Fredrik Härén's Blog, page 10

Creativity makes us happy! (Episode 204)

Last night (at midnight) I delivered a virtual Masterclass on creativity for Hellomonday (I did it from a hotel room in Vienna and because Hello Monday is in Australia it meant doing it at midnight for me.)

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I started the virtual Masterclass by saying that the creative process makes us happy! There is a value in being creative just because it makes us happier. Having ideas, working on them and seeing them materialize makes us happy.

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Edvard Munch, for example, did not suffer from mental illness because he was creative, he most likely became less mentally ill because he painted.

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The notion that creative people are full of struggles, anxiety and suffering is a myth that needs to be debunked. Sure, the creative process can be difficult, but I am 100% convinced that when all is said and done the creative process adds more positive aspects to our lives than negative ones. (And that’s not even counting all the benefits of how our creative work benefits the world.)

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Want to live a happy and fulfilling life? Then live a creative life.

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And if you want to live a creative life, then you should invest time, attention and resources into developing your creative potential. Are you doing that?

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The post Creativity makes us happy! (Episode 204) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

Active Intuition. (Episode 127)

Interview with Mauro Porcini, SVP & Chief Design Officer at PepsiCo.

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Here is what most people get wrong about intuition: They think intuition just “happens”. It doesn’t.

The reason for this misunderstanding could come from how the word is defined. Intuition is defined as “the ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning.”

And instinctively is defined as “without conscious thought; by natural instinct.”

But intuition is not something that happens by instinct. It happens by action. Previous action, to be precise.

If we look at the etymology of the word “intuition” it becomes much more interesting.  “Intuition” comes from the Latin word “intueri” meaning  “look at, consider”,  from in-  meaning “at, on”  and tueri meaning “to look at, watch over”.

So intuition means to see. To see the answer.

And when you realise that the word “tueri” also gave us the word “tutor” you can come to an interesting conclusion: intuition is our teacher. Just like a good tutor helps us see, our intuition is the teacher who teaches us wise things based on what we have previously seen ourselves.

So from that we can learn:

Intuition means to see.

The more we see, the stronger our intuition will become.

So we should pay attention to what we choose to look at.

Because what we look at becomes our teacher.

Conclusion: Intuition is the reward for the act of previously paying attention.

I learned about the power of active intuition from Mauro Porcini, SVP & Chief Design Officer at PepsiCo. In his role, he is in charge of everything from developing an innovation culture to managing 17 design studios around the world with hundreds of creatives who handle many billion-dollar brands and loads of other brands as well. One day he is working on the global re-fresh of the Pepsi brand and the next he is overlooking the company’s activities at the Super Bowl and the next day he will be in Asia understanding how Asian trends in snacking are changing.

It’s a job that is impossible to master without intuition, and Mauro is a big believer in the art of intuition.

He told me: “Creativity is intuition in action”

And he explained how important it is in his job to constantly experience new things in order to feed his intuition. Mauro: “The people who lose the connection to their powerful intuition are the people who fall into the trap of their own arrogance. The people who think they now ‘know’ and who stop learning.”

To have a healthy intuition we constantly need to refill it with new things that we see. Mauro stressed that intuition is not something we are born with. We are born with curiosity,  but intuition is something that we earn. And we earn it from paying attention to what’s going on.

And we should make an effort to develop it, because as Mauro calls it: “Intuition is accelerated reasoning.”

To work on the creative vision and mission of a global multi-billion-dollar company with over 300,000 employees and with some of the biggest brands on the planet is a huge creative challenge. Especially when you work in the very fast and fickle industry of FMCG (Fast-moving consumer goods).

This forces Mauro to make sure he is “constantly inspired” about what’s happening in the world. A big part of his job is to travel, attend events, meet with customers, speak at conferences. Another big part of the job is research, understanding customer trends and sentiments. In the words of Mauro: “We need to be connected to what’s happening in the world.”

It’s all that input and inspiration that create the ingredients for his intuition.

Mauro has understood that while intuition might feel like magic that just arrives and tells you what to do, it is actually a careful process of feeding your intuition with interesting and relevant things that you notice so that your intuition can then come back with an answer you would never have been able to come up with yourself.

So understand that intuition is about being able to see the answer.

But to be able to see the answer you need to previously have been paying attention by looking at your world.

