Tag Archive for 'research'

What does a creative person do?

Published on 23 June, 2009 in High Performance. 5 Comments Tags: creativity, ideas, on creativity, research.

Creative people do things differently. But what specifically? We mostly agree that creative people are willing to act unconventionally, that they are inquisitive, and that they are intuitive. But aren’t creative artists different from creative business people?

There are differences between domains. Here are some extra characteristics that Sternberg (1985) found to be important in the following domains:

Art: Imagination, Originality, Risk-taking

Business: Coming up with and exploring new ideas

Philosophy: Play and classifying new ideas

Physics: See order amid chaos, Inventiveness, Problem solving

These are really quite different, aren’t they! So what are you great at? How can you develop your unique skills?

Human Nature?

Published on 2 February, 2009 in Change and Innovation. Closed Tags: creativity, de bono, Innovation, research.

We are really simple creatures.

As I listened to a successful business leader of innovation I was dumbfounded at how even one of the most advanced organisations can use just a few different techniques and suddenly they’re classed as ‘innovative’. I have great respect for de Bono popularising creativity and expressing a few useful tools. And it is probably because of this that an organisation just selecting the first thing that occurs to them happens.

Perhaps it’s an explanation of why McDonalds does so well: Don’t give your customers too much choice!

Even if you felt called to use de Bono’s suite of techniques, ignoring the fact that none are validated (and that many other schools of thought exist), I remain bemused that a ‘leader’ of innovation would just choose the first technique that comes to hand. Not that the techniques themselves are poor in themselves – but surely an innovator would be called to look beyond the obvious?

If you want to use de Bono, go beyond the 6 Hats – they’re great, but they’re just the beginning. A scientist should explore water logic, action shoes, ToLoPoSoGo and a bunch of ideas outlined in Serious Creativity… AND look to other sources of thinking on creativity.

We set our standards so low… even people who innovate often end up just innovating enough. With the rise of Asia in an era of abundance and outsourcing, the only way that the developed world can continue to demand the sort of quality of life that it has grown accustomed to is through lifting up the value chain. We don’t get that by digging deeper holes: We get that by freeing our minds…

Take off the handbrake, unleash the throttle and explore the things that you’ve never thought possible… That is the path to genius.

Daniel Smith

Social networks breed creativity

Published on 21 November, 2008 in High Performance and Personal Growth. Closed Tags: Andrew Smith, collaboration, networking, people are people through other people, research, ubuntu.

Not surprising anyone who has been involved in collaborative work before, NewScientist has reported a Cornell University study that has looked at social connections and found that larger cities have a greater amount of connections than towns, etc., and that larger cities produce more patents and more innovation than smaller places.

Why? In larger cities, brilliant people are more likely to be socially connected with someone who may be able to help them on their project, whatever it is – maybe through complementary personalities, maybe through complementary backgrounds, maybe through something as simple as being able to bounce ideas off someone else. The production of innovation rarely comes purely through one’s own personal effort, but through the involvement of others.

In short – those who want high performance need to do some social networking with people who are likely to help: perhaps with like-minded people in different fields; perhaps with colleagues who think differently, even though they are in the same field.

In African philosophy, there is a concept that, loosely translated, means that people are people through other people . We definitely find this in expert performance – we perform at our best through the involvement of others.

“Genius at birth” basically a myth

Published on 17 November, 2008 in Change and High Performance. Closed Tags: ability at birth, Andrew Smith, expert performance, genius formation, relationship of genius to performance, research.

One of the first things that we have to get out of our heads when we start looking at the formation of genius is the idea that people are born brilliant, or born average, or whatever the case may be (illnesses aside, of course). Physically, we may be big or small, but the genetics of size don’t apply in anything like the same way as it might to any ‘genetics of the brain’.

In fact, we have very little basis on which that belief may rest. Even in the human body, there is certainly a canvas, but the way each person lives will dictate where the canvas goes – a person can get a tan, for example, or can bleach their hair or work out at the gym. The same principle applies to thinking – if anything, moreso.

Ericsson, Prietula and Cokely stated exactly this in their 2007 article, The Making of an Expert . There, they provided support for the claim that expertise comes primarily through years of intense practice and dedicated coaching, through constant performance above and beyond what is currently possible – even comfortable – for that person. This is something that is beyond a particular sport – managers, surgeons and musicians all had the common trait of deliberate, long-term focus on not-yet possible tasks and changing what was faulty in technique. Ericsson (et al) makes clear that this takes at least a decade to reach expert performance, requiring another expert to give (often unpleasant) feedback.

K Anders Ericsson , Michael J Prietula, Edward T Cokely. 2007. The Making of an Expert. Harvard Business Review 85, no. 7,8 (July 1): 114-121. Accessible through proquest.com .

This means something very particular for us: we cannot throw up our hands in despair whenever we hit a problem in our lives, whenever what we are doing just isn’t good enough. If we want to be experts in a particular area, we must understand from the outset that it will take a lot of work, often painful work, and that it will be over a long time – about a decade’s worth of work, for starters.

That’s really hard. It’s really daunting. But, in my understanding, the most daunting part is that it’s all our choice . We are able to choose to be experts in a given field, to be operating at that level. As any expert can tell you – such as dancer-choreographer Twyla Tharp – it’s not through personal talent and innate genius alone.

Tharp’s interview was in: Diane Coutu 2008. Creativity Step by Step. Harvard Business Review 86, no. 4 (April 1). Accessible through proquest.com .

It’s all about our choice – what we choose to do with our lives. The one thing that we can change, no matter what stage or status of life we are in, is our selves.

Genius in Specificity

Published on 12 November, 2008 in child genius and High Performance. Closed Tags: Andrew Smith, genius, research, specificity.

One of the fairly standard findings in research about genius is that genius is something that can be very domain specific – and, depending on the area, specific to domains within domains.

There was a study done on soccer players around 2008. To briefly summarise, there is a skill in soccer that is about anticipating where the ball is going to go. The offensive and defensive soccer players were divided into two groups, and it was found anticipating where the ball is going to go was done far better by defensive players than offensive players (even when done in defense and offense, respectively). Obviously, the defensive players have this as a central part of their role, while it’s more peripheral (and has less damaging results) for offensive players.

A Mark Williams, Paul Ward, Julian D Ward, Nicolas J Smeeton. (2008). Domain Specificity, Task Specificity, and Expert Performance. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 79(3), 428-33. Available from Proquest.com .

On the surface, this looks counter intuitive – soccer players should be soccer players, right? – but even mentally, there are quite different skills required in defense from offense, even though it’s within the one game.

We can apply this to everyday life, too. I have a friend who works as an engineer for a major mining company, and at the drop of a hat, he can tell you the exact specifications of any given bolt that can be used in mining machinery. Another friend worked in air conditioning, and could easily diagnose any problem that happened to an air-conditioner. I’m sure many readers could bring out other stories like this (and feel free to comment with some of them). By the same token, that engineer would be at a significant disadvantage in, for example, electrical engineering – even though it’s engineering, with similar concepts required.

What this means for us is that we choose to excel at needs to be defined, specific and achievable. We can’t be afraid to spend several thousand hours perfecting that skill, either…but that’s another post for another time.

Andrew Smith.