Just Seven Things

Exploring why and how we do what we do, and how we can do it better

Archive for the tag “Creativity”

12 Jun 2008
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The Creativity and Focus of Talking

For a long time now I have wondered at how powerful it would be to be able to tap in to the creativity of a 121 conversation whilst on your own.

I’m talking about how focused you are on the topic under discussion. How everything else has to fade away from your brain for you to be able to formulate the words required to talk and have a conversation with the person you are in discussion with.

I’m not even sure it’s the same when you are in a group or a brainstorming. In these scenarios maybe you have the downtime to have the kind of internal conversations you may have on your own. Of course the 121 conversations will mean that the prompts from the person you are talking to – their thoughts and assertions – are going to trigger your creativity. But is there something more happening?

Maybe it’s just me and the way in which I work? However, some of the best thoughts that I have fall out at the end of conversations, or statements that I’m making (I’m admitting to a tendency to wax over-lyrically. A development point I am working on)

It’s as though in my brain working hard to a. construct a thought and b. formulate the words and sentence to clearly communicate, it enters a place of greater creativity. When in this place things seem to both occur and resolve at the same time.

Maybe this is why people start talking to themselves?

Posted in Communication, Creativity and tagged ,
04 Jun 2008
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NLP and Company Growth Enhancement

Read another great review in the FT of a book that’s now on the list. Stall Points. Most Companies Stop Growing – Yours Doesn’t Have To by Matthew Olsen and Derek van Bever.

Apparently it’s about learning from the mistakes some of the biggest companies made: Daimler-Benz, IBM, Toshiba, Levi Strauss that lead to their revenues to stall.

As well as four main reasons driving more than half the growth failures:

‘“premium position captivity” – the failure to change tactics in response to the advent of a low-cost competitor or changing customer preference; “innovation management breakdown” – failure to achieve desired or required returns on investments in new products or services; “premature core abandonment” – failure to exploit growth opportunities in the “core franchise” or to adjust the business model to meet new competitive requirements; and “talent bench shortfall” – lack of adequate leaders and staff with the skills and capabilities for successful strategy execution.’ – FT,

the authors apparently identify ‘stale thinking, based on “mental models” that no longer apply. Abandoning long-held beliefs, resisting the seductive perils of denial, proves difficult for many business leaders’

I was running one of our Ideas and Learning Project courses at Madgex today… Read more…

Posted in Creativity, Leadership, NLP and tagged , ,
30 May 2008
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Untidy Desks, Mind Maps and Writing

I very much want to understand more about how writing things down unlocks the creative processes. What starts the flow of thoughts just by putting the pen to paper and dumping down what is inside your head?

I can simply see from a Just Seven Things perspective that one argument could be that you’re freeing space for the next related and associated items to ‘pop’ into the consciousness.

I’ve looked briefly at Buzan’s work on Mind Maps and need to do so in much more depth. He refers there to studies that he has looked at on creative flexibility and how features are mirrored during the act of mind mapping on paper. My five year old was showing me how to do them the other day as they had been taught how to do them at school for thinking about words to describe things.

I was prompted to put finger to key on this subject this evening when reading the FT I came upon the results of a study by Eric Abrahamson, professor of management at Columbia Business School and author of a new book ‘A Perfect Mess’

He apparently talks about organisation vs disorder. It was a comment about the benefits of a messy desk that made me tie this thought together. A line is quoted from his book which says “Mess puts items in context and the unexpected juxtapositions of unrelated items can cause you to make connections that you’d never make if the things were in two separate filing cabinets”

Fair enough. One question I pose to myself though is ‘how often do you ever look at the other bits of paper on the desk. Do they not just become layers of detritus that can stimulate lateral thoughts during tidy-ups or recycle sessions’ (I’m imagining here, I have to admit. I don’t have a desk.)

Similarly, when I mind map or brainstorm, looking back at what I’ve put down doesn’t consciously seem to help. It seems more the act of starting that unblocks a rapid flow. I know I need to look at this more as I’m sure that there’s a lot untapped. However I find it interesting that when the thoughts are down they’re very powerful but seem more to have their own life than conscious relationships with others?

Posted in Conscious and Unconscious, Creativity, Writing and tagged , ,

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