Are you looking at your world?

Are you paying attention?

Are you feeding your intuition so that it can feed you?

The post Active Intuition. (Episode 127) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

When life gives you lemons – make strawberry milkshake! (Episode 203)

A couple of days ago, I accidentally cracked the screen on my Mac so I had no computer. While it was at service yesterday, I decided to take the day off and paddle my new kayak from the store in the central of Stockholm to my island.

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After all – it was a beautifully sunny day with no wind and I could not do any effective work anyway.

 

(And no, there is no lemon in a strawberry milkshake and that’s my point! Re-focus from the negative and focus on something epic.)

Life is about mindset.

 

And creative thinking helps to see the best of life.

The post When life gives you lemons – make strawberry milkshake! (Episode 203) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

The Roadblockers. (Episode 126)

Interview with Lise Karstensen, Head of Nordics, Nokia Enterprise and Country Director.

 

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You have heard about Gatekeepers – as in “someone who has the power to decide who gets particular resources and opportunities, and who does not”, and Gatekeepers can be frustrating, annoying and irritating to run into.

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But there is another frustrating, annoying and irritating person we should really look out for: The Roadblocker.

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A Roadblocker is “someone who kills ideas because they do not have enough understanding of the solution.”

I learned about Roadblockers from Lise Karstensen, Head of Nordics, Nokia Enterprise and Country Director.

Lise has been at Nokia for 25 years, and she has spent a lot of time reflecting on how she, as a leader, can help inspire creativity in her team. One of the most important insights she has received is the importance of NOT becoming a Roadblocker.

Lise: “(As a leader) the easiest thing is just to say “no” to something where you do not see the potential. But as a leader I do not want to be the one stopping good ideas because I do not see its potential. Everybody’s brains are limited, but we are limited in different areas, so as a leader it’s important that I am aware of my own “innovation blind spots”. If I am only relying on my own ability to judge if an idea is great, I am limiting innovation. It’s never a good idea to think you always know what constitutes a good idea.”

Lise means that some leaders say no to ideas – not because the ideas are bad – but because the leaders do not understand the idea. These are the Roadblockers. People who are blocking the innovation process due to lack of understanding of the ideas’ potential.

Lise is encouraging leaders to take risks by investing in ideas and proposed innovation projects even if they do not fully see their potential. That, obviously, does not mean you should approve ideas you think are bad. It means you should put your trust in other people’s ability to see that something is a good idea.

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When I asked Lise to share the strategy needed to not become a Roadblocker, she gave this advice:

1) You really need to listen to the ideas people are coming up with without a filter.

Be aware that your own “filters” might stop you from seeing what they are seeing.

2) Have self-awareness about your own innovation blind-spots and limitations

Know what you do not know.

3) Be open even if you cannot see the whole idea

Being open-minded is about being able to be open to other minds.

Leaders should of course say no to a lot of ideas. Perhaps even to most ideas. Being a leader includes making decisions, and decision making is often about choosing what not to do (The Etymology of the word “decision”, after all, is “to cut off” as in “to decide is to cut off all the things not to do.”

Lise acknowledges that: “As leaders we block ideas every day, and we should. But avoiding becoming a Roadblocker is about having the guts to trust that other people know what they are talking about, even when you do not see what they see. You can challenge their ideas based on your knowledge and expertise, but you should judge the idea on the other person’s knowledge and expertise.”

When I asked for an example of when Lise had avoided becoming a Roadblocker she told me of a time when one of the people on her team had suggested bringing in a distributor to expand the business in the region. Lise: “I could not see the real value add, but I could see that the person presenting the idea could see the value.” Lise decided to trust the creativity of her colleague. And it was the right move, the project was a success.

When reflecting on this instance Lise said: “Some (leaders) think they know everything, and that if they do not understand an idea then it’s a bad idea. But no-one knows everything, and good leaders know that.”

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My final question to Lise was: “What do you suggest someone do if they feel their idea is being killed by a Roadblocker?”

She said: “Try another path. Give the pitch another angle. It’s usually very difficult to get a Roadblocker to change their mind. Better then, to change the pitch and approach the selling of the idea from a different perspective. Since you now know why the Roadblocker decided to block the idea the first time, you should now be able to find a different way past the Roadblocker’s hesitation about the idea.

