Days of uncertainty are designed for creativity - Natalie Nixon
If you’ve ever made a running leap, then you are aware that there are several things at work. First, there is vision. You must have your eyes on a prize, somewhere off in the not too far distance. That prize is close enough to be almost within your reach. Second, you have to leap versus just walk or even run to that desired prize, because there is some barrier or impediment that you need to span. Third, leaps often require a running start. A kinesthetic, active motion is needed for you to gather momentum and propel yourself forward. Fourth, leaping requires that you suspend judgment. After doing all the analysis, gauging, and estimating of what it will take to make that leap, faith and intuition must take over. And fifth, leaping only moves you forward. It is impossible to leap backward. You can fall backward, but you cannot leap backward. Leaping requires exorbitant amounts of energy and trust in the unknown — and it always propels us into new territory.
WHY CREATIVITY LEAPS MATTER
Like a physical leap, a creativity leap is essential for crossing boundaries; it is also an active, dynamic process that honors.
Creativity leaps are needed to bridge the gap between the churn of work and the highly sought-after prize called innovation. This holds true on both the individual and organizational levels. Creativity leaps matter because creativity is the engine for innovation.
How often have you heard people mutter, “Oh, I’m not a creative type”? Perhaps you’ve thought this yourself. This is a false- hood because to be human is to be hardwired to be creative. To be a phenomenal lawyer, manager, doctor, engineer, or plumber requires immense amounts of creativity. Yet our educational system teaches out creativity, and our boardrooms reference it as an afterthought. This is why so many people who are pursuing innovation fail to actually innovate. They expect to generate the new and the novel via systems, structures, and processes that do not honor the uniquely human creative impulse.
Sadly, creativity has been ghettoized and siloed in the arts. This is not fair to artists, and it isn’t beneficial to our society at large. People’s quality of life is at stake. Employees are experiencing a slow death in their office cubicles, while students are made to sit quietly and absorb massive amounts of information passively in classrooms still modeled after schooling in an agricultural economy. Currently, we have a tech crush. We are obsessed with big data, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality while forgetting that humans are at the beginning and end of all those data points. We are forgetting that creativity is the nonnegotiable ingredient in developing the most amazing tech app, healing the sick, and leading dynamic enterprises.
We live in a complex world where there are many shades of gray. Navigating this uncertain and ambiguous world is not easy. But it doesn’t have to be so complicated, either. Let me explain. The important thing to note here is that complication and complexity are not synonyms; they are two distinct concepts.
Complication is change that is difficult to control, yet ultimately that control is within our reach. By definition, complication has clear entry and exit points. You can find your way out of a complicated mess. Take, for example, the internal machinations of a wristwatch, the navigation screen in the cockpit of an airplane, and the electrical wiring infrastructure throughout the United States - these are all examples of complicated systems. If we zoom out to the 30,000-foot level, we can identify an underlying order and logic. Complicated systems have patterns that we can detect, and their conundrums can be resolved with the help of experts. They are predictive.
Complex systems, on the other hand, do not have obvious entry and exit points. Complexity abounds in our lives. Our brains are complex systems full of diverging and converging neural pathways. The American health care system is also extremely complex, confounding patients every day in their attempts to navigate it and get clear answers on what ails them and even how to pay their bills. We are embedded in complex systems today that are not predictive, are hard to manage, and require perspective and regular experimentation.
Complexity requires expansive perspective and multiple vantage points in order to see a full and complete picture. Imagine you are a tourist in Midtown Manhattan, standing on a busy street corner. Consider the sensory overload coming at you: the sounds of car horns honking, music from the jumbo screens, crowds of people walking rapidly past you, the smells from food trucks, and signage on the entry staircase to eight different subway lines can be overwhelming. It is only if you were able to see your location from the window of a nearby sky- scraper that a pattern would emerge. And perhaps even more clarity would result if you saw the entire island of Manhattan from the vantage point of a helicopter. Complex systems typi- cally require a level of zooming out beyond discrete amounts of time and scope to see the full picture.
Read more: THE CREATIVITY LEAP
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