Shocked Out of Creativity as Kids?

Although I haven’t read Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman’s book Nurture Shock about child development, the title sparked a thought: Are we shocked out of creativity when we are growing up?

We do know that adults ask fewer questions, laugh a whole lot less than kids and certainly don’t play as much with some exceptions. Those include people such as comedians, clowns, magicians and jazz musicians and employees who are part of organizations that encourage fun like IDEO, Zappos, Southwest Airlines and many software companies. But, for the majority of adults, working life at least is far too serious and the idea of fun is often viewed as flaky.

The scarcity of questions, laughing, fun and play may go way back to the settling in of “judgment” when we were growing up - self-consciousness from how we were taught to react to mistakes, problems and uncertainty. Play is a safe harbor for facing challenging and hostile environments – experimenting without suffering dire consequences. Fun and laughter allow us to let go, reduce the noise level thereby allowing weak signals in our brains where insights reside to be detected. But, we also lose control temporarily. Questions take us out of our comfort zone because they stir the pot and introduce uncertainty. All of these factors battle with judgment for mind and body space.

After a screw up, we have about 500 milliseconds to react with awareness: ignore the mistake and brush it aside for the sake of our self-confidence or investigate the error and learn from it. Let the judgment mindset in? Or, take more of a growth mindset?

What can we do? Young children and students who are praised for their efforts, not their "smarts", typically demonstrate significant self-improvement. They are encouraged to challenge themselves, learn from their mistakes. We can do this for ourselves to bury the judgment factor and soften the bruising of our egos. Who knows what wonderful ideas may emerge when our more open minds are simply wandering around?

Want to Make Progress on a Tough Challenge? Take Some Cues From Golf

Until most individuals recognize that sustained training and effort is a prerequisite for reaching expert levels of performance, they will continue to misattribute lesser achievement to the lack of natural gifts, and will thus fail to reach their own potential.

- K. Anders Ericsson

We humans have always marveled at the accomplishments of athletes or for that matter anyone who pushes the limits of mastery no matter the skill to be conquered. Golf provides a special window into the journey because we witness the ups and downs of professional golfers of all ages publicly, Tiger Woods for one. Their stories in many ways mimic working life, particularly the managing stress and personal development parts. That’s where we can tune in for some tips.

Karl Morris who is mental coach to Darren Clarke, Charl Schwartzel and Graeme McDowell, picks up on the importance of “deliberate” practice popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers. As K. Anders Ericsson explains – the academic guru on the topic – this is not mindless practice. Athletes and any other persons wanting to better their best focus on incrementally stretching beyond their comfort zones, not unlike what we all had to do during our elementary, high school and college or university studies. Plus athletes have expert coaches who, like teachers in our younger years, are a must to provide feedback, guidance and encouragement.

In golf or any domain for that matter, deliberate practice requires work, lots of it. That means attention, concentration, reflection and managing emotions with each shot, each action and reaction.

So, here are three tips from Morris and the researchers on whom he draws:

1. Attend only to one task at a time, one ball at a time until you get it right. So multiple goals and tactics are out.

2. Write down your score. Keep track so you have hard data feedback. This “immunizes you against pressure” in the future.

3. Attach positive emotions to shots even when they are less than your expectations. Even a smile despite a disappointment can shift your opportunity for future success.

Tip # 3 is probably the hardest to do. Rick Hanson in Just One Thing: Developing a Buddha Brain One Simple Practice at a Time breaks it down into three simple steps that are easy to remember:

Let Be: Acknowledge how you are feeling, your “inner dialogue”.

Let Go: Breathe deeply. Say goodbye to those feelings if negative.

Let In: Replace what you released with something better, like feeling grateful for… (you fill it in). Call it the “silver lining response”.

Note that “mere experience” and “everyday skills” do not qualify as deliberate practice. The latter is akin to the mental demands of complex problem-solving. But, according to Ericsson, too many people default to their everyday skills and as such suffer from “arrested development”!

Have we gone too far with thing and things?

In analyzing Agatha Christie’s writing over her lifetime, linguists concluded that her more extensive use of the word thing in her later years was an indicator of her mental decline. That observation barely registered for me at the time. But something must have stuck. I can no longer ignore that at work, in our personal lives, in books and in the media we use thing and things indiscriminately. Are we dumbing down our discourse?

The first inkling that thing and things was getting to me occurred when I was addressing an audience. I became hyper-aware that I was about to use one of the words in a sentence and then struggled for a micro-second to replace thing with the proper word. So far so good but it requires a ton of mental energy.

The next phase was in books, articles and media - it’s everywhere phase. My train of thought is increasingly disrupted by thing and things popping up no matter where I turn. They are well-entrenched in all that I read and hear, scholarly or otherwise. I am astonished at the extent to which we have fallen into a thingy world.

Was Agatha Christie ahead of her time in reflecting a normal evolution of our language? Or, was her mental capability less sharp? What do you think?

My take: a thingy world doesn’t look good on us.

Why growing talent from within is a smart rule of thumb

Succession planning is a very big deal these days. Put another way: growing and keeping talent for rainy days and beyond. But what I have always found puzzling is the tendency for many organizations to look outward rather than inward, thereby ticking off a lot of people. Why is the “devil you don’t know better than the one you do” in so many recruiting efforts?


Maybe it’s the quick fix approach in search of the Holy Grail. That shiny new person, full of energy, exuberance and efficiency tools will shake things up a bit. Get people moving. Save some costs. And above all improve productivity.