Be mindful about Roadblockers – they kill loads of ideas.

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But more importantly, be mindful of not BEING a Roadblocker.

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Fredrik Haren, The Creativity Explorer

The post The Roadblockers. (Episode 126) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

Creativity is fundamental for mental well-being. (Episode 202)

One of the people I met on my trip to Singapore this week was fellow speaker YuJin Wong. YuJin speaks on the very important topic of Mental Wellbeing and he told me that one of the pillars of his speech is to talk about the need to do something creative in your life.

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I think that is great advice because being creative makes us happy.

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I asked him, “So what creative thing do YOU do to stay happy?” and he told me that during covid he had taken up learning to play jazz piano by taking lessons on Zoom from a teacher in Japan (!)

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What is your creative project that you do primarily because it makes you happier and more mentally sound?

 

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ps. Companies should help their people become more creative not just so that their organizations will be more innovative, but also because it will create happier and healthier employees.

 

Fredrik Haren, The Creativity Explorer

The post Creativity is fundamental for mental well-being. (Episode 202) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

Creativity Conviction. (Episode 125)

Interview with Patricio Melo , Executive Vice President, Media/Chief Technology Officer at Davivienda.

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Here is an interesting observation: Believe that people will change, adapt new technology and innovate and it’s a much better chance that they will. Doubt that they will, and they will not.

This lesson was given to me by Patricio Melo , Executive Vice President, Media/Chief Technology Officer at Davivienda, a Colombian bank.

It reminded me of the famous study where they told a temporary teacher that the class that she was going to teach was full of gifted students. And then they told another temporary teacher that class she was going to teach was full of underachievers. The teacher with the gifted kids did much better on the test. The only problem is that both teachers were given the same class.

If company leaders look at their clients as bad at adopting new technology, they will most likely end up being bad at adopting new technology. If you look at your customers as great at adopting new technology, there is a bigger chance that they will be.

Same is true for staff.

Or in other words: We have to be convinced about someone’s ability to be innovative for them to be able to be creative. We have to have Creativity Conviction.

At Davivienda, they have Creativity Conviction. Or in the words of Patricio, “Every person can be a source of innovation and value add – and we MUST encourage everyone to present their ideas and projects and we challenge our people. If you believe that people can innovate and they will believe that they can. In the same way we believe that digital transformation is not one very big project, but many smaller projects. We believe that real digital transformation is a lot of small initiatives that come from our employees.”

Some examples of what this Creativity Conviction has empowered: The bank started virtual meetings many years before it became “a thing” due to the pandemic. They have introduced a block-chain based financial bonds system, and their p2p-payment system went from 600,000 customers ten years ago to today’s 16 million, many of these being poor people with very little education and with access to very low-tech technology. The bank believed in these customers’ ability to become digitalised. And they did.

Patricio: “Never underestimate people’s ability to change – especially if they need to.”

Do you have Creativity Conviction in your customers and staff? If not, do you think that the fact that you don’t might affect their ability to actually innovate?

How could you increase the Creativity Conviction in your organization?

The post Creativity Conviction. (Episode 125) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

“SAPIs” -“Simple And Powerful Ideas.” (Episode 124)

Interview with Mette Refshauge, VP, Corporate Communication & Sustainability at A.P. Moller Maersk.

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This might sound counter-intuitive, but there are some ideas that are “too good to become true” – at least if you do not pay attention.

Let’s call those ideas “SAPI”. SAPI stands for a “Simple And Powerful Idea”, and a SAPI is an idea that is so simple and so powerful that they are met with resistance, scepticism or doubt.

Now, it could be said that all great ideas have this in common that they are simple and powerful, but a SAPI is an idea is so simple and powerful that their simplicity makes them hard to sell – they just seem too simple.

I became aware of SAPI after having a conversation with Mette Refshauge, VP, Corporate Communication & Sustainability at A.P. Moller Maersk. If you haven’t heard of Maersk you might have been spending your life on a deserted island: Maersk Line, the largest contributor to group revenue and earnings, has been the largest container shipping company globally for more than 20 years.

Mette, who handles corporate communication, told me of a great example of a SAPI. The company’s top management was looking for a simple and powerful way of communicating the Maersk’s new strategy of having a more customer centric approach. The team was reminded of how the Maersk CEO recently had been visiting the CEO of one of their clients, Puma, and how the Puma CEO had gifted the Maersk CEO with a pair of custom-made Puma shoes in the distinct blue color of Maersk.

