A Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity discussion topic

Copyright 2008 by K. Ferlic,   All Rights Reserved

As noted in the topics "Origins of Organizational Creativity and its understanding" and "The conscious elective journey into creativity," an exploration of creativity started in the workplace. The author, as a manager, found it extremely difficult to find individuals who could provide true creative solutions to the problems being faced within an organization. Most attempted to apply others peoples’ solutions to seeming similar problems. The author being to look at why individual made decisions the way they did relative to creative endeavors and/or in looking to find creative solutions to the problems the organization faced.

In a relatively short time the author come to understand the existence of what can best be described as a creative spirit existing within each individual. It was an unexpected discovery and took a while to fully understand the implications of living true to our creative spirit. A more detailed discussion of this discovery is discussed in the topic, "The primary finding of the exploration of creativity in the workplace."

What was found was this creative spirit was influencing how the individual approached a situation requiring a creative solution. It was observed the greater the freedom this creative spirit was able to experience in a given situation the more creative the individual would become. The less freedom experienced by this creative spirit the less creative the individual would be. It was also observed that greater freedom of the creative spirit also resulted in the individual having a greater attention to details and alertness and awareness in performing a task. However, it was also observed the world does not usually make our creative spirit welcome. The reason is quite simple. Where the creative spirit leads an individual if often not in the direction mind wants to go.

Two sets questions arose relative to these observations. One set of questions were related to how this creative spirit was influencing the individual’s creativity and performance. For example, why are some individuals seemingly more creative and attentive to details than others in the workplace and how and why does an individual seemingly lose their creativity. Why were individuals unable to play with options much the a very young child is free to explore to explore their world. Why were the mental biases seemingly so strong as to blind the individual to options let alone play with options.

However it was also observed again and again is that mind opens the door to "get out of the box" for a short period of time to let this creative spirit out to recreate some aspect of life then mind quickly returns it to its cage for "safe keeping." We then wonder where the energy and passion went. Quite simply, mind returns it to its cage because it is not considered safe to stay out. This phenomenon has quite profound implications from an organizational view point in several different ways.

It was learned, as discussed in the topic, "The key understanding about a creative endeavor," if one learns to consciously and creatively dance between the mind and heart, one can open and close the door at will. They can call forth their creative spirit whenever it is needed to recreate any aspect of life in or outside the workplace. However, if one never acknowledges or understands this creative spirit and provides for its needs it can and often will act nonconsciously to recreate the individual’s life in some way including things like an accident, illness or disease.

The other set of questions were related to how the traditional understanding of what it meant to be creative was reconciled with the discipline needed in the workplace. Here was a puzzling question. Realizing all generalities are usually false, traditionally, creative individuals are often described as undisciplined, unable to fit into the norm, spontaneous if not impulsive, temperamental, and the like. Yet it was observed in the workplace individuals with the most creative ideas and had a strong awareness of the details of what was occurring and they did not exhibit the characteristics that went with what would be traditionally described as a creative individual. It become quickly apparent to be creative does not mean not fitting into the norm. Yet, the creative solution frequent challenged the norm and we past the norm in some way. The question here was what exactly was at play within certain individuals that brought forth the seemingly paradoxical performance of confining oneself in a particular box yet fully capable of getting and being out of the box whenever the need arises.

The exploration of these questions went well beyond organizational creativity and into the realm of the inherent creativity within individuals. The primary question to be faced was why did individuals loses the ability to creatively play with options much the a young child is free to spontaneously and innocently discover and explore themselves and the world in which they find themselves.

Related topics
The primary finding of the exploration of creativity in the workplace
Most creative state
Lost of the ability to creatively play

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