It happened again. The Harvard Business Review newsletter sent me an article about creativity – not a bad thing, per se, since I requested it. But a quick look at their latest articles on creativity shows that there are a number of them, and they are recent, which indicates the importance of this topic. Yet, do you notice anything about the topics in the list that might be in contrast to your
I admit that it took me years to get and read Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In and the only reason I did was because I read a book on women and negotiation called Women Don’t Ask by Linda Babcock. For a long time I wondered what Ms. Sandberg could possibly know about the struggle of women in the workplace and the struggle for us to get opportunities and create our
Or, “How does building credibility work?”, “What specific things do people do?”, “How do you become a leader in an open organization?” In Jim Whitehurst’s book, The Open Organization, he discusses Red Hat’s culture as one in which the passion of the associates leads them to collaborate and debate (sometimes aggressively) the merit of their ideas. Because Red Hat is a meritocracy, the best ideas are chosen because they
I’m a “older mom”. I got preggers for the first time when I was 42, and delivered my beautiful child when I was 43. My pregnancy was generously labeled “AMA”, which for all you youngsters or men or generally not-in-the-know-about-child-bearing people out there means “Advanced Maternal Age”. Nice huh? (Don’t even get me started that a year later I was called Pre-Menopausal…I had an infant at home!) But really, all
This week at work, we had a problem with another department with whom we collaborate. In fact, we have been having some issues with the head of the department who is a peer with my manager. These problems need to be addressed because they are starting to negatively influence our team morale and the collaborative relationships between the departments. After our team meeting, in which we discussed potential strategies, it
In my post, What is Creativity? What is Innovation? I defined the terms and discussed the differences between creativity and innovation. I was reminded of these differences in a recent post I saw from VijayKrKhurana that discusses invention and innovation which I would like to share with you. I think they are well-organize and well-written. In his presentation, he describes invention as the creation part of the innovation process.
When are you most creative? When have you had the BEST IDEA EVER? Probably when you least expect to be having an idea at all. Cue the hot shower, the peace and quiet on the potty, or the post-coital calm. A friend of mine likes to drive, and she’s always brainstorming and problem solving a half hour into a multi-hour car ride starts. Personally, I like very calm, peaceful, sensory deprived environments;
There seems to be a great deal of confusion about who is creative… are people who have new ideas considered creative, (but what if those ideas have already been around a long time?), or do we only consider those who start with nothing and end up with something the true creative types (i.e. inventors, artists)? Have you ever read this quote by Mark Twain: There is no such thing as
Creative activities can be a daunting thing especially when we want the result to be perfect the first time. Perfect as in the result is “done right”, “what we expect”, “exactly what we wanted”, “completely successful”, “without failure or problems”, etc. As adults, I think we forget how to learn and make mistakes, and how to fail, so we expect our creative activities to be like things we have been doing our
In my consistent quest for self-awareness, I was chatting with my life coach and we were talking about how we always respond to negative things about ourselves as if they are something we need to improve. As in we need to constantly improve ourselves, get better and better each moment, day, week, month, year… YAWN. Is there anything more boring than that? (Oh right, a hamster on a wheel, that’s right,
