In the late 1970’s the lagging U.S. economy was commonly blamed on
un-imaginative, overly-analytical management techniques. In 1980, "Business Week" quoted an associate Dean at the Wharton School of Business as saying, "Is it true that we haven’t been teaching creativity enough? Probably, but who knows how to do that?"
There is an increased body of people and resource materials answering this
question, including a widely emulated course at Stanford University’s Graduate
School of Business. Peter Senge revolutionized business on Wall Street with his "Learning Organization Theory". He was a psychologist and artist, teaching creativity to business students. His theory is simple and practical, powerful. Unfortunately, very few people understand how to apply it hands-on, in an organizational environment.
They analyzed it to death, instead of putting it to use, because only artists and creative individuals can really grasp his concepts in their, synthetic, concrete nature. So, in theory it looked like changes were being made, but in reality these were only new words cloaking an old paradigm. Peter Senge was quoted as saying “An elephant cut in half does not make two elephants”, just around the time “cut-backs” based on analyzing data sheets was the norm. Organizations still continue to see “clogs-in the wheel” rather than “real live individuals’” and practice policy, management and productivity in accordance with that view.
Public Institutions have taken on the same corporate model in our society, no
longer viewing individuals as needy, sick, in the Health System or students in a
Learning Institution, but rather “Clients buying a Service”.
It is becoming abundantly clear to managers and administrators that in order
for organizations to survive and thrive in these stressful times, characterized primarily by escalating philosophical and economic impermanence, new forms of management must be discovered and implemented. The world is increasingly more complex and conflicted as new value systems mushroom overnight, producing anxiety and stress at individual, group and global levels. Analytical, rational modes of knowing and functioning appear inadequate in dealing with the current challenges.
Having promoted science to the highest level in the hierarchy of values for
millennia, we have explored and relied on our intellectual functioning to solve all problems of societal living. Although these skills are extremely important, they seem insufficient in the face of contemporary life. They need to be augmented by intuitive capabilities. Particularly useful in the area of decision-making, intuitive processes can revolutionize management forms and style. By synthesizing intuitive and reflective capacities in individuals we can generate a new integrative model, capable of guiding organizations towards a future state of existence. This can be done through an academic or practical approach. The first - talking about the importance of learning to use our right side (ie. creative, intuitive ) of the brain and second by a practical, hands on, step-by-step learning process of uncovering and discovering the right side of the brain and latent creativity in individuals. This could require specialized trainers, consultants and practitioners. The skills of these new leaders would require being able to see patterns in chaos; opening to information in a novel way; seeing relationships and non-linear connections; and becoming facilitators of disorder to create a new order. This movement is the next step towards working with organizations who are currently involved or committed to reducing stress at the intellectual, left brained problem-solving level. Beyond decision-making through conflict resolution, at a horizontal level, is guiding individuals towards transcending their usual mind, by listening to their inner voice of intuition. This is basically a vertical process. When people discover their true inner-directed values, they tend to see how much they have in common and participate more effectively and energetically in a process of social recreation, rather than dialectics, which depletes personal energy. The process of co-creativity leads to the cultivation of genuine relationships, the deepening of
communication and an increased ability to listen empathetically. Creative teams are sensitive to one another and their environments and are composed of self-motivated, fulfilled individuals. The creative managers would be learning to lead by empowering others.
People might ask how is creativity related to measures of business outcomes
and performance? The scarce literature and hearsay of various progressive
companies point to incremental increases in, not only productivity levels but a much higher quality of product. Quantity and quality are related. We have already known from past and present research that stress reduction and higher levels of employee participation at work increases job satisfaction and individual out-put. It releases creative energy in business or the public sector magnifying this process a hundred fold. A side effect of this process creates employees with a more global perspective of how their organization works and fits in the global scheme of our contemporary world, changing value systems to become more responsible and aligned with our environment. As a result, successful and sustainable businesses are emerging, more in line with new founded principles of physics; chaos and field theory.
The public institutions are far behind. The leaders in this field are proposing viewing looking at companies and governmental bodies as coherent energy fields with formative properties, open to scientific speculation, evaluation and research. Margaret J. Wheatley, author of “Leadership and the New Science” argues that: “...organizations are conscious entities and therefore consciousness is a property that emerges when a certain level of self-organization is reached within any system”. “A well-ordered system,” she suggests, is defined by how much information it can process, and therefore (we) need to develop new approaches to information - not management, but encouragement; not control but genesis”. Wheatley hopes that new discoveries in sciences can help guide us to find more creative and mutually fulfilling ways to manage organizations.
It is a well-known fact that artists love their endeavors. Anyone can be an “artist”
in their field. A scientist can approach his craft creatively. As Albert Einstein said: “Imagination is everything”. It is also a well known fact that artists, poets and mystics view the world as being joyful, abundant and vividly rich, the same world others perceive as being dreary and drab. The heightened perception of artistic or creative processes has survival value, both at an individual and community level. It allows individuals, groups and organizations to drop outmoded thinking and adopt fresh perception; to become open to exploring possibilities, the imagination and playfulness that characterize the artistic response to life. Many business corporations are fully aware of this and have already created special rooms in their work places that allows people to go in for 10 to 20 minute stretches to unwind from the drudgery of left brain activity and access their creative, intuitive selves in a different way.
The problem has been that the businesses are still applying 19th century modes
of operation, while the world is facing issues of the 21st century (energy, health,
mobility, food, sustainability). How does one change the minds of corporate giants; heads of health or learning organizations? Only by giving them an EXPERIENCE of functioning in the right brain - where they can see their own humanity and that of others and prioritize the human being as number one, over dollars and profits – which in the large scheme (as scientists are predicting) will be useless in the future.
The organizations and its leaders have to re-discover their own humanity and
incorporate “health” as the number one value for themselves, the organization as a whole, communities, the government and the earth at large.
Why should they? Because of heart stroke, etc. etc. - stress, etc., etc. and
paradoxically because it produces in business, the most profit in the end. Happy, healthy people are the most productive people. Many statistics support this. Creativity and intuition lead to individual and organizational health; joy; enthusiasm; stress reduction; play and profits.
In the area of “Creativity and Addiction”, research could involve testing some of
these theories with a control group, under the guise of “Prevention”. These include the premise that creative work and expression enhances a person’s over-all functioning, self-esteem, sense of trust in their own abilities. Creative expressions also are the natural activities of the human being who is able to release, at least temporarily, the inhibitions of habituation and culture. Addictions are many and varied. They range all the way from alcohol and drugs, through co-dependant relationships, through reenacting habitual and self-destructive life responses, as well as harbouring perpetual negative thought patterns.
“Art is an antidote for violence. It gives the ecstasy, the self-transcendence that otherwise take the form of drug addiction, terrorism, suicide or warfare.” - Rollo May
“The current cultural split lies not between scientists and everyone else but between those who innovate or create and those who do not. Innovators and the process of innovation is the lifeblood of cultural change.” - Robert Root Bernstein
”Everywhere I go, I find a poet has been there before me.” - Sigmund Freud\
Nanobirth is a digital art piece I created that has been chosen to go in a capsule to the Moon, organized by University of Pittsburg.