Fredrik Härén's Blog, page 8
July 18, 2024
Lubopiten – The love for asking questions. (Episode 220)
Today, I was interviewed (via Zoom) by Bulgarian TV about my views on creativity.
The journalist asked many good questions, and we had an interesting conversation that covered topics ranging from North Korea to mothers playing games with their children.
In the end, I asked HIM a question: “How do you say the word “curiosity” in Bulgarian?”
He replied: “Lubopiten” (Любопитен)
I asked for the word’s etymology, and he told me that the first part of the word comes from the word “love,” and the second part comes from the word “to ask questions.”
Lubopiten can be traced back to meaning “the love for asking questions,” which I think is an absolutely beautiful way of looking at curiosity.
I am glad I asked… 
Ps. I think the English language needs to adopt the word “lubopiten” as a noun so it can be used like this: “He is a lubopiten – a person who has the love for asking questions.”
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The post Lubopiten – The love for asking questions. (Episode 220) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
July 17, 2024
Introducing the word: “curiositer”. (Episode 219)
A Curiositer is a person who is curious.
The Predicate Nominative for a person who is adventurous is “adventurer”. A person who takes on challenges is a “challenger”.
I think there should be a Predicate Nominative for someone who is curious, and “Curiositer” works just fine.
Personally, I am a “curious introvert”.
Or perhaps that should be, ‘An introverted Curiositer’.
And today was a perfect example of that.
I was being an introvert sitting on my island in Sweden, but from there I did three amazing interviews on creativity with drummer and artist Aimee Marcos; Karen Ballenden, Business Director at 180 Amsterdam, The Global Business Lead for their client Pepsi; and Angela Chiara Lento, Sales Director Italy for FrieslandCampina, the world’s largest dairy co-operation.
Aimee inspired me by saying: “Inspiration cracks open your mind and soul.”
Karen reminded me of the power of curiosity by saying: “When you embrace something, you are willing to find the opportunity within it.”
And Angela pointed out to me how: “If you scratch under the surface, creativity is (virtually always) collaborative.”
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One interview done in Manila with an artist. One done in Amsterdam with an advertising executive and one done in Italy with a salesperson for dairy. All while never leaving my geometric dome on my island.
A good day’s work for a Curiositer.
Are you a Curiositer? If so, how are you feeding its curiosity?
The post Introducing the word: “curiositer”. (Episode 219) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
July 12, 2024
Can a book save a person’s life? I just found out my book did. (Episode 218)
Yesterday, I had the privilege to connect with a woman who had asked to meet.
In the meeting she told me her life’s story. How she – a happy and normal girl at 14 years old – had been drawn into a cult-like church and how there she had been brainwashed to give up her life to serve the people of that church.
In the darkest hour, when she felt she had no life, a friend had given her my book -“The Idea Book”. It sparked her creativity and made her realise that she had her own thoughts. Reading the book and doing the exercises in The Idea Book re-booted her self-thinking self. She described how the book had, literally, saved her.
When she finally gained the courage and power to leave the cult, The Idea Book again became her go-to tool for sketching out her new, free life.
She now lives a happy life and gives speeches to help police departments and other government organisations identify and help other brainwashed people in need of help. (She has given me permission to post about our meeting.)
As speakers and authors, we might sometimes wonder if what we do really makes a difference. What is a speech or a book?
But my meeting yesterday was another reminder to me about the potential of creativity and about the power of a book.
It can literally help save a person’s life.
So if you have a book inside of you, write it.In our meeting, I was able to help her find her Inner Theme – one of the most powerful Inner Themes I have been able to find. And she gave me a powerful lesson when she said: “Be loyal, but most of all, be loyal to yourself”.
pps. This is not a post to promote The Idea Book. I have decided to not sell the book anymore as I want to give mental space in the world for my next book. But if you want a copy of the book you can message me on LinkedIn and I will send you a copy of The Idea Book (eversion) for free.
Would love to know your thoughts. Post your comments on LinkedIn.
