Igniting creativity: step one is accepting our conditioning.

To start, I’m going to ask you to think of a shape in your head. That’s it, now let’s move on. 

You’re in a role allowing you to finally make big changes, and you are ready to take on the world! When you look at your tool kit, most of what’s there is the conditioned approaches that you’ve spent so many years refining, and the options forward reflect that conditioning. And now you’re unsure about what’s needed to untangle the web of complexity and craft a new path. 

Innovation requires creativity, which is rarely nurtured on the typical career path, while instead we are conditioned to execute our roles with reliable tools. It’s served you well, allowing the brain to build skills and to respond with efficiency and precision. This is very helpful in speeding up processing, allowing us to quickly understand the content where we have deep experiences. It also shows up in our daily habits, like brushing our teeth and tying shoelaces. How are you as a leader supposed to move away from that conditioning and to create new ways forward; where do you begin?

Start with recognizing that you have been programmed to think certain ways and do things as a reflection of that thinking. Don’t take this personally, as all of us have. It’s necessary for us to learn and apply, in order to get really skilled, and to further apply consistently and reliably. That’s why you’re great at what you do! However, if you want to build creativity in order to innovate, you’ll need to recognize this automation in you; that recognition allows space for new ways of doing. Let’s dig a little deeper with where this comes from. 

The education system, which in its current state was designed during the industrial revolution, is often described as a factory model. We move students of all kinds along the assembly line of “learning “within a module of subjects, grades, ages, etc. The objective is to build skills and knowledge that are essential for functioning in our world, and as learning deepens, specific content acquisition makes you excited! Think of your own path to this position. You were required to prove yourself to instructors as someone who understands the content in your field, in order to go out into the world and reinforce that content. This was expected of you. 

So it perpetuates. Since the start of your career there are expected formats and approaches to doing your job. And so you did them - well! You continued to provide the expected results, and oftentimes exceeded those expectations - because you were able to deliver faster and most efficiently, likely within the existing parameters that were designed. 

The pattern continues until finally you get a position where you have some autonomy in setting a new path. And you want to! You have been waiting to finally make your mark and revolutionize your department, company, or industry! Except you just spent so many years relying on and reinforcing those conditioned skills that our systems reemphasize and you’re faced with more complexities than ever. 

You came by it honestly. In fact, you were required to execute in all those conditioned parameters to get to where you are. Accept it. The sooner you do the faster you can move on to building your creativity, allowing you to better innovate. 

Let’s go back to that shape I asked you to think of. I’m guessing that it was a geometric one, likely a circle, triangle or square, and it’s far less likely that you thought of the outline of say, a cloud. I’ve done this exercise with many groups and there are very few people who think of shapes that are not geometric - that’s how conditioned we all are to the word ‘shape’. So, if you need to find innovative ways forward, you’re going to need to recognize when your thoughts go back to your conditioned ideas. 

Clients often say that I bring a unique perspective to their work, sometimes this is called  out-of-the-box thinking. It can be helpful in a one-on-one relationship with a leader when providing unique questions and ideas, and it’s also very helpful with a group, helping the circles, squares and triangles see themselves as well as the others, and work together in finding the shape required to get them where they need to be. Reach out to explore how far your creativity can go! https://bakaleadershipconsulting.com/services