If you’re trying to train your mind to be creative, you might try to purposely practice. It can be fun to think about random things and come up with random ideas around those things.  It’s also actually pretty easy to come up with something to target when you are trying to force yourself to think creatively. You look for that really big problem that exists in your life or that impacts the world in general and simply start to think.

“Let’s try to find a creative solution for:

• the economy,
• world hunger,
• predicting earthquakes,
• selling more of this,
• servicing more of that.”

You get the picture.

But what about those things that seem below you? They just seem too easy. How could you actually improve on a thing that is so simple and ubiquitous in the first place?

That sounds like the lizard brain trying to divert your attention away from something that might actually have a real solution upon which someone might expect you to execute. That’s why thinking about the BIG things is easy.  They are so big that no one really expects you to have to work on it. Do they? But something within your grasp. Something you might have control over. Something that could be so straight forward to improve. Well if you figure out a creative solution regarding these basic needs, the next questions beckons, “why not just fix it?”

Here’s the thing: I don’t actually care if you fix it or not. At least not to begin with. The first level of risk that individuals need to overcome is the simple act of expression. Say something. Present an idea. Don’t evaluate it, just say it. The worst thing that can happen is a minor level of embarrassment (think high school) but come on: verbalizing an idea will not generate a life or death situation simply on its own.

All of this became really clear to me today when I watched a short TED video of Gary Lauder talking about traffic signs.

TRAFFIC SIGNS!?!?!

How many stop signs have you encountered in your life? How many yield signs have you encountered? Traffic circles? Have you ever stopped to think about them at all? Maybe as a simply waste of time when your in a rush, but seriously, what could any improvement in traffic signs actually accomplish? I truly hope you take the time to watch the video a consider what I’ve discussed. The most mundane parts of life need creativity too and we need to not be scared to think about them.

I’ve recently turned a major focus toward trying to influence my teams and those around us to really explore creativity.  While a certain inkling of an idea had been flitzing along a couple of synapses, it wasn’t until a company offsite when I was able to recognize the core concept of that inkling.  At that offsite, our chairman asked us to watch a TED presentation by Sir Ken Robinson regarding the uncanny ability that the world’s current education system has when it comes to killing creativity.

The discussion really hit home, not necessarily because I want to fix the education system (though I would certainly support it), but because I saw the groundwork of change was now laying before me.  I initially went to college to become an educator… a music educator to be specific.  It was a frustrating experience because I could see the gears of creative destruction already at work given that every school system was starting to experiment with block scheduling, a system that creates some real challenges for an ensemble educator.  I never did teach professionally, but I’ve never forgotten the many lessons that were afford to me via the process.

After that offsite, I began having individual meetings with everyone on my team.  There were two questions woven into these meetings that were poignantly aimed at uncovering the creativity gap:

1. Do you take time out of your day, week, month… any time at all to step away from your projects and everyday work to dig into something else of interest, whether that is via reading articles, investigating new technologies, or whatever activity that you could think of that would give you the chance to learn or experience something new?
2. Do you have anything that you spend time on that is personal to yourself when you head home that allows you to focus simply on you, growing you, or at the very least something that allows you to stay active and interested in life?

The powers of allusion and foreshadow have probably allowed you to guess, at least in summary, what kind of responses I received.  Not many people take any time to dig into the “new and interesting.”  It seems that there is always too much to do and there are always too many projects at hand to let off the accelerator for one moment.  Even if one were to be forced to schedule time, the evil corporate priority list would probably overpower their judgement because surely “that’s only personal time and I should spend it on more important things.”  But here’s the rub: if every team member were to spend the time learning and experiencing and thinking about different things, their abilities would be enhanced in such a way that the time would be paid back multi-fold.  It is an investment in the future of people and the future of a company.

To the second point, there were certainly a couple of interesting responses.  A couple of individuals were participating in karate and one individual was taking piano lessons.  These are marvelous examples of truly investing in oneself.  On the flip side, there were many that talked about their social lives in that they spend time with friends and family.  I will not deny that this is indeed a way to stay interested and active in life, but I feel that there is something missing here… personal inward focus.  It isn’t selfish.  It’s survival.  Having something of your own that you can improve upon is of utmost importance when it comes to keeping the mind and spirit alive.  While I certainly can’t directly influence this part of a team member’s life, I will keep asking and keep digging because it is VERY IMPORTANT.

It occurs to me that the responses that I got are indeed related to the success of the education system.  First, work all day only on the stuff that we tell you to work on.  If you get out of line you will be sent to the principals office.  Second, when you get home, please just do your homework in a mindless stupor so that you can take a test that you be able to forget about over the summer.

Now just to be sure, I am not resting all of this on a single video or my own perfectly relevant thoughts.  There are others in the world that have the same concerns.  It’s easy to find.  A clip from Tom Peters discusses our level of education for creativity.  It isn’t pretty.  I certainly didn’t expect it to be.

It’s a deep feeling inside me now.  I believe that these topics are extraordinarily important, not only for the education system and the students in it today, but for those that are sitting in the workforce flailing about trying to use an industrial education system mindset to find answers to the thought provoking and creative needs that face us today.  We must find a way to feel comfortable expressing creative and even risky ideas so that we can at least talk about them.