Albeit some years back, I came up with a list of tips for kick-starting one’s creativity. These are tips I’ve learned over the years and have put into practice. May they serve you as well as they have me!
Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!
Be sure to check out my other blog, Joe’s Journey, for personal insights on life and its detours.
Feel free to review various creative selections from my website.
Each month I feature a variety of quotes from different personalities on different subjects. However, they all center around one topic: Creativity. Enjoy!
Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties. – Erich Fromm
There is nothing like a dream to create the future. – Victor Hugo
A good ad should be like a good sermon: It must not only comfort the afflicted, it also must afflict the comfortable. — Bernice Fitz-Gibbon, member, Advertising Hall of Fame
Horace Mann said, ‘Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.’ Let’s paraphrase that tonight. Let us be ashamed to LIVE without that victory. — Rod Serling “A Most Non-Political Speech” May 31st 1964, Delivered by Dick Van Dyke/ Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
Time is what we want most and what we use worst. – William Penn
Like the musical score, a mission statement is only as good as the performance it inspires. — Keith Reinhard, member, Advertising Hall of Fame
The heart of creativity is discipline. — William Bernbach, member, Advertising Hall of Fame
Let’s gear our advertising to sell goods, but let’s recognize also that advertising has a broad social responsibility. — Leo Burnett, member, Advertising Hall of Fame
Why do musicians compose symphonies and poets write poems? They do it because life wouldn’t have any meaning for them if they didn’t. That’s why I draw cartoons. It’s my life. —Charles M. Schulz
Good advertising is written from one person to another. When it is aimed at millions, it rarely moves anyone. — Fairfax M. Cone, member, Advertising Hall of Fame
Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!
Be sure to check out my other blog, Joe’s Journey, for personal insights on life and its detours.
Creativity is all around us. We can’t escape it. There are those of us whose livelihood depends on creativity, the designers, artists, writers, etc. There are countless others who are affected by creative surroundings and may not realize it. Whether or not we do, we all have emotions that definitely affect creativity.
But what if we feel creatively deprived? What if a designer feels one day that he/she just doesn’t feel inspired? What if we feel we’re having an “off” day?
A recent study in the Journal of Creative Behavior shows the power of emotional intelligence to make creativity happen. The study from the Yale Center of Emotional Intelligence found that emotionally intelligent supervisors create a climate that benefits creativity and innovation in those they work with.
Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, Ph.D., provided the synopsis of the study, highlights of which are outlined in this blog post. Dr. Pringle is a Senior Research Scientist at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. She studies the role of emotion and emotion skills in creativity and well-being, as well as how to use the arts (and art-related institutions) to promote emotion and creativity skills.
What do emotionally intelligent supervisors do? First, they are skilled at reading employees’ emotions, such as realizing when someone is upset or disappointed or when they are worried about changes at work. They not only can read emotions but acknowledge them explicitly.
Second, they help employees channel their feelings toward achieving important goals. They inspire enthusiasm and they model decision making that takes into account both optimistic and pessimistic voices (and concerns and hopes behind them).
Third, emotionally intelligent supervisors understand how different decisions or events affect people’s experiences at work. And finally, they are able to successfully manage their own emotions, as well as help employees when they are upset or frustrated.
The just-published Yale study asked three groups of questions: One group of questions asked people to describe their supervisors’ behavior. Another group of questions asked about people’s emotional experiences of work. Finally, the third group of questions asked to what extent people have opportunities to grow and make progress at work and how often they are creative at work.
The study results show that when supervisors acknowledge that employees have feelings and that these emotional experiences matter, the work climate becomes more positive and supportive. Employees described dramatically different emotional experiences if they had supervisors who acted in emotionally intelligent ways or not.
The quality of relationships spilled into feelings about employees’ duties and tasks, and that, in turn, affected creativity and innovation in what they accomplished. Our study suggests that supervisors’ emotional intelligence is a job resource for their employees that helps both their wellbeing and successful performance at work.