If it were only so simple. Organizations must refresh with new hires but not at the expense of ignoring those within. If everyone is counted in instead of being counted out via a “high potential” selection process upfront, the organizational culture has a greater chance to flourish.

There are plenty of studies showing that superstars don’t contribute as much as you think to organizational success. A superstar is one member of a team. All other members play different, yet important roles in getting the job done. If the superstar is an outsider, that person has a distinct disadvantage - not having a deep knowledge of the business. If the powers that be signal that an outsider is the best choice, the lines harden internally making the job of the new recruit almost impossible. Besides, like any economy, all “classes” are needed to contribute to growth and robustness. The worker bees do good!

But, what about the value of recruiting outside CEOs? Joseph Bower at the Harvard Business School has analyzed 1,800 successions and written about them in his book The CEO Within: Why Insider-Outsiders are the Key to Succession. Bower’s findings confirm that an organization’s performance financially is “significantly better” when persons who are insiders move up to the top job. This flies in the face of the conventional wisdom of boards.

In Bower’s words, “it takes hard work to grow talent”. That’s why human resources departments are vitally important for guiding the talent strategy and setting up the right supports and systems for many to flourish. Nature does well with diversity. So can we.

Want more engagement in your workplace? Try the water cooler.

Socializing and socialism are two words that don’t get enough respect. Managers who are under the gun to produce more efficiencies and revenues per worker have limited tolerance for too much informal socializing. Governments faced with too little revenue and huge deficits often see “red” with anything approaching so-called socialism as it brings up negative images of “the welfare state”, laziness, entitlement and most importantly --- high costs. The gyrating economic environment doesn’t help.


But can’t we have it both ways, at least in the work environment? Let’s call it “work hard” and “play hard”.

Evolutionary biologists are absolutely certain about one aspect of survival: we need each other to adapt and thrive in uncertain times. It means interacting in messy, informal ways to share tools, tips and re-energize. It means keeping an eye on the “needs” of individuals in order to generate group prosperity.

Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” is ultimately about group success although you wouldn’t know it from today’s reality TV shows. They prefer the entertainment value of pitting individuals against each other. But, such shows have limited application in today’s more complex and highly volatile environment. Bottom line: if we connect and share more, our chance of survival and economic success goes up not down. Talking helps.

So, back to the water cooler. It’s a simple social place. Yet powerful. It’s a smart managerial tool to achieve cost reductions and revenue ideas. Water coolers and the like keep the information flowing feeding into the creative and innovations streams. They help off-set health and productivity issues from the emotional toll when people don’t feel supported at work.

The leaders of Google, Apple, Zappos, Steelcase and other dynamic "go to" organizations know this.

Can You Improve Your Personality? Yes, and...

I am often asked about the nature of personality. What is it? Am I stuck with it? Can I change it if I want to? By association, can leaders and managers make improvements in their personalities? That is, can a terrible boss become a wonderful boss? Well, that might be asking for too much unless the boss has an epiphany…and…there is some wiggle room for improvement.

I like Manfred Kets de Vries take on personality in his book, The Leader on the Couch:

Personality is the same as character, the sum of deeply engrained patterns of behavior. It’s the stamp impressed on us by nature and nurture, a composite of habits we choose and develop and that gradually drive us. It is central to the way we perceive and present ourselves. Personality (character) shapes ideals, values, beliefs, patterns of information-processing, moral compass and leadership style.

Whew! Rather all-encompassing. This is going to take some work to change.

De Vries is quite optimistic in this regard. You can de-script the unhelpful parts of your “inner theatre”. You can change your perceptions and habits from both your genetic inheritance and early experiences. You can liberate yourself somewhat from the confines of your “programmed” personality, if you wish to.

Twin studies confirm de Vries research. You can seize the opportunity for personal growth because personality has a large “nurture” component. Although how smart you are is significantly determined by the genes from your parents, personality is only about 45% heritable, according to Robert Plomin, Professor of Behavioural Genetics at King’s College, London. You can become smarter in your relationships, beliefs, how you assess information, your ethics and your habits overall. In short, you tweak your personality in good ways.

You can become more conscious. That’s the really good news. Just takes some work at thinking about your thinking and then practicing new habits until they stick.

Be Interested. Works Wonders

A long time ago I took a pile of personal growth courses. Most of what I learned is a blur to this day but a few ideas stuck. One of them is to be interested rather than interesting. Now many moons later, the phrase keeps cropping up in various articles, books and videos as one antidote to the dangers of narcissism, rugged individualism, self-delusion and poor decision-making.


In the context of leadership, it’s a no-brainer. Bill Taylor in a June 6, 2011 Harvard Business Review blog quoting Randy Nelson, former dean of Pixar University, puts it this way:

It’s no trick for talented people to be interesting. But, it’s a gift to be interested – interested in big problems, interested in the talents and struggles of your colleagues, interested in the enduring mission of an enterprise and in new ways of bringing that mission to life.

But how many bosses and team-mates are this way? It takes a lot of work to get outside of our own concerns and achievements to focus on another.

If you manage to be interested it’s a sign of respect for the value of another human being. Respect is something we all want. I hear this over and over again from people at the front line and up no matter what the business of an organization. When I ask people what they mean by “respect”, they invariably describe it as others listening to them, helping them with their problems and showing they care in some way.

Maybe “caring” is the message of “being interested”. It affirms us. It levels the playing field across titles and roles. It says: “You count”. Powerful.