Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
July 27 - August 5, 2020
First, there is vision. You must have your eyes on a prize, somewhere off in the not too far distance.
After doing all the analysis, gauging, and estimating of what it will take to make that leap, faith and intuition must take over.
The important thing to note here is that complication and complexity are not synonyms; they are two distinct concepts. Complication is change that is difficult to control, yet ultimately that control is within our reach.
Complex systems, on the other hand, do not have obvious entry and exit points.
Complexity requires expansive perspective and multiple vantage points in order to see a full and complete picture.
Wonder is our capacity to exercise awe, pause, dream, and ask audacious blue-sky-thinking questions. Rigor is our capacity to exercise discipline and deep skills, to pay attention to detail, and to spend time on task for mastery. Both are necessary for creativity to thrive.
define creativity as the ability to toggle between wonder and rigor in order to solve problems and deliver novel value. And I see inquiry, improvisation, and intuition as the practices that increase those capacities.
These practices require tremendous amounts of trust, courage, and bravery in our times. We must trust that our naive questions will be received well, even if they don’t make sense initially. We must have the courage to step out into the unknown, acting in new, untested ways in order to find our footing. We must be brave to follow the nudge in our hearts, that gnawing knowing that may not have any rational basis.
one episode, the actor Laura Linney was interviewed by Jessi Hempel about what makes for good criticism.4 In it she discussed the value of “sitting with discomfort.”
The awareness that Linney described points to the amount of astute seeing and listening we must do in order to create. It is only through that deep listening and observation that we uncover the finer points that need tuning and realignment.
Fundamentally, the arts teach us how to see things from different perspectives.
These are the benefits of sitting with the discomfort and ambiguity that arise during the creative process. In Julian’s case, this push outside of his comfort zone helped him build the muscle of believing in his own ideas. Instead of avoiding the discomfort of uncertainty, he grappled with it. Winston Churchill said, “When you’re going through hell, keep going.” There is no other, romanticized way around it. This is the rigor of the creative process.
It requires intentionality and the integration of a new mind-set at all levels
Innovation is invention converted into financial, social, and cultural value. Furthermore, the engine for innovation is creativity. That means that if we truly want to innovate, then we must design systems, processes, and experiences in our work environments that allow us to be creative and catalyze invention.
If all we are doing is setting aside new departments or spaces that we designate as the space in which to innovate, then it is as if we are saying there is a separate time and space to be creative and to be productive. And that just is not so. Creativity is a productivity play. That is why it is essential for business, not just some frilly, extraneous add-on. Taking the leap to build an organization-wide creative capacity is the single best way to continually innovate.
creativity as a competency consisting of wonder and rigor, and exercised through inquiry, improvisation, and intuition,
Inquiry, or curiosity, is the foundation, because without the ability to ask questions, you cannot be self-reflective; you are stuck.
asking questions is really a way of thinking.
Improvisation is your ability to be present in the now and to be responsive with those around you.
Intuition is that connection between the heart and mind, grounded in your gut. It is unconscious pattern recognition. It is often what fuels us to finally make that creativity leap.
to be dynamic at anything—
you must be consistently creative, drawing on your capacity for asking audacious questions, working off script, and following your gut instincts.
design thinking process. I appreciate it as a problem-solving tool that organizations can apply to produce
Kevin describes creativity as “the opportunity to combine, recombine, disrupt, or creatively destroy existing things and known elements into new and interesting combinations.”
Become a clumsy student of something. Cultivate a new hobby. Marvel at how good you become at asking questions, improvising, building on mistakes, and intuiting.
What we begin to wonder about brings us to the precipice of discovery. Therein lies the magic.
Sometimes it is the pause, the giving of permission to reflect, that leads to the most important breakthrough moments.
If we are to truly innovate and make creativity leaps, then we must start from a wondrous state, revving up our curiosity and desire to explore.
Wonder is the component of creativity that requires awe, audacity, pausing, and asking audacious “What if . . .?” questions. Complex situations are grand in scale, so they deserve and require the grandiose thinking that wonder inspires.
Exploration is cut short by the need for expediency. Rapid-response solutions are rewarded.
choreographer Twyla Tharp calls “the box.” As she has wisely advised, “Before you can think out of the box, you must start with a box.” The box is the rules and the rigor.
Without the focus that rigor requires, we would not appreciate the times of wonder—nor would we be able to complete the creativity leap that wonder initiates.
If wonder is the equivalent of experiencing opening night of a marvelous theatrical experience, then rigor is all of the backstage machinations.
If we romanticize creativity as a mystical, magical process only accessible to a select few, then we miss the point. Creativity is not something you pull willy-nilly from your armpit. Rigor is that essential feature of creativity that anchors the wonder; puts guardrails up; and requires us to do the sweaty, muscle-bound work with whatever muse we choose.
The rigor is the part of creativity that is often missed—or avoided. But it is essential if we are ever to go about the work of creativity in a sustained way.
Rigor ensures that we actually complete the leap we started.
Rigor is the grit and resilience that creativity requires for the long haul. It is the accumulation of commitment and knowledge needed to follow through, to get to value, to get to innovation.
1. Rigor cannot be sustained without wonder.
2. Wonder is found in the midst of rigor.
Try floating. Floating centers are popping up in cities around the world. In a 90-minute floating session you immerse yourself in a tank full of very warm water and about 800 pounds of sea salt—approximating the environment of the Dead Sea—so that you float. It is completely dark and silent around you. You emerge more relaxed and attuned to your environment. It feels like an emotional tune-up. Sensory deprivation does wonders for sparking wondrous thinking.
Commit to repetition. For example, identify the counterpoint to your hobby that requires deep focus and redundancy to get it right. For me, it is methodically stretching my body. I take at least one stretch class per week, and spend about 15 minutes a couple of days a week stretching. It makes the dance class part a lot easier!
Feedback (and Other Dirty Words): Why We Fear It, How to Fix It,
They are not convinced that they should risk humiliation or, worse yet, being fired for upsetting the status quo. But you can’t generate something new and novel with the status quo.
The messy, open-ended nature of inquiry is disorienting, and asking better questions obligates us to move away from an obsession with finding a single, clear solution toward falling in love with problems and the process.
inspired by the Dagara tribe of West Africa,
The lesson is that being reminded of your identity is the best cure for straying away.
Knowing how to ask and frame questions is a discipline. You have to be thoughtful and intentional about how you frame a question in order to obtain the most insight from a person.
He found that they start with asking “Why?” and then “What if?” and then land on “How?” sorts of questions.
Each phase of inquiry requires wonder—for discovery—and rigor—to ensure standards.
“We posed lots of questions. Sometimes your gut is smarter than your mind. That helped us shift to a focus on mission,” said Will.