When people were asked how they feel about work in their own words, two-thirds of the top feelings mentioned by those whose supervisors were emotionally intelligent were positive, while 70 percent of the top feelings mentioned by those whose supervisors were not emotionally intelligent were negative.
Those whose supervisors were emotionally intelligent mentioned being happy three times more often than being stressed. By contrast, those whose supervisors do not show emotional intelligence most often said they were frustrated and stressed.
How do supervisors and leaders make a difference for their employees’ ability to be creative? Organizational behavior scholars Jing Zhou and Jennifer George have shown that emotionally intelligent supervisors know that emotions provide information about ourselves, the environment, and those around us.
Emotionally intelligent supervisors are able to notice employee dissatisfaction, recognize that dissatisfaction conveys information about a real problem, and can find a way to approach this problem as an opportunity for improvement. Emotionally intelligent supervisors can manage their own and employees’ emotions to help with creative work. They can recognize when people are overly optimistic and can provide informative feedback to prevent settling on ideas prematurely and inspire persistence.
The Yale study shows that supervisors can create a climate where employees have opportunities to grow and are inspired and motivated in their jobs. Supervisors who acknowledge that employees cannot leave emotions at the door, who recognize employees’ feelings, understand where they are coming from, and who help employees manage their feelings, will have both happier and more creative employees.
The results are relevant for anyone who influences others, such as teachers working with students or parents with their children. The emotional climate we create will influence both how those around us feel and what they are able to do.
This holds true for various sets of employees and those independent contractors whose specialties involve creativity and positive emotions. Indeed, the corporate world needs to be aware of this more than ever, especially when an increasing number of employees are rethinking a return to the office.
Here’s to positive re-enforcement of emotions amidst a favorable environment of creativity!
Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!
Be sure to check out my other blog, Joe’s Journey, for a different kind of playground for creativity, innovation and inspiring stuff.
Fear and courage don’t seem likely bedfellows. Yet, they are showing us every day how they play together amongst the citizenry of Ukraine. When you’re fighting for survival, it stretches the limit of one’s creativity. Some may say that creativity is not even involved in warfare. I disagree.
While creativity in warfare interacts with a much higher level of courage and seriousness compared to presenting an advertising campaign, it requires effort and takes courage, as Matisse says. The Ukranian people are showing resiliency and mucho bravery. Creativity lives within that realm.
Even in a non-combat zone, fear attacks us everyday. Courage is what most of us try and muster to get through a day’s time unscathed by said fear. We may not be fighting to stay alive but we are fighting. We’re fighting our internal demons and our self-doubt. We’re fighting to retain some of our creativity and resourcefulness.
Author and teacher Elizabeth Gilbert admits “the only reason I can speak so authoritatively about fear is that I know it so intimately. I know every inch of fear, from head to toe. I’ve been a frightened person my entire life.”
She points out that “Evolution did well to install a fear reflex within you, because if you didn’t have any fear, you would lead a short, crazy, stupid life. You would walk into traffic. You would jump into giant waves off the coast of Hawaii, despite being a poor swimmer…
“So, yes, you absolutely do need your fear, in order to protect you from actual dangers.
A lot of people have, over time, written about creativity. They’ve tried to define it, rationalize it and better understand it. There are opinions galore. The article I reference in this post offers another perspective on the subject of creativity in the here and now.
Creativity can be wonderful in its use and experience. Everyone enjoys that potential even if they don’t recognize it as one of their assets. It can also be quite frustrating during its process. Just think of giving birth to an original idea. Then developing that idea into something useful and meaningful. That can be rough sledding. It can also be a helluva lot of fun!
In so far as the state of creativity in the 21st Century, I ran across an article posted on Medium.com that addresses this subject. It’s quite interesting and I want to share it with you. See link below.
In his discussion, the author elaborates on three traits he feels are essential to develop a creative process that works for us and the people we serve:
Also, here’s a video clip from the late Sir Ken Robinson who was an expert on various aspects of creativity, especially how best to apply it in education.
Here’s the link to state of creativity in 21st Century.
Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!
