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Idea: Playfulness is crucial to creativity. It gives permission to feel relaxed, comfortable, and share.

How it influences my leadership & creativity: This idea has a lot of influence on my leadership and creativity. It reminds me of the necessity as a leader to incorporate laughter as it helps us feel calm and a sense of relief. A leader that encourages playfulness accepts and encourages a creative and innovative culture free of judgement. Those who feel motivated to play and take risks even if there is failure, are the ones who constantly discover, learn, and ultimately create. It is my goal to always bring a sense a playfulness into my leadership. This can be achieved in many different forms: a creative retreat, a five minute meeting ice breaker, a physical on-hour activity, and so on.

Importance to the development of my thinking: This concept is one of the core elements of my thinking, and it has been that way my entire life. I have always found comfort in play, wether it was drawing, doodling, building, or creating robots with office supply items. Play allows me to step outside my comfort zone, tap into new lines of thought that were not prominent before, and allow me to think beyond the constant limits everyday society puts on us. Often restraints like time and money create feelings of anxiety and stress - these limits our ability to effectively lead and create. Remembering that a sense of playfulness can help alleviate these feelings will be a foundational pillar in the development of the way I think.

How it synthesis’s into constructs that influence my creative leadership and thinking creativity: My existing construct around playfulness, in light of leadership and creativity, is one based on my childhood experiences. I would use play to release stress and help focus on problem solving. I have carried that notion through life with me. As a creative leader, playfulness will allow myself and those I lead to expand their own creativeness and build ideas they might not otherwise have the confidence and ability to do so.

Resource: https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_brown_tales_of_creativity_and_play?language=en

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Idea: Design doesn’t have to be about grand gestures. It can be small and focus on often overlooked problems.

How it influences my leadership & creativity: As a creative leader, I often stress about the bigger picture, achieving big goals, etc. I need to better understand myself that this doesn't have the be the reality. It is ok to set small goals that solve smaller problems. Even if they lead up to bigger ones. As a leader, it is important to be realistic while still being able to creatively dream big. There is a balance that is needed. This idea absolutely influences my leadership and creative efforts, but is something I have to keep reminding myself to be aware of.

Importance to the development of my thinking: As my thought process develops over time, it is important to be mindful of what is the main focus, what the main goal is. And if necessary, to refine that goal down to something smaller, more achievable. So much energy is lost worrying about or trying to fix large grand problems. I think the first thought should be is this problem in it simplest form or can I simplify it before trying to solve it.

How it synthesis’s into constructs that influence my creative leadership and thinking creativity: My existing construct around small gestures and goals is that is can be difficult to follow through with. As I examine my mental models, I realize that I tend to be a big picture thinker. But, I do find it to be extremely beneficial to set and achieve small goals that lead up to one big goal rather than stressing over finding a solution to a major problem. Sometimes we find creative solutions in solving smaller problems as we are able to look at it in pieces.

Resource: https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_bennett_design_is_in_the_details

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Idea:  If you want to build teams
that come up with creative ideas, you must pay careful attention to the design of such teams.

How it influences my leadership & creativity: As a creative leader, I must create mutually supportive groups that reflect a diversity of perspectives and backgrounds. When people with different expertise and creative thinking styles come together to form teams, ideas often combine and combust in exciting and useful ways. We see results we may have never achieved otherwise. It allows the members to challenge each other, play off of each other's thoughts and designs, all to come together to make the best product possible. As a creative leader, I strive to remain open to unique expertise that I might not have considered before.

Importance to the development of my thinking: As my thought process develops over time, this idea reminds me to remain open to the possibilities of the uniqueness of those around me, to value differences, and to allow such differences to challenge the system. With challenge and failure we can only learn, grow, and become better. As a thinker, it is important to also reflect after some time and consider making amendments to groups if needed. Listening to feedback from teams will be helpful.

How it synthesis’s into constructs that influence my creative leadership and thinking creativity: My current construct of this idea is that we tend to group individuals together that have a common background in hopes of creating something new, ground breaking, etc. But in reality, it is our uniqueness and foundational differences that create opportunities to push boundaries and think outside of the box.