The Maersk CEO had, half jokingly, said: “Can you mass produce these shoes?”

And that triggered the idea that Maersk should buy one pair of Maersk-blue Puma shoes for every employee (!) of Maersk to communicate the new strategy’s focus on customer centricity by having the shows symbolize the importance of – literally! – “walking in the shoes of their customers”!

Do note: Maersk has over 100,000 employees…

And yes, Maersk put in an order of 100,000+ shoes to Puma!

And on the day of the launch of the new strategy the Maersk CEO walked up on stage wearing his Maersk-blue shoes and expressing the message of how everyone in the company now should “walk in their customer’s shoes” and see things from the perspective of the customers.

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Picture from the launch with the CEO wearing the special edition Puma shoes.

Brilliant.

Simple and powerful.

Stripping down a whole corporate strategy into a pair of shoes and then giving a pair of shoes to everyone to make the strategy tangible, real and meaningful is such a strong idea.

And the campaign became a huge success with employees posting pictures both internally and externally of both receiving and wearing their shoes and employees all over the world getting a better understanding of what the strategy means to them.

But the idea was not an immediate success from the get-go. When the idea was initially introduced some people did not get it, so the team had to work on getting acceptance within the company, and they did that by not overselling the idea.

Mette: “A Simple And Powerful Idea should not be oversold. You have to almost undersell it to give people a chance to be sceptical about it first and then come to their own conclusions that the idea really is as great as it is. Great ideas do not benefit from being pushed on people.”

If you have a Simple And Powerful Idea your challenge is to get others to understand how great it is and to make them understand that by themselves. If you don’t, then the very best of ideas might die because someone thought it was just too good to be true.

The post “SAPIs” -“Simple And Powerful Ideas.” (Episode 124) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

Innovation as a Service. (Episode 123)

Interview with Renata Talarico Petrovic, Head of Open Innovation at Banco Bradesco.

 

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Bradesco is a Brazilian financial company with a different, and I have to add: fresh, approach to innovation.

 

Let’s call it Innovation as a Service.

 

What Bradesco has done is to create a hub where its corporate clients get access to the products and services of start-ups. Bradesco’s prime purpose of this hub is to foster innovation to contribute to its internal businesses and also to the businesses of its clients, helping them to move forward. Innovation as a Service, as in offering innovation to serve your clients.

The one who told me about this program was Renata Talarico Petrovic, Head of Open Innovation at Banco Bradesco.

“We build a community around innovation”, Renata said to me.

But why an innovation hub run by a bank?, I asked.

She told me Bradesco does this for many reasons: to develop a radar of innovative solutions to address its own business challenges, to increase the internal culture of innovation, but also to intensify the bank’s relationships with its corporate clients. By helping their corporate clients to innovate and exchange knowledge with other members, the bank’s bond with these clients becomes stronger.

Many banks focus on Fin-tech start-ups as a way to keep track of where the finance world is heading, but, besides that, Bradesco is also focused on helping their clients’ businesses.

So a bank helping its companies become more innovative by connecting them to start-ups. At the same time, a bank helps start-ups get easier access to big potential clients, contributing to the growth of their businesses.

It might be a health company getting help to be connected to an AI start-up to improve how they analyze X-rays or a start-up developing better journeys to convert sales in a retail company’s online store.

“The value is collaboration”, Renata continued. “Our tagline has always been ‘Collaborate to Innovate’.”

 

If you were to offer to help someone else become more creative, who would it be and how would you do it? How could you offer innovation as a service?  How could you serve by helping to innovate someone else? And what would be in it for you?

The post Innovation as a Service. (Episode 123) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

Idea Enjoyment. (Episode 200)

There is a special joy that comes from appreciating a good idea that you made happen. Let’s call that “Idea Enjoyment”.

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That moment you step back from your painting and just look at it not as the painter but as the art lover.

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That moment when you finish that task you set out to get done, but have put aside for so long and then you finally finish it.

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When you see a crazy idea that only you believed in, get accepted.

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The enjoyment of seeing creativity get done.

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I am writing this to you from my island where I am sitting in my dome that I decided to build last year.

