by Jane Perdue | Be your best you, Creativity
The article title “Are you willing to pay the price for success?” did its job.
I began reading.
Hard work is the key to success, so work diligently on any project you undertake. If you truly want to be successful, be prepared to give up your leisure time and work past 5 PM and on weekends. ~Charles Lazarus
By the end of the second paragraph I knew this article was something aimed at “first act” me – that ambitious woman who was all too willing to pay the price the author offered up as requirements for success: long hours, the Blackberry grafted to my palm, living out of suitcases, singing the corporate song and perpetually doing more with less.
“Second act” me would love to introduce the article writer to Marilyn, a client who says “I’ve lost my way and don’t know what to do.” (Hey, I’d like to chat with him, too.) Marilyn, like so many others (including me!), enthusiastically anteed up the big blind for corporate success, and paid it over and over again for 20 years.
Marilyn achieved the success she sought – the coveted senior vice president role for a large multi-national firm.
How do you define success?
Now, after two years in her long sought treasure, Marilyn questions not so much the price (that was clear and understood from the beginning) but rather the success itself, i.e., all that for this: longer hours, more travel, a single-minded business focus on the bottom line and the stock price, and greater pressure to do more with less.
As Marilyn described it, it was just more of the same only on a bigger scale.
“There is only one success – to be able to spend your life in your own way.” ~Christopher Morley
What the article author and Marilyn did was define the price.
Neither defined success.
- Is success the corporate corner office, the lofty salary, the grand job title?
- Is success feeling contentment, knowing that you’ve made a difference?
- Is success public acclaim or being a celebrity?
- Is success being able to work from home wearing your sweats and no mascara and/or not shaving?
- Is success writing that anonymous six-figure check to your favorite charity?
- Is success having a home on both coasts, a luxury car, designer clothes?
- Or is it something totally different? Even a combination of the above?
Every human has four endowments: self-awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom: the power to choose, to respond, and to change. ~Dr. Stephen Covey
Whether we define and measure success by or with things or outcomes or feelings, the choice is ours. There’s no right or wrong answer.
The key for fulfillment comes with knowing what our personal success target is. That way, when we claim our prize, we’re getting what we truly wanted.
Have you thought about what success means to you?
Image source: Gratisography
by Jane Perdue | Creativity
“My boss always wants the impossible,” sighed Trudi to her colleague over a coffee. “I’ll never pull this one off.”
“What’s that?” asked Tom.
“She says I have to be more creative in my work if I’m ever going to be promoted. I guess I better start looking for a job because there isn’t a creative bone in my body!”
How we think about creativity
How we think about creativity
Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try! ~Dr. Seuss
Trudi isn’t alone thinking that being creative is out of her grasp. Many adults equate creativity with the arts – composing music, painting pictures, writing poetry, etc. However, creativity has much broader application than just the arts. Creativity was cited as the single most important leadership quality for success in a study of 1500 CEO’s completed by IBM in 2010.
In Human Motivation, Robert E. Franken defines creativity as
…the tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives, or possibilities that may be useful in solving problems, communicating with others, and entertaining ourselves and others.
In short, seeing and connecting things in a new way.
In workshops, I hand out a piece of paper filled with 30 separate one-inch diameter circles. I ask participants to turn as many circles as possible into objects, things like a smiley face or the sun, in five minutes. It’s rare for someone to transform all 30 circles into objects. A more typical completion rate ranges from 5 to 15 circles.
A creativity study conducted by George Land, a general systems scientist, helps to explain the low circle transformation rate. Dr. Land’s results show that we’re naturally creative as children yet learn to be uncreative as we age.
1,600 children were first tested at age 5 and scored a 98% for creativity. Those same children were tested at age 10 and scored 30%; and when tested again at age 15, they scored just 12%. When adults were given the same test, they scored only 2%.
Creative thinking is not a talent; it is a skill that can be learned. ~Edward de Bono
To boost “creativity quotient” and see and connect things in a new way, try:
Play!
A study done by Mark Beeman, a neuroscientist at Northwestern University, revealed that shifting the brain into an open, playful state lowers the brain’s threshold for spotting isolated connections which allows people to decipher puzzles more effectively.