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The post Can a book save a person’s life? I just found out my book did. (Episode 218) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
July 5, 2024
Maximally Annoying Small Problems – MASP (Episode 217)
I will exemplify with the iPhone:
As a left-handed person, why can I not choose to put the camera button on the left side for easier and faster access?
Why doesn’t the iPhone recognize if the background picture is light at the top, and then change the colour of the battery status and reception bar from white to black?
And why can I not swipe left twice (!) to get to the last screen of my apps (i.e. it would be a loop) so that I could quickly get to the last downloaded apps?
And why does Siri Suggestions only show 4 latest used apps, why can I not see the 20 last used apps if I want to?
Etc etc etc.
Maximally Annoying Small Problems (MASP) are small problems that annoy you daily.
Why are companies not more interested in fixing the MASP?
Why are companies not more deliberately, more frequently and more actively asking us for the most annoying aspect of their products and services?
Companies have FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) easily accessible for their users, but what they should have is a MASP button easily accessible.
Companies: Make it easier to complain about the most frequent Maximally Annoying Small Problems.
Out of curiosity: What is your MASP?
Would love to know your thoughts. Post your comment on LinkedIn.
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The post Maximally Annoying Small Problems – MASP (Episode 217) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
June 25, 2024
Working on becoming even more creative. (Episode 216)
In the elevator to the training venue I was speaking at yesterday, it said “whole new level”.
The message resonated with me.
Because so many people compare their creative abilities to others – often to very creative people – and then draw the conclusion “I am not creative.”
That is so unfortunate.
Because one should not compare creativity to others. It’s not a competition.
Creativity is a process that makes us better, happier and more inspired.
You do not become happier by comparing your happiness to others. You become less happier doing that. You become happy by focusing on your happiness.
And you do not get more creative by comparing yourself to others.
What we should do is to be inspired by others!
And what we should do is to focus on what we can do to take our creativity to OUR next level.
Everyone can – and should – work on becoming even more creative.
Focus on that.
To paraphrase Sinéad O’Connor: “Nothing compares to your creativity.”
So stop comparing yourself creatively to others.
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The post Working on becoming even more creative. (Episode 216) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
June 13, 2024
The appreciation of creativity. (Episode 215)
Here is an insight into creativity that was triggered by two football-related events that I attended in the last few days: Creativity is one of the things we appreciate most in our heroes.
Event 1:
On Saturday night I had the privilege of being in the audience when Zlatan Ibrahimovic was celebrated for his amazing career in the Swedish National team. (He played 122 matches for Sweden and has the record for most goals scored.) My son was actually one of the boys carrying the flag at the event – big day for him.
Of all the goals Zlatan made, the one that they showed over and over that night – and the goal that inspired the tifo that the Swedish fans had created – was his famous, and amazing, bicycle kick against England from 30 meters away.
A beautiful goal, and a creative goal. You are not “expected” to do bicycle kicks from so far out.
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Event 2:
Yesterday I was in Zurich for a speech and took the opportunity to visit the FIFA Museum with its celebration of great footballers.
The things highlighted around the biggest football stars are:
-skill (players who can do magic with the ball)
-character (players who never give up)
-passion (players passionate about their team, the game or the match)
-team work (players who do everything for their team)
AND (!)
-CREATIVITY – players who do unexpected things with the ball.
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In football – and in life and business – we humans appreciate when people do something creative.
In other words, creativity has an inherent value.
That adds another benefit of creativity apart from it being the way we make things better for ourselves, and how it makes us happier and inspired.
How are you going to be creative today?
Would love your comments and thoughts – comment here.
The post The appreciation of creativity. (Episode 215) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
June 10, 2024
Inspiring new entrepreneurs. (Episode 214)
The post Inspiring new entrepreneurs. (Episode 214) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
June 4, 2024
“The Expert’s Insight”. (Episode 138)
Interview with Børre Opsahl, CFO, Insula.
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There are things that only an expert in a field would know but that non-experts could benefit from knowing. This is called “The Expert’s Insight”.
Let me give you an example of “The Expert’s Insight”:
People who are not professional speakers might think that professional speaking is all about speaking to the audience, but expert speakers know that great speaking is actually about the ability to feel the audience and read the room to be able to create a connection.
