to represent the key ideas, which was a great way to explore how to draw concepts.

Resources

Interested in learning more about visual thinking? I started with Dan Roam’s Napkin Academy training (www.napkinacademy.com). I also learned from:


Berman, C. (2011, June 6). Sketchnotes 101: Visual thinking [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.core77.com/blog/sketchnotes/sketchnotes_101_visual_thinking_19518.asp

Berman, C. (2011, June 21). Sketchnotes 101: The basics of visual note taking [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.core77.com/blog/sketchnotes/sketchnotes_101_the_basics_of_visual_note-taking_19678.asp

Buzan, T., & Buzan, B. (1993). The Mind Map® book: How to use radiant thinking to maximize your brain’s untapped potential. New York, NY: Penguin.

Eagleman, D. (2011). Incognito: The secret lives of the brain. New York, NY: Pantheon.

Felder, R. (1993). Reaching the second tier: Learning and teaching styles in college science education. Journal of College Science Teaching, 23(5), pp. 286 – 290.
Retrieved from cfcc.edu/SACS/QEP/documents/ReachingthesecondtierR.Felder1993.pdf

Gray, D. (2013). Visual thinking school [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.davegrayinfo.com/visual-thinking-school/

Gray, D., Brown, S., & Macanufo, J. (2010). Gamestorming: A playbook for innovators, rulebreakers, and changemakers. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly.

Margulies, N. & Maal, N. (2002). Mapping inner space: Learning and teaching visual mapping. Tucson, AZ.: Zephyr Press.

Roam, D. (2009). The back of the napkin: Solving problems and selling ideas with pictures. New York, NY: Penguin.

Roam, D. (2011). Blah blah blah: What to do when words don’t work. New York, NY: Penguin.

Rohde, M. (2013). The sketchnote handbook: The illustrated guide to visual note taking. San Francisco, CA: Peachpit Press.

Sibbet, D. (2001, May) A graphic facilitation retrospective. Presented at the IAF Conference,
Minnesota. Retrieved from http:// www.davidsibbet.com/GF%20Retrospective(Updated).pdf

Stuart, J. (2010, August 23). Dear Harvard Business Review [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.makingideasvisible.com/blog/visual-mapping/dear-harvard-business-review/

About Jody Fisher

Jody Fisher is the Ideation Strategist for the Emerging Growth Group at Nestlé Purina PetCare. In this role, she helps facilitate creative problem solving around strategic business challenges to feed the company’s innovation pipeline. Prior to joining Purina’s Emerging Growth Group, Jody was a copywriter for 15 years, working on brands like Friskies, Purina ONE, Gatorade, Pizza Hut and more. Jody earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from The Colorado College, and expects to finish her Master’s of Science in Creativity and Change Leadership at the ICSC in December, 2013.