I used to keep a basket of small toys on the conference table in my office for people to play with during meetings (and they did some laying claim to a particular toy!).
Shake things up
Trying a new routine alters stuck brain patterns, creating the possibility of new associations. Jimi Hendrix played guitars made for right-handed people by playing them upside down. Just holding a guitar upside down forced his brain to create new patterns.
One day my team was brainstorming how to solve a tough business problem and was getting nowhere. I moved the meeting outside under a big tree and soon the solution was apparent!
Change your perspective
Thomas Edison invited prospective new hires to lunch. He watched to see if people salted their food before or after tasting it. Those who salted their food prior to tasting it weren’t hired.
It’s the classic if you think like a hammer, everything looks like a nail scenario. Many rules, practices and procedures outlive their usefulness and choke off creative thinking. People who challenge their assumptions and relook at a situation often discover new solutions.
BIG’s angle: it’s possible to tap into that creative spark we enjoyed as children and boost our “creativity quotient” – we just have to make the effort to do so!
What do you think?
Image source before quote: Gratisography
by Roni Wilson-Vinson | Creativity, Leadership
Remember in elementary school when you had to write your first report?
Usually those early life reports were a few sentences filled with facts along with a couple of pictures you cut from your mom’s magazines.
Have you been asked to write a report for work? Again, your report probably was composed of a number of facts, some big words or acronyms and a few charts thrown in for good measure.
We’ve been taught in both school and business that we should be logical and that facts should drive our decision-making process. What we aren’t taught is that facts alone just don’t work.
Brain Science, Meaning and Memory
The working memory area of our brain can hold only seven (plus or minus two) bits of information!
To hang on to this information, we must consciously decide whether or not to make a permanent record of it. Every time we’re presented with new information, the previous information can be pushed out. The only way to remember these facts is to make them mean something to us.
If we’re presented with fact after fact, our minds can tire easily from trying to decide for ourselves if the facts have meaning and/or if we should make them permanent. After a while we start to tune out – not because we want to – but because we can’t quickly find the meaning of the facts.
However, there is a way to jump-start thinking and help your audience process your facts a little easier.
That way is by telling a story.
Benefits of Storytelling
John Kotter, author and professor at the Harvard Business School, writes:
I see that too few business leaders grasp the idea that stories can have a profound effect on people. The gestures made (or not made) by leaders can turn into the stories that powerfully affect behavior. Leaders who understand this and use this knowledge to help make their organizations great are the ones we admire and wish others would emulate. Those in leadership positions who fail to grasp or use the power of stories risk failure for their companies and for themselves.
Stories have been used since the beginning of time to pass important information from generation to generation.
The stories of storytelling can do so many things:
- Make the complex simple
- Organize data so that it can be processed
- Convey and communicate information and data
- Introduce a new concept in a non-threatening manner
- Inspire and present a new or different point of view
- Reduce tension and anxiety
- Help change behaviors
- Provide entertainment
- Create rapport and engage your audience
Once you understand what a powerful tool stories can be, you’ll never look at a presentation the same again.
And THAT is no tall tale.
————————————-
Today’s guest post is by Roni Wilson-Vinson, a Training Consultant, Instructional Designer and Training Project Manager who saw the power of storytelling back in 2003. Since then, she’s presented this topic at national conferences, at Fortune 100 companies, for government agencies, in higher education institutions, for non-profits and through elearning. Roni’s personal story includes a BA from Wright State University, a 25 year marriage, 2 busy teenagers, 2 dogs and a love for creating stained glass.
Image source before quote: Gratisography
by Amy Diederich | Creativity
Today’s post is from Amy Diederich, President at Braithwaite Innovation Group. While Amy’s career includes an impressive list of corporate America positions, she refers to herself as an entrepreneur and inventor. True to her inventor’s mindset, Amy skips over the boundaries between distinctly separate occupations to see the unique connection that no one else sees or envisions.
When I started my own consulting firm people cautioned me, saying “most small businesses fail within the first five years.” Everyone told me to start small – risk little. But as the daughter of a prolific inventor, I couldn’t heed that advice.