Be sure to check out my other blog, Joe’s Journey, for a different kind of playground for creativity, innovation and inspiring stuff.
As it has been about a month or so since we last published some quotes, we thought it timely to publish some news ones. Like before, it contains quotes from various acclaimed individuals from the worlds of advertising, philosophy, science, literature and education. So, go ahead and immerse yourself in creativity – intelligence having fun!
It is easier to tone down a wild idea than to think up a new one.— Alex Osborne, member, Advertising Hall of Fame
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity. – Albert Einstein
Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything. – George Lois
If one advances confidently in the directions of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. – Henry David Thoreau
Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do. – Isaac Asimov
An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it. — William Bernbach, member, Advertising Hall of Fame
Creativity is as important as literacy and numeracy, and I actually think people understand that creativity is important – they just don’t understand what it is. – Ken Robinson
If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original. – Ken Robinson
I believe this passionately: that we don’t grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we get educated out if it. – Ken Robinson
Many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they’re not – because the thing they were good at at school wasn’t valued, or was actually stigmatized. – Ken Robinson
Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!
Be sure to check out my other blog,Joe’s Journey, for personal insights on life and its detours.
The other day when I was putting some luggage back up into the closet, I came across a small notebook with a few items written in it. Must have been some of my notes from a long-ago seminar I attended somewhere. These statements are in no particular order and only one is attributable to someone. Take them for what they’re worth. Who knows, they may be able to help enhance your creativity.
Wasting time is usually resistance to writing
Be violent and original in your work, but be orderly in your normal life
Get quiet — be still and apply yourself
Creativity: Sudden cessation of stupidity
Most good ideas come fully formed
Celebrate small victories
“No” is a complete sentence
We have no art. We do everything as well as possible.
“Everything is art direction.” — Lee Clow
How to suck less: It’s not about concepts; it’s about execution (how we work)
Enemies: Laziness and Arrogance
“Effort and struggle to create simplicity and grace lives on in the soul.”
Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!
Be sure to check out my other blog,Joe’s Journey, for personal insights on life and its detours.
The ones who see things differently…who are not fond of rules…they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. — Steve Jobs
Be brave enough to live life creatively. The creative place where no one else has ever been. – Alan Alda
Where there is shouting, there is no true knowledge. – Leonardo da Vinci
I think it’s better to be overly ambitious and fail than to be underambitious and succeed in a mundane way. I have been very fortunate. I failed upward in my life! – Francis Ford Coppola
Meetings are all too often the burial grounds of great ideas. — Keith Reinhard, member, Advertising Hall of Fame
You cannot force ideas. Successful ideas are the result of slow growth. Ideas do not reach perfection in a day, no matter how much study is put upon them. – Alexander Graham Bell
The most dangerous phrase in the language is, We’ve always done it this way. – Grace Hopper
If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it. – Albert Einstein
We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely. – E. O. Wilson
There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. — Ernest Hemingway
Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!
Be sure to check out my other blog, Joe’s Journey, for personal insights on life and its detours.
While we are all creative in some aspect, some people are more creative than others. How do we distinguish one from the other or do we? What should we look for when searching for creative people? While reviewing several research articles on creativity, I ran across one that might shed some light on this “creative people search.”
Creativity can be defined as the capacity to come up with new ideas to serve a purpose. Think of it as intelligence having fun! As such, creativity serves a vital role in both our personal and professional lives every day.
No wonder employers want creative employees in areas where it is essential to come up with proposals for new products and services, and new ways of doing things.
The Creative Personality
Professor Øyvind L. Martinsen at BI Norwegian Business School conducted a study some years back to develop a personality profile for creative people: Which personality traits characterize creative people? The study was conducted with 481 people with different backgrounds and consisted of various groups of “creative” people.
Seven Creativity Characteristics
In his study Martinsen identified seven paramount personality traits that characterize creative people:
1. Associative orientation: Imaginative, playful, have a wealth of ideas, ability to be committed, sliding transitions between fact and fiction.