“Speaking is not about speaking, it’s about listening.” That is the Expert’s Insight about speaking.
I learnt about “The Expert’s Insight” from interviewing Børre Opsahl, CFO, Insula, a Nordic seafood group working on development, processing and sale of fish and seafood products.
Børre is an expert CFO, an expert in the fish industry and an expert in corporate turn-arounds (as he has worked on many of them.)
I asked him what the Expert’s Insights are for a CFO, for a fish industry expert and for a person working in turn-arounds.
For a CFO he said: “People underestimate the importance of correct historical data and ensuring that they are structured and categorised in the right way if you want to be able to create valuable predictions of the future. Børre did an analogy of how fishermen need to have a lot of correct data and information about where fish are hiding in order to be able to catch them. Same with financial data.
The Expert’s Insight for a CFO is: “What’s measured, gets done!” in the sense that attention will always be centered towards the KPIs you decide to measure and trigger change if mentioned KPIs do not trend in a positive direction.
For the fish industry he said: “People do not understand how expensive the raw material is when you work with developing sea food products. “The Expert’s Insight” for someone in the fish industry is “Using the whole fish” – as in “We cannot afford to let anything go to waste.” (Fish companies really do use every single part of the fish. The fish bones are made into a powder, the fish skin is used in facial creams, the head is sold for cat food etc.)
And for corporate turn-arounds he said: “People do not understand that when you come in to a company that is performing extremely badly there are just so many different warning bells going off, but “The Expert’s Insight” is that “You have to focus on what to focus on.” In other words, you need to learn to ignore most of the overwhelming negative signals you are getting and focus on the most serious ones. The more significant the losses, the less risk adverse one should be about which corrective measures to take to save the company. Just like a doctor coming to a dying patient needs to quickly triage the injuries to find where to focus to save the patient’s life.
No matter what you are an expert in, there is an “Expert’s Insight” for that expertise. Many times there are more than one, of course. By identifying these “Expert’s Insights” and reflecting on what they mean and what message they hold, you will gain valuable knowledge about what you do.
What is “The Expert’s Insight” for what you do? What can you learn by reflecting on it?
The post “The Expert’s Insight”. (Episode 138) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
May 31, 2024
Here’s to more positive and new thoughts. (Episode 213)
According to https://www.cdaltonpsychology.com/blogrunning-thoughts/60000-or-6000-thoughts-a-day, “the National Science Foundation published an article summarizing research on human thoughts per day. It was found that the average person has about 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day. Of those thousands of thoughts, 80% were negative, and 95% were exactly the same repetitive thoughts as the day before.”
I have no idea if this is true, or how they got to this conclusion, but I found it fascinating to think about.
It shows how rare it is to have positive and new thoughts – aka “ideas”.
But it also shows what a huge potential for improvement there is if we change the way we think, to become just a little bit better at thinking in a more positive and creative way.
Imagine if we were able to, say, double the number of new and positive thoughts per day!
The attached photo is of the ‘thinking chair’ that I created today after walking by a sea of daisies on my island and thinking: “This would be such a happy place to sit and think, too bad the flowers are so high” (a negative thought).
But I turned that into a positive thought and said to myself: “How can I keep the sea of flowers and still sit in the chair?” – and so I cut a small circle right around the chair so that I can sit on it comfortably and still be surrounded by daisies.
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A small, little, positive thought that created a slightly better world for me on my island: A place for me to sit and think while the daisies send me more positive vibes.
What will you do to create a little bit more positive and new thoughts in your life?
Let me know your thoughts. Post a comment on LinkedIn.
The post Here’s to more positive and new thoughts. (Episode 213) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
May 30, 2024
Want to innovate? Aim for The Dangerous Edge. (Episode 137)
Interview with Dr. Johan S. Roos, Chief Academic Officer & Professor at Hult International Business School.
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When LEGO Serious Play was introduced in the late 1990s as a way to enable managers to describe, create and challenge their views on their business, the process was met with scorn, skepticism, and doubt.
Having managers “play” and play with LEGO bricks was just not seen as professional.