Resource: Amabile, T. M. (1998). How to kill creativity (Vol. 87). Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.

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Idea: An individual's ability to think creatively, and to facilitate creative thinking in others, can be enhanced.

How it influences my leadership & creativity: As a leader both professionally and personally, this concept has a lot of meaning and influence. It reminds me that everyone is capable of enhancing their skills and adapting a creative nature. While it may take different techniques and different amounts of time, we can all grow and enhance our skills. As a leader I must provide different and constant opportunities for growth for my team as well as myself.

Importance to the development of my thinking: This idea it extremely important to the development of my thinking. If i think along the lines of 'we are who we are and there is no change or growth' then I limit myself and my team tremendously. But if I keep an open mind and focus on the thought that we can all grow and develop new skills, the possibilities are endless.

How it synthesis’s into constructs that influence my creative leadership and thinking creativity: My current construct of this idea is that because society likes to place labels and definitions, we tend to get placed and labeled and follow that path endlessly. It takes time, effort, dedication and motivation to realize we can learn new things and enhance current skills beyond our current state.

Resource: Puccio, G. J., Mance, M., & Murdock, M. C. (2010). Creative leadership: Skills that drive change. Sage Publications.

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Idea: Design to think, don’t think to design.

How it influences my leadership & creativity: My creative leadership approach definitely changed once I read about this idea. As we come together to create, or even as we create as individuals, we must break away from knowing what we must create before we create it. Rather, the focus should be on creating and designing first, thinking later. By shifting to this mindset, we take away the creative limitations and restrictions imposed by rules and thought. We are free to explore and make and color outside of the lines. This often leads to discovery of design we might have not intended int he first place.

Importance to the development of my thinking: This notion has great importance on the development of my thinking. It reminds me to remain open to opportunity and to embrace the possibility of failure as part of the process. When we learn to design to think, we leave our pre-exposed thoughts of how things should be aside and remain open to newness. It allows us to see for the first time, very much like an anthropologist.

How it synthesis’s into constructs that influence my creative leadership and thinking creativity: My current construct of this idea is that it takes time and practice to be able to design before we think rather than thinking to design. My nature tendency has always been to plan out as best as possible. I remember as a young child, I always wanted to paint or draw but before I could do so I needed an idea of what I wanted to draw. Without that idea my pen could not touch the paper. I feel like that example is very common today. We tend to follow rules and guides and then make or create. We must learn to create in order to think. I believe our sense of creativeness will grow exponentially this way.

Resource: https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_brown_designers_think_big#t-420250

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Idea: Psychologically safe environments foster knowledge sharing processes and enable creative team performance.

How it influences my leadership & creativity: This idea and understanding is a fundamental piece to the success of any group environment. As a creative leader, I must do my part to ensure the environment in which we learn, work, etc is one that others feel safe in. Safe to explore, safe to take risks, safe to be wrong, safe to be uniquely themselves. Constant feedback from those I lead will ensure I am always putting forth my best effort at achieving such an environment. As a leader I always want to create and maintain a space that is flexible, respectful, and open to change and risk taking. This will allows others to feel comfortable and at ease which in-turn fosters knowledge sharing, enhances performance, and plays into previous ideas: motivation, designing to think, ignorance, playfulness, and so on.

Importance to the development of my thinking: This concept, I feel, is one of the most important ones when it comes to the development of my thinking. Without a psychologically safe environment, the rest won't matter. We must feel confident, supported, able, motivated, etc in order to achieve success. Without this, we are limited by our thoughts, perceptions, the possibility of failure, and so on. As I develop over time, I must always take the time to step back and make sure I am created and supporting an environment that is safe.

How it synthesis’s into constructs that influence my creative leadership and thinking creativity: My current construct of this idea is that in a time when almost everything (results, designs, answers, etc) is based on instant gratification, it is possible to forget to spend the time on creating a strong foundational base that is a safe environment. I have had many personal work experiences that idd not provide this type of environment and it always limited my creativity and results. I felt restricted, scared to raise my hand, and feared being wrong. As a leader, I must break these patterns and create new ones.