2. Need for originality: Resists rules and conventions. Have a rebellious attitude due to a need to do things no one else does.
3. Motivation: Have a need to perform, goal-oriented, innovative attitude, stamina to tackle difficult issues.
4. Ambition: Have a need to be influential, attract attention and recognition.
5. Flexibility: Have the ability to see different aspects of issues and come up with optional solutions.
6. Low emotional stability: Have a tendency to experience negative emotions, greater fluctuations in moods and emotional state, failing self-confidence.
7. Low sociability: Have a tendency not to be very considerate, are obstinate and find faults and flaws in ideas and people.
Among the seven personality traits, associative orientation (#1) and flexibility (#5) are the factors that to the greatest extent lead to creative thinking. “Associative orientation is linked to ingenuity. Flexibility is linked to insight,” according to the professor. The other five characteristics describe emotional inclinations and motivational factors that influence creativity or spark an interest in creativity. “The seven personality traits influence creative performance through inter-action,” Martinsen points out.
Less Sociable
The study shows that the artists who participated scored much higher on associative orientation than the other participants. They have a substantial need for originality and are not particularly stable emotionally. The personality profile of the marketing students was quite similar to the artist profile and also differs from the other participants in the study. The artists in the study also scored lower values for ambition than the others and are not particularly sociable.
“An employer would be wise to conduct a position analysis to weigh the requirements for the ability to cooperate against the need for creativity,” Martinsen believes. He also emphasizes that creative people may need help to complete their projects. “Creative people are not always equally practical and performance-oriented, which is the reverse side of the “creativity medal.”
Since a good eight years have passed from when this study was done, it would be interesting to learn what differences, if any, a newer study would reveal toward creativity aspects in individuals. Given that the creative landscape itself has changed, it shouldn’t be too surprising to find that the new study results would reflect that.
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BI Norwegian Business School. “The hunt for the creative individual.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 2 April 2013. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130402091133.htm.
Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!
Be sure to check out my other blog, Joe’s Journey, for personal insights on life and its detours.
• Creativity needs to be synonymous with “FUN!”
• Idea Tub – can be a physical place or thing and/or an electronic file. It’s a compilation of all ideas
ever submitted since you started keeping track, but organized as to be readily accessible.
• Don’t let the execution bury the idea. Your message will be diluted and possibly even confusing if
the creative is too cute, too complex or just plain dumb. Think napkin, not computer.
• Realize your own sense of creativity by challenging your imagination and stimulate thoughts to lead
yourself to a new level of solution.
• The idea, for best results, should be media and discipline neutral. Otherwise, you limit yourself.
• Focus on how you’re going to make the idea work and be relevant. But, never fall in love with it.
• Don’t ever underestimate the power of the mind or your imagination. Don’t ever be afraid to ask,
“Why, Why not or What if . . .?”.
• Ye Olde Creativity Survival Kit — Any sort of container in which you place whatever makes you
FEEL creative and THINK creatively. In this industry, silly is sometimes serious business.
• Thinking at Warp Speed – Generating ideas at breakneck speed is a great way to capture ideas on
Post-it Notes (one per note) in answering a specific question to solve a problem. Remember Giant
Post-its for your “idea wall” which can foster brainstorming and open-door policy idea addition.
• Drill Down Technique – Discovering THE idea. In this unusual method choose your five best ideas
and ELIMINATE THEM, choose five more and ELIMINATE THEM. The last idea Post-it may or
may not be the best, but it’s one to which you normally would not have paid much attention. Go play.
• As ideas are developed, make sure their essence is refined. Make sure your ideas are clear and
you can explain their basic value in about 20 seconds. If you can’t explain it to an 8-year old so they’ll understand it, you need to refine your idea more.
• Don’t manage creativity; manage for creativity. Provide an environment that is open and receptive
to new ideas, and that builds failure into the process. Acknowledge error or failure in a constructive
and supportive way.
Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!
Be sure to check out my other blog, Joe’s Journey, for personal insights on life and its detours.
ideasnmoreblog 