Today, 25 years later, tens of thousands of managers have gone through Serious Play workshops and there are over 3000 LEGO Serious Play facilitators training thousands of leaders and educators each year. The method is no longer controversial, but at the Millennium shift it was brave to launch a concept that had serious leaders play with kids’ plastic bricks.
The driving co-creator of LEGO Serious Play was Dr. Johan S. Roos who was then at IMD in Switzerland. Today he is Chief Academic Officer & Professor at Hult International Business School based in London.
He calls the mindset they used to launch LEGO Serious Play for being on “The Dangerous Edge”. And he is using the same mindset at Hult.
Johan: “Here at Hult, we aim to be just as normal as is acceptable.”
The world of higher education is filled with written and unwritten rules for how things “are done”. The focus at most universities is about structure and stability. Dr. Roos and his team at Hult want to challenge that in as many ways as possible – without crossing the line into the unacceptable.
To be able to get accredited by the right institutions and be ranked as a top learning institution (which Hult gradually is achieving) you have to play by the rules, but Hult tries to stay right on the edge of the acceptable.
Or as Dr. Roos likes to call it: “Staying at the Dangerous Edge”.
Dangerous because if you go too far, you risk a lot.
But stay on the right side of the edge and you have so much to gain – because innovation happens when you push, challenge and confront the status quo.
At Hult they have, for example, come up with novel ways of doing academic research.
Dr. Roos: “Unlike most peer institutions, Hult does not organise faculty and research into traditional disciplines nor semi-autonomous research centres. Instead, we organise research activities into dynamic ‘intellectual ecosystems’ that we call Impact Labs. These labs develop not only concepts and theoretical models but also practical solutions applicable to leadership and organisations. This pragmatic approach to research is captured by the term ‘Impact Research’.”
For many academic institutions this approach is seen as unorthodox, unusual or plain weird. But at Hult they are pushing it as a more effective and valuable way of turning academic research into something that brings value to the world.
When asked how to think to have a mindset of aiming for the Dangerous Edge, Dr. Roos gave the following insight:
1) “Stay in orbit.”
A satellite has left Earth but is still connected to the planet. The Dangerous Edge is about releasing yourself from the gravity of the acceptable while avoiding to drift away into the void of irrelevance.
The approach for how to think can be summarised in the phrase: ““push as far as possible – but not further.”
2) Use The Energy of Change.
When a change is happening, in a person, an industry or in society an energy is created. Think of the energy around AI that the world is experiencing at the moment, or the energy around the Internet in the end of the 20th century.
This energy needs to be put to use.
At Hult they created workshops, strategy groups and learning sessions about generative AI already in January 2023 to quickly understand how Gen AI could change higher education, and prepare faculty and students accordingly.
Dr. Roos: “It’s a matter of timing. You need to get enough internal people excited about an external energy of change that there is momentum to want to change before everyone else.”
3) Question the deep structures, norms, values and assumptions.
The world is being held back by existing ways of doing things that people take for granted. Aiming for the dangerous edge is all about being able to question these structures. To see beyond. And to go beyond.
It’s important to understand that the purpose of aiming for the dangerous edge is not to provoke. People might very well BE provoked, but the aim is not that. The aim is to challenge the acceptable.
It’s also important to understand that aiming for the dangerous edge is not about “going out of your comfort zone”. It will most likely MEAN that you will, but often when someone goes outside of their comfort zone no external entity is challenged. The dangerous edge is not about just pushing yourself, but to push an industry, a society, even the world.
Regardless if it’s using Zoom in education before it was generally accepted (as Hult did) or if it’s about creating a board game to let leaders challenge their views on gender issues in business (as Dr. Roos has done) it’s clear that we need more people like Dr. Roos. People who dare to aim for the dangerous edge.
Because, yes, that’s where culture clashes happens, that’s where friction occurs, and that is where most people become uncomfortable. But it’s also there that brilliant, marvellous and amazing innovation happens.
So aim to be just within the borders of that which is acceptable.
The post Want to innovate? Aim for The Dangerous Edge. (Episode 137) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.