Resource:

Kessel, M., Kratzer, J., & Schultz, C. (2012). Psychological safety, knowledge sharing, and creative performance in healthcare teams. Creativity and innovation management, 21(2), 147-157.

Kislyakov, P. A., Shmeleva, E. A., Karaseva, T. Y. V., & Silaeva, O. G. A. (2014). Monitoring of education environment according to the social-psychological safety criterion. Asian Social Science, 10(17), 285.

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Idea: Design is human centered even though it may integrate things like technology and economics. It starts with what humans need.

How it influences my leadership & creativity: As a leader, I must be aware at my(our) mission and keep in mind the core values and beliefs behind all projects. At the end of the day, design and creativity is all about human connection, it starts with human touch and thought even though it may incorporate outside methods like technology. As I lead a team creatively I hope to inspire this ideation and encourage them to look within when concepting and solving problems. We can very easily lose sight of the human connection as we think more big picture, flashy lights, and quick solutions. It is in this time especially I will remind my team of its importance.

Importance to the development of my thinking: As my thinking develops over time, I will continue challenging myself to remain true to personal and professional missions and the necessary human connections. When I take on new challenges, lead new teams, I will makes sure to include this ideation from the very beginning and revisit it as time goes on to make sure don't lose sight.

How it synthesis’s into constructs that influence my creative leadership and thinking creativity: My current construct of this idea is that we as a society tend to be so fast paced, focused on instant gratification, and looking to what's next that we easily forget to take a step back and under the 'whys' in the first place. It is here that we find that human connection and it needs to be revisiting every so often as to not lose sight of the bigger picture.

Resource: https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_brown_designers_think_big#t-420250

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Idea: We should value what we don’t know as much, if not more than, what we do know. Ignorance is powerful.

How it influences my leadership & creativity: To understand that ignorance is not a negative thing (as it so often is viewed as), is to hold the power of endless possibilities in your hand. This greatly influences my leadership and creativity. I lead with an open mind fully considering what is unknown to me and those around me. What we don't know, to me, is an opportunity of growth and expansion. There will never be an end to ignorance which means there will never be an end to the potential creation opportunities. My starting point as a leader is to try and reflect on what I do know so I can acknowledge what I do not know, as well as influence those around me to do the same.

Importance to the development of my thinking: As my thinking processes develop over the course of my life, it will be greatly impacted by this idea. This idea has be constantly reevaluating my own level of understandings and how I think. To be able to understand (to some degree) my own blindspots and systems construct is to be able to understand my weaknesses and what I do not know. With this awareness, I can learn, grow, and discover new endless possibilities.

How it synthesis’s into constructs that influence my creative leadership and thinking creativity: My existing construct around the idea of ignorance when it comes t creativity is that is leads to bigger and better things. What we don't know is a blessing we choose to discover what it is exactly and make sense of it. The more we enlighten ourselves with our ignorances, the more opportunity we have to create new and better things.

Resource: https://www.ted.com/talks/stuart_firestein_the_pursuit_of_ignorance

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Idea: Contingent extrinsic motivators can limit our creativity, narrow our focus, or even do harm. Rather, we should focus on intrinsic motivation.

How it influences my leadership & creativity: This idea has great influence on my leadership. The motivation techniques I deploy should represent intrinsic motivations. For example, the desire to do things because they matter, because we like it, it’s interesting, or part of something important. These motivators will increase productivity as well as happiness. Extrinsic motivators, like bonuses, decrease overall productivity and happiness. They crate stress and anxiety and ultimately limit our capabilities. My leadership style will consider this motivation strategy greatly.

Importance to the development of my thinking: This idea has great importance as I continue to develop my thinking over time. I must remember to not only deploy intrinsic motivations as often as possible for my team, but for myself as well. I feel it is so easy to get caught up in the promise of more money or promotions in the corporate world. When in reality, I know I am happier at the core when I am working on something that has meaning, I am passionate about, that could have an impact on others, etc.

How it synthesis’s into constructs that influence my creative leadership and thinking creativity: My current construct of this idea is that we are all unique and while I may prefer intrinsic motivators, and science proves they work better, some may still prefer extrinsic motivators like money. I must be able to adapt and really understand my team as individuals. That also comes to which intrinsic motivations work for the respective team mate as they may differ on their own.

