Creative Reaction

Lean Startups follows up with a Part II to a great post from last Summer, How a foosball table can kill your startup.

At issue is motivating employees, but not in a way that hurts morale or adversely affects work. I agree with everything Apollo says. Focus on teamwork, health, having a life outside of work, and developing relationships with clients.

Every company has its own culture and needs. Maybe a foosball table or an espresso machine makes sense for you. The important thing is to choose what is best for your team members as individuals – people with mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual needs –  and in ways that allow them to be engaged in their work.

Some of our recent posts have discussed the importance of  exposing yourself and your team members to new ideas and experiences. Today, we’ll discuss a hurdle to this, namely, perfectionism.

It is a well-known fact that perfectionism can keep us from finishing projects that we work on. It wasn’t until I read How to Suck at Anything, that I realized perfectionism can also inhibit us from trying and learning new things. When perfectionism is coupled with competitiveness, as is the case with me, it can result in even more missed creative opportunities.

So learn to be comfortable with not having mastered something and/or not being the best at it.

“Sucking is absolutely necessary. There’s no way around it. In order to get better at anything, at some point or another you’re going to have to suck. That’s just the way it is.”

Encourage your teams to suck.

Don the Idea Guy offers 10 Idea Inspiring Lightning Rods, a list of ways to constantly expose your creative self to potentially inspirational ideas.

Though this list is aimed at individuals, it works on a number of levels, and even more powerfully, for creative companies. Many of the ideas can be incorporated into the work environment; others could be used as social activities. Your company could:

• share magazines and paperback books
• arrange lunch hour or after-work museum field trips
• hold book discussions
• have show & tell once a week allowing team members to inspire one another
• play word games as teams
• have a variety of music on hand
• attend lectures
• participate in Pecha-Kucha
• create a Wiki of inspirational ideas and web sites
• take classes together (or even offer them on-site!)

Please add your own ideas in the comments!

It’s such a simple thing, yet we often allow ourselves to get “too busy” to take care of fundamentals such as feeding our souls. Managers, do your part to inspire those around you!

I’m a somewhat passive fan of architecture, mostly through the pages of Wired magazine and my RSS feeds, and I almost didn’t watch this TED video of architect Joshua Prince-Ramus describing the design process of Dallas’ Wyly Theater. And that would have been a shame.

But I did watch the video and I would urge you to do the same, even if you don’t care much for theater or architecture. Watch it to learn from the collaboration process involved. Watch it to think about your approach to your clients. Watch it to shape an inspirational environment for the artists you manage.

John Cleese gave an excellent presentation at the Creativity Worldforum in Belgium and excerpts of it are embedded here.

Cleese’s background as a scientist has allowed him to observe his own creative process and present some ground rules for creativity.

It’s encouraging to find that he is in 100% agreement with that we’ve been presenting here at Creative Reaction for the past three years. He speaks of the dangers of interruptions. He also speaks of creating the proper environment for creativity; creating boundaries in space (separation from distractions) and boundaries in time (setting a start time and a time to finish). Without these conditions, creative reaction will be inhibited.

Most importantly, for managers of creatives Cleese offers two profound insights. The first is “to know how good you are at something requires the same skills as it does to be good at that thing.” And the converse is true as well. ”If you are absolutely hopeless at something, you lack the exactly the skills you need to know that you are absolutely hopeless at it.”

In other words, we are all blind to any lack of expertise we may have. There’s no point in bluffing. Those who truly excel can call  you out.

The second insight describes a pandemic issue in many advertising agencies.

“If the people in charge are very egotistical, then they want to take credit for everything that happens and they want to feel that they are in control of everything that happens and that means consciously or unconsciously they will discourage creativity in other people.” I’ve seen this first-hand. The impact this makes on creative output as well as morale is devastating. (In fact, it explains some of the career choices I’ve made.)

Humility, a willingness to learn, and giving others credit are not only valuable lifelong skills, they are also the basis for collaboration and learning together as a team. Without them, everyone is working against everyone else. Managers beware!

Be sure to watch John Cleese’s presentation.

