I just came back from a workshop at Esalen. It was a great way to start the new year inspired and ready for action, and wanting to bring more creativity and joy into my life. One morning, I took a yoga class and the teacher had this great greeting “welcome to the best day of your life” because that is the only day you have [...]
If I had a hammer I’d hammer in the morning I’d hammer in the evening All over this land… Words and music by Lee Hays and Pete Seeger Whenever I read an article or a book that explains how brainstorming "does not work" I cringe. These authors typically describe brainstorming as a forced and badly organized group activity for coming up with new ideas, before [...]
When I work with a team around improving their innovation approaches, I often ask: are you creative? Depending on the group I get between one and four hands raised. Interestingly enough I tried the same exercise with a group of Kindergarteners when I went to my son’s classroom once and most of the hands went up. Why the difference? Somewhere around Kindergarten time we start [...]
This book so well addresses what I found to be the hardest obstacle to innovation: a culture and an environment that does not support change. In her book, Creative Change, Jennifer Mueller describes a common paradox around innovation. On one hand, organizations acknowledge the complexity of the challenges they have to solve and that creativity is needed more than ever; on the other hand, while [...]