Resource:

https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_the_puzzle_of_motivation?language=en#t-733609

Amabile, T. M. (1998). How to kill creativity (Vol. 87). Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing. Chicago

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Idea: As an anthropologist, you have the art of beginner’s mind…  They can see something they have seen a thousand times for the first time.

How it influences my leadership & creativity: As a leader I need to be able to do my best to tackle new and existing problems head on with a pair of fresh eyes. Being able to do so, allows past constructs to fade and new ones to form. It allows a team to understand without bias and prejudice. As a creative leader, I need to find ways to better promote this mindset and behavior as it is not easy. It is an art to be mastered and so I suggest providing opportunities to practice this over time. We can get so caught up in the day to day project timelines that we end up taking the 'baggage' from yesterday into tomorrow's environment. As a creative leader I will do my best to establish an open and free environment free of bias and leftover visions. This will take time to master.

Importance to the development of my thinking: As my thinking develops over time, I must find ways to train my brain to not hold onto yesterday's news, feelings, and visions as they will cloud today's work. During challenges I will attempt to stop, reflect, and consider if the way I am thinking is because of past notions and behaviors or if it is truly a new perspective.

How it synthesis’s into constructs that influence my creative leadership and thinking creativity: My current construct of this idea is that we as a society can easily take feelings of yesterday and apply them to the problems of today. We must do our best to start each day anew. When we master this ability, we can attack problems with a set of fresh eyes each and every time. This will enhance creativity output.

Resource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1pBhHjGKvI

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Idea: Creatively and proactively addressing barriers will help overcome resistance to change.

How it influences my leadership & creativity: As a leader, I understand that not everyone will agree and there will be challenges to the change that is proposed. The better I am able to creatively and proactively break down barriers or challenges, the easier it will be to overcome the resistance to change. As a leader, I must use my creativity to not only design but to show the importance and benefit of the design. I must also do my best to be proactive and seek out possible challenges before hand. This will allow me to have answers to the questions that will most certainly come. It is important to also note that not matter how much we prepare, we must also be flexible to address any unplanned concerns that may arise.

Importance to the development of my thinking: This idea has a lot of influence on my thought development. It reminds me to not only plan for the here and now but to consider possible future outcomes and be willing to address them. I might not have all the answers instantly, but creativity and flexibility will be my best friend when the time comes.

How it synthesis’s into constructs that influence my creative leadership and thinking creativity: My current construct of this idea is that due to our individual blind spots and mental models, we liek to stay in our lanes and not diverge form the path. When we do diverge we are often met with resistance to the change as it is more difficult to change than it is to keep doing what we know how to do. As a creative leader I must break these molds, push boundaries, and create an environment where we don't shy away from change.... we embrace it.

Resource:
Puccio, G. J., Mance, M., & Murdock, M. C. (2010). Creative leadership: Skills that drive change. Sage Publications.

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Idea: Figure out who and what to observe. Go out into the world without an agenda. Pay attention, observe, synthesis.

How it influences my leadership & creativity: I am very much an observer by nature so this idea made total sense to me. As a leader I must take the time to not only observe and reflect on that going on around me, but on myself as well. I think self observation is extremely important, and something we tend to overlook. I think it is also imperative to understand that not every single thing needs such detailed levels attention as we may think.

Importance to the development of my thinking: The brain is not designed to 'brainstorm' at a set time and in a set place, but rather to observe and find patterns over time. This is extremely important to remember as my thinking develops over time. I must try to step outside of my blindspots and mental models in order to effectively observe and distill.

How it synthesis’s into constructs that influence my creative leadership and thinking creativity: My existing construct around the idea of observation is that it is vital to the success of leaders especially when it comes to creativity. Observation allows the creative leader time to see, distill, reflect, and put forth reinvented ideas or thoughts. This construct is built of what is being observed, for how long, why, and how it is being synthesized. I must remain open to what should be observed, requires attention, and understand deeper purposes.

Resource:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1pBhHjGKvI

De Bono, E. (1995). Serious creativity. The Journal for Quality and Participation, 18(5), 12.