Seeing the world through an inventor’s eyes taught me to think BIG!
As far back as I can remember, my father was always tinkering and coming up with new creations. He spent the first 44 years of his career as design engineer inventing new products for large corporations.
However, he always wanted to start his own business, and he never gave up on that idea. At 62, he took one of his inventions and started his own very successful business which he continued to run until he was 81.
Imagination and thinking big
Instead of listening to other people’s advice to avoid risk, I listened to my father who said:
- Always do what you love and do it BIG.
- Envision great success and plan for great success.
- See every opportunity as novel.
- Maintain an open and curious mindset that enables you to see beyond what is known.
Ten years later I am now co-founder of an even larger consulting firm. When starting a new business you must always see beyond what’s known because everything you will do is new to you. Be true to an inventor’s mindset and skip over the boundaries other people will try to set for you.
Always keep a spirit of imagination and ingenuity – embrace the inventor’s mindset.
by Jane Perdue | Creativity
I’d just finished delivering a workshop on mapping out your life purpose when a session participant approached me and asked for a word of advice.
“I have worked in sales for ten years, and it’s time for a change. I’m tired and burned out. What should I do?” She asked.
“Do you know what kind of change you want?”
“I want to open a little shop that sells deliciously rich, moist cupcakes and great coffee. The kind of place where I like to stop when I’m on my sales route when I need to escape the rat race. Everyone tells me I’ve lost my mind. What do you think?”
“Your vision sounds delightful! Do you have a business plan?” Given my passion for chocolate, I could almost taste one of her cupcakes listening to her and seeing her big smile.
“Yes. I have an investor, too, and a line of credit at the bank and a location all picked out.”
“Do you feel like what you’re about to do is a risk?”
“Absolutely, but not a crazy one. I’m going in with my eyes wide open.”
“Are you prepared financially should it take a while to get established?”
“I am. I’ve done well in sales and have socked away a nice little nest egg that’ll tide me over. I won’t live in the grand style I used to but it’s just me so I won’t be going hungry.”
“Are you passionate about this cupcake shop?”
“I’m excited, a little scared, but this is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.”
“Then, all you have to say to your friends is ‘please love me, support me and help me make my dream come true.’”
“You’re right! I’m going to do that and get started! Hope to see you at the opening!”
Is there someone following their dream to whom you can extend your love, your help and your support?
Image source: Gratisography
by Jane Perdue | Creativity
Shawn Murphy, President & Change Management Consultant at Achieved Strategies, is sponsoring a special month-long blog series, Revive and Thrive in 2011. Here’s how Shawn describes the purpose of this series:
We’ve seen massive meltdowns over the past several years in business. And we’ve seen the same in leadership. As 2010 winds down, leaders and businesses naturally begin to reflect on what to do differently, to continue to do, to stop doing.
This blog series serves as a practical guide to help businesses and those who lead them (formally and informally) make management and/or leadership shifts for 2011.
Reviving a business in 2011 won’t take just a charismatic leader. It will also require strong management in all areas of business. The two together make a mighty force.
This series focuses on trends, traditions, best practices, and future box-blowin’ ideas to boost business and people success in 2011.
There’s a rich treasure trove of tips and pointers:
Les McKeown offers an insightful view into Brilliance, Transformation and Truly Great Leadership.
Mike Henry, President of the Lead Change Group, “sends us a powerful call to action and asks us to assess if we really have our hearts in the right place to lead” in Leadership Renaissance.
Laura Goodrich, author of Seeing Red Cars—Driving Yourself, Your Team, and Your Organization to a Positive Future, serves up some helpful information to create a positive-outcomes mindset and drive success within an organization.
Susan Mazza, CEO at Clarus Consulting Group, challenges us to take stock as leaders and ask ourselves Are You Adding Fuel or Draining it?
William Powell, the Leadership Advisor, encourages us to consider Who Does Your Strategy Serve?
I weigh in on the value of both/and solutions in Ambiguity – A Leader’s BFF.
If you’re looking for thought-provoking reading to get your 2011 off to a great start, you’ll find it here!
The article title “Are you willing to pay the price for success?” did its job. 