 

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It’s the first time this year that I am back on the island and in the dome.

 

And I am sitting here with a big smile on my face enjoying not just the dome – but the satisfaction that comes from knowing that I had this crazy idea to build a dome on my island and that I set out to make it happen.

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Today I am not thinking of new ideas that I will make happen.

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I am just enjoying the fact that I made the idea of the dome happen a year ago.

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What idea should you sit down and feel grateful for making happen in your life?

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***

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Today we are celebrating the 200th episode of the newsletter “The Creativity Explorer” in its current (*) form.

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I want to take this opportunity to enjoy the moment that I decided to re-start the newsletter and the fact that I have now kept it going for 200 episodes.

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Writing about creativity and sharing what I have learnt about the topic of creativity with you is one of the highlights of my working week.

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It’s the very definition of being The Creativity Explorer.

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Thank you for being part of it.

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Fredrik Haren, The Creativity Explorer

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(*) I actually started the first edition of The Creativity Explorer (under a different name) way back in 2000, and kept it running for years, but for some reason I stopped for a few years when I lost my database due to an IT malfunction. Then a few years back I decided to start it again. So glad I did.

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The Creatives have no clothes! (Episode 122)

Interview with John Schoolcraft, Chief Creative Officer at Oatly.

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Sometimes, we need someone to point out the obvious that everyone has missed. In the classic story of Hans Christian Andersen it is the child who screams out “The Emperor is naked!”.

 And for marketing we have John Schoolcraft, Chief Creative Officer at Oatly. 

 Oatly is a Swedish food company that produces alternatives to dairy products from oats. They generated more than $783 million in revenue in 2023 and the company has seen amazing growth the last few years. The company was considered to be one of the top 10 companies in Fast Company’s list of ‘The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2019’. And John plays an important role in this successful journey.

 

I recently met with him to hear about their unusual creative approach.

 

You see, Oatly does not use an advertising agency. They do not even have a marketing department.

 

And yet they have been nominated to – and won! – numerous advertising awards and even done an – epic – Super Bowl commercial a few years back (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2-f-qBcQFs).

 

So how can they have such successful “marketing” without a marketing department or an agency?

 

Because they have a “creative department” instead of a “marketing department,” and the creative department looks at themselves as problem solvers, not marketers.

 

John Schoolcraft to me: “We go to other departments in the company and tell them ‘We do not want a brief; we want your problems’.”

 

The creative team gets involved early in the process and focuses on solving problems that the organization has defined. 

 

Many marketing directors and heads of ad agencies focus on the “client-agency relationship” (the tangible and intangible agreement between an organization (the client) and the company that is providing marketing, video, animation, search, advertising, or public relations services (the agency).)

 

But since Oatly does not use traditional agencies or have a traditional marketing department, they instead focus on the “Creativity-Business Relationship”.

 

John explained to me that creativity is at the very center of the whole company, and that the creative department that John is running sees as its primary role to help solve business problems with creativity.

 

That is how they, just to mention one example, came up with a soft-serve ice-cream product that is now being sold in stadiums in the US and at shops across Europe.

 

“Marketing people are a filter’, explained John to me. Take them away and let creatives work directly with the organization, and you become faster, more innovative, more customer-centered, more nimble, and braver.

John stresses that he does not run an “in-house agency”, that would just risk becoming the worst of an agency and the worst of an in-house department.

 

Instead, he told me. “Philosophically we have one foot outside. We represent the consumers. But we work extremely close with the rest of the company. We have removed every single thing that gets in the way of making great creative ideas.”

 

And it works. At a recent advertising award in Sweden Oatly was nominated for 13 (!) different awards, making Oatly the second most nominated agency- amazing, especially considering that they are not even an agency…

 

John uses the promise of creative freedom that comes with letting creatives work directly with business leaders – instead of working with business problems via a marketing department through an ad agency- to recruit some of the best creatives in the industry. And he then tells them: “There is no client. You are the client. There is no-one to go to, you have to decide if it’s great, you have to be willing to make that call…”

 

No brief. No client. No agency. Just creative business solving.

 

How refreshingly and inspiringly simple.

 

What would happen if you dismantled your marketing department, fired your agency and hired creatives who focused on solving your business problems?

The post The Creatives have no clothes! (Episode 122) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.