The Creativity of the Phoenix
Pablo Picasso
said “every act of creation is, first of all, an act of destruction. The
mythical Phoenix comes to mind when I first hear that statement. The Phoenix
lives for a time, then the old bird is destroyed in a fiery display, and a new,
young Phoenix arises from the ashes to take the old bird’s place and begin the
cycle again. Nature, or Creation, is replete with similar examples. After a
forest fire kills or destroys all of the trees, plants, and even animals over a
wide swath, soon there are new, green shoots sprouting from the blackened ground.
In time, the charred land is filled with young trees and vegetation; animals
return to live in a place that was once beautiful and teaming with life, then
dead, and once more full of beauty and life. Or witness the familiar
caterpillar that undergoes a complete metamorphosis to emerge as moth or
butterfly from its cocoon. Likewise, anyone who has lived, or spent time, on a
farm is indeed familiar with the cycle of planting, cultivating, harvesting,
turning the earth and destroying the remnants of the previous crop (thereby
enriching the soil), and replanting again in the spring. After the leaves change
color and fall from the trees, there ensues a dormant season where all is seemingly
dead, only to witness re-birth and renewal once the snow melts and the warmth
returns.
But each of these
re-birth or regeneration processes and cycles may be arrested. A warm spring
where trees begin to bud, followed by an unexpected harsh freeze can kill young
fruit, new leaves, or even the entire tree. Mudslides or bulldozers after a
forest fire can prevent new life from arising and the return of the animals.
New crops may likewise experience a killing frost if planted too soon. Like the
interruption of creation or rebirth in nature, we too can arrest or kill off
our creativity, personally or in the workplace. We either constrain our own
creativity through self-doubt or fear, or find it constrained by organizational
bureaucracy that won’t tolerate one who does not conform. It would follow from
Picasso’s statement that to be creative, we must first destroy that which
prevents us from performing creatively and allow something new to be created
within us.
To become
creative, we may find it necessary to destroy or supplant our existing
management and leadership techniques, processes, or understanding to replace
these with the creation of new and different leadership and management skills.
In her TED talk, “How to Manage for Collective Creativity” Linda Hill (2014),
stated that, “If we want to build organizations that can innovate, we
must unlearn conventional notions of leadership”. In other words, we must first
tear down or destroy what we think we know (or have learned) about great
leadership to enable ourselves and the organizations which we lead to become
creative.
One thing that we need to destroy is the idea that no one
can argue, even constructively, with the boss. Creativity requires the airing
of different, even contradictory ideas; healthy, even heated, debate is
essential for creativity and innovation. Another thing that we must discard is
the notion that the boss tells the subordinates what to do and the subordinates
do what they are told. Creativity and innovation are instead about working with
the unique talents and perspectives of everyone in the work group.
Experimentation is required, even if it means going down some blind alleys. A
third construct that we must unlearn for the creative organization to flourish
is that it is the leader who sets the vision for everyone else to follow. In a
creative organization, the vision is something that is collectively developed
by all members. As Linda says, leading innovation is not about creating a
vision and inspiring others to execute it. Instead, leaders of innovation bring
together people with great diversity and passion, to create a “public square”
type of interaction where all of the “disruptors” and “minority voices can
speak up and be heard.
If the common precepts of leadership must be effectively
destroyed for organizations to be creative and innovative, it would follow that
each of us as individuals must also destroy the manner in which we are
accustomed to functioning within the typical organization and replace our own
habits and self-imposed constraints with new ways of thinking, contributing,
and interacting within the workplace. We must rid ourselves of the fear of
speaking up and out for our ideas. We must discard the notion that we cannot
have ideas, opinions, or perspectives that differ from the boss and from other
members of the organization. Probably most importantly, we must train ourselves
to think and solve problems creatively. Whetten and Cameron (2017) discuss this
need to learn how to solve problems creatively, citing four “conceptual blocks
that inhibit creative problem solving”. Those blocks are: 1) Constancy, or the
tendency to define a problem in one way without considering all of the
alternatives; 2) Commitment, which is the tendency to define new problems as
mere variations of problems that we have already encountered and are used to
seeing; 3) Compression, or not filtering out irrelevant information and; 4)
Complacency, which is failure to be inquisitive and ask questions – in short, the
failure to actively think about the problem. These then are some of our
personal tendencies or traits that we must destroy if we are to become creative
and innovative.
Many times, I have missed essential information about a new
problem because I have defined it using the familiar terms and patterns that I
learned from years of experience. Such experience is not an inherently bad
thing, provided it doesn’t blind you to new information. Right here, in the
second week of this course, I approached an assignment with the thought pattern
that I have used repeatedly in my schoolwork and in so doing, I read right past
one key requirement: to pose “intriguing questions” about the topic in my
presentation. When I read the assignment, I said to myself “Got it; I need to
build a Prezi presentation about the topic”. And that is what I did, completely
overlooking the last piece of instruction; the part of the assignment that
required some creativity at that. Lesson learned. I fell victim to constancy
and commitment (and perhaps a bit of complacency). In the future, I will read
(as I’m doing now) and re-read the assignment and ensure that I have covered
each, individual requirement therein. I crashed and burned on one assignment
because I thought I had done everything that I was supposed to do, without
carefully examining and double-checking each requirement.
Each time the Phoenix arises from its ashes, it is faced
with the opportunity to begin anew, to experience life differently than it did
in its prior incarnation. Its destruction enables the possibility of a fresh
perspective, of different ways of accomplishing tasks than it may have learned
in past lives. Like that Phoenix, if we are to become innovative and creative
when called upon to do so, we must first destroy our old selves (figuratively,
of course) and become new in our habits, thoughts, and interactions within our
organizations.
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