Another great TED video. This one by Julian Treasure about the ways (both positive and negative) that environmental sounds affect us, including a shocking statistic on open office noise. Managers and owners should watch this, especially when planning work spaces!

Just in time for the weekend, designer Stefan Sagmeister describes how he leverages year-long sabbaticals to boost his creative thinking. Check out this great TED video.

Supposedly it’s “common sense” that critical thinking suffocates creativity. Mark McGuinness has a great essay over at Lateral Action explaining how and when critical thinking plays a role in the creative process. Most importantly, he defines “creativity”, “creative thinking”, “critical thinking”, “criticism”, and “negative criticism”.

He also touches on a hugely important issue – that of corporate culture. Sadly, there are organizations that punish for mistakes, “wrong answers” and even attempts to innovate. (Click here for related articles.)

One company that successfully combines creativity and critical thinking is Pixar Animation Studios, in its extremely iterative process, where each animator’s work is screened in front of the entire department and all are encouraged to comment. (Now, you must first understand that a core value at Pixar is creating an atmosphere of trust, and people at all levels help one another.) According to Pixar President Ed Catmull these screenings offer many benefits:

1. Once people get over the awkwardness of showing their unfinished work, they become more creative
2. The director or creative leads can communicate important objectives to the group as a whole
3. creatives learn from and inspire one another to do their best

So Mark McGuinness is clearly on to something here; “the function of critical thinking is to make something better. Used wisely, your critical faculty is one of the most powerful creative tools at your disposal”

David Silverman at Harvard Business Publishing, who has worn everything from torn jeans to Armani suits during his career, offers this great essay about business attire.

What does your attire say to your clients and co-workers?  Does it say “I care” or “I don’t care”?

Great post over at Zen Habits explaining how simplifying, constraining, and focusing are tools to boost creativity. Many of the tips can be used by creatives for brainstorming and day-to-day creative work. Others should be noted by managers to make sure they are creating the proper conditions for creative reaction to happen.

The research of Harvard University’s Teresa Amabile on the effects of management, and especially time pressure, upon creativity has been cited a number of times here at CR, so it’s good to come across additional research which both confirms it and refines some of the findings.

Keith Sawyer’s Creativity & Innovation blog summarizes (but does not link to) a 2006 study entitled “The Curvilinear Relation Between Experienced Creative Time Pressure and Creativity: Moderating Effects of Openness to Experience and Support for Creativity” . (An 8-page .pdf)

Without giving too much away, The ability to handle time pressure depends upon how open creatives are to experience, and even then there’s a “sweet spot” for the optimal amount of time pressure. Sawyer does a great job summarizing the research. Check it out.

Lessons learned from moving startups to new offices via Lean Startups offers some excellent, practical advice about what to do once you’ve Bulldozed Your Cubicles. It also contains a link to one entrepreneur’s account of a company losing its edge after moving into a comfortable space.

Having an office environment that fosters creativity is a delicate balance. Too few comforts can prevent work from getting done. Too many comforts and you go soft.

(Click on the “environment” tag for numerous posts on this subject.)

Last Spring, Wired Magazine had a pictorial on the evolution of the cubicle farm, offering a glimmer of hope by stating that today’s designers are trying to “part the sea of cubicles and encourage sociability”.

Harvard Business Publishing suggests parting them with a bulldozer.

“Cubicle cultures just don’t work… (they) discourage collaboration, stifle employee engagement and, as a result, strangle innovation at the exact time when it’s desperately needed.”

What does work? An environment offering a combination of private space to get work done and communal spaces for collaboration.

Read both articles for short profiles and office furniture companies offering alternatives.

I came across Where I Write in Wired magazine. It is a photo essay by Kyle Cassidy, which documents the creative work spaces of Science Fiction and Fantasy writers. Soon the photos as well as interviews with the authors will be compiled into a book. Where I Write is now in the sidebar (under “Inspiration”) along with On My Desk and This Ain’t No Disco. Check them all out and be inspired!

This article from the Idea Champions archives explains the process of creating a culture of innovation where none yet exists, and aptly chooses the metaphor of clearing brush and planting a garden. As the article states, creating such a culture is simple, yet it’s hard work!