Dan Erwin

The Zig-Zags of Creativity and Innovation

Given the choice between the myth of the natural genius and the sobering reality of hard work, popular culture usually opts for the myth.  ---BD Burrell

When you’re getting advice about creativity or reading one of the many books about the subject, you need to be careful—very careful—because many, if not most, perpetuate our highly Western, misleading and individualist cultural ways. That typically means that we’re going to have to go digging into our own mindset and belief system to deconstruct and reframe these wrongheaded beliefs if we want to really understand creativity and innovation.

In his marvelous book, Explaining Creativity, Keith Sawyer psychologist and jazz pianist, describes four key errors and summarizes their problems—all very useful for today’s organizational emphasis on innovation. His insights will liberate you from demanding, painful, unrealistic expectations. Admittedly, however, the truth will give you heartburn as well as a lot of often painful, hard work.

**Creativity is fun.  When you get into the state of flow (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) and peak experience, creativity is extremely positive and self-actualizing. But it takes a lot of years and training to achieve flow.

So as Sawyer indicates, the “fun” is extremely, uncomfortable hard work. What a few would consider the “flow” of creativity is more deathly boring or extremely stressful. Once more: creativity and innovation are just plain hard work.

As a preaching pastor and seminary faculty member (22 years) and also as an evergreen blog writer (10+ years), the demands of creativity have always been part of my professional life. Creative writing is a mix of stress and self-actualizing. For the last three months, I’ve been working on a major writing project—a single chapter on the creative use of the humanities. It requires a lot of research, reading, writing and rewriting. And a lotta smarts on positioning and rhetoric. Sometimes it moves very fast, and other times it’s very difficult to get the writing moving.  It’s a strange mix of personal delight and satisfaction along with a lot of stop/start, stop/start pain.

Deep Smarts, Deep Thinking and the Humanities

The 2020s are placing extraordinary demands on workers and organizations. Not just on managers and execs, but also on ordinary workers. A wide range of competencies and experiences are necessary for senior execs. But ordinary workers are also facing strategic uncertainty, new models of business and organization as well as new intellectual demands.

So what's the beginning place for ordinary workers? The answer to that is not surprising--deep smarts. That kind of expertise is always built on a distinct set of competencies: the humanities. It is the kind of stuff that more mature clients are after, especially when they face serious decision making or strategic needs. But it's only in the last few years that firms are really recognizing this need. In fact, years ago one highly placed officer told me he'd keep me busy the rest of my life if I could develop deep, strategic thinkers for his staff needs. I knew that given the intellectual decision making of his staff, it was an impossibility. So at the time I rejected his offer. I knew very few of his people were capable of learning the process, but I didn't know why. One thing was clear: he needed more people with a different kind of education and very few of his people had the right kind of education.

But I also recognized that deep smarts is the engine of every organization. You can’t really progress without them. And you’ll manage a lot more effectively if you understand what they are, how they are built and cultivated—and how they can be transferred to others. 

Of course, the real issue surrounding the deep-thinking failure is that a terrific number of business people have little to no background in the humanities supporting their business thinking, thinking which is primarily oriented to scientific thinking models—and not deep thinking. In contrast successful business leadership requires both humanities and scientific models of thinking. Since 2015 a number of business journals have picked up on the fact, including several articles in the Harvard Business Review and the MIT Sloan Management Review. By the humanities I refer to all languages and literatures, the arts (including painting, drama and music), history, philosophy and rhetoric, and the sorely abused English major. These are the required in top schools like Dartmouth, University of Chicago and Columbia University—in addition to whatever you majored in, like say math, statistics and engineering. Unlike my daughters, I didn’t go to any of these schools, but I got a big dose of the humanities in my undergrad at a small Kentucky state college. And even more so in my extensive graduate work.

Can You Tell When Your Boss Is Telling You the Truth?

The short answer to that question is . . . rarely. Yet bosses matter a lot because nearly all employees have them.  And most bosses also have bosses. There are at least 21 million bosses in the United States.  Bob Sutton points out that estimates run as high as 38 million bosses. With a lot of bosses in most organizations, it's inevitable that we sometimes wonder whether the information coming from our boss is really the truth.
Bosses can be deceptive for any number of reasons: they lack permission to share information, they don't think we need the information, they don't understand our need for information, or they're defensive.

As a result, most of us prefer face-to-face meetings when there's a lot at stake.  We like to think we can gauge the truthfulness or sincerity of our boss's words by the look in her eye and the tone of her voice. 

So, how good are you, really, at ascertaining when your boss is telling the truth? Paul Ekman, the well-known expert at non-verbal assessment and lie-detection, has found that most of us aren't nearly as good as we think.  In fact, the studies indicate that our hunches about whether people are telling the truth or deceiving us aren't much better than a coin toss. 

In an earlier blog, Powerful People are Better Liars, I pointed out that research has found that if you give people power, they're more comfortable lying, and it will be harder to tell they're doing it. That's supported by recent research that has found that the higher up the ladder and more isolated from his or her people, the more oblivious and indifferent to your needs your boss becomes.

Should Trump Go to Jail?

A few weeks ago, when my houseman was cleaning for me, we engaged in a conversation about whether Trump should go to jail. Now I should say that my guy has worked for me for years and I have a terrific amount of respect for his insights. He graduated from St John’s prep school, an institution for which I have a lot of respect. Which means he knows how to analyze and think.

He asked whether I thought Trump should go to jail. I was very thoughtful about my response, responding rather slowly—out of verbal character--and saying, “I don’t know. I’m not sure.” An obviously unexpected response, he jumped in and said that he thought Trump should be made accountable for his crimes. I responded, “I agree, but I’m not certain that he should go to jail.” He stopped vacuuming, raised his eyebrows, rather surprised, and asked, “why not.” My answer was again slow, but direct: “I don’t know what the consequences might be. I’m fearful of the consequences of jailing him.”

It's always political
Given my background in history and political science, I’m well aware that political actions, like jailing an ex-president, always have multiple consequences. But lots of ordinary behaviors also have multiple consequences. And there will always be political considerations. Remember, whenever any decision will impact two or more people, then the decision is political. Even in your family. So, here’s a simple family narrative that, hopefully, explains unintended consequences and my concerns about political process..