Our inner creativity

The idea of someone being creative is now common place in our societies.  From children to artists or entrepreneurs, we labelled ourselves or other as creative when we notice that we do something different, unconventional, appealing.  The field of creativity has also specific attributes for a creative product, idea or process:  novelty and value.  

What is also common place, in many cases, is that we see those who we labelled as creators, with a special appreciation.  As if they had some inner trait, talent or personality that shines through in their work or aspects of their life.  As if they finally found themselves and do not care much if their  effort is acknowledged.  

We have inherited the idea that we can look within ourselves and discover or rediscover some kind of truth or insight.  It is said that with practice and patience, many creators learn to train their inner selves to distinguish those ideas or thoughts that could become creativity 'winners' from those which would not.  It is as if they would educate that part of themselves that can forget about the exterior world by incorporating it.  Or as if they would be able to connect with something larger than themselves (their aura, the universe) and reflect such connections in what they do. 

For creativity to be acknowledged as such, it needs to be revealed, brought forth, unearthed from our inner quarters and displayed.  My six year old daughter Sofía recently drew a picture of her school food menu.  The drawing was then taken to a children's exhibition and we were sent a congratulatory message.  Lovely thing to do.  

Sofía keeps asking me if I am proud of her, and I keep saying to her:  I am always proud of you, no matter what.  

Linked to this revealing requirement of our inner creativity is its potential to help us 'move on' in life as Anna Craft says (I presented her work in a previous post).  Creativity as potential personal and (later on) economic development  or survival seems to be the next stop for our inner creativity.  But where will this stop?  Is it necessary for creativity to 'come out' and then keep moving?  

This revealing seems to assume that creativity is a source of life.  And I wonder if we are confusing creativity with life.  Maybe we are trying to tame life, the life of our universe, with our own nets, with our own biological survival.

Maybe instead of treating inner creativity as a source or as an origin, we could treat it as a destination, one which could help us connect with our universe here and now...Maybe it is time to stop and reverse.  

Creativity, callings and crises

From time to time, we as human beings feel compelled to respond to what I call 'grand' callings.

These are invitations to save our planet or our countries, both of which are said to be in a continuous state of crisis.

Myself I remember responding to one of those crises during the 1990s decade when my home country was at 'disadvantage' when it came to design or use information and communications technologies (ICTs).  I saw a manifestation of this crisis at my job as a project analyst.   We were running against time.  The Spanish banks were to take the Colombian market.  We needed to do something.   And do it quickly.  

I did what I could at work.  And I also took this calling seriously and decided to go abroad and study.

By doing the latter, I also wanted to have some breathing space and reflect on what was going on in Colombia and with myself.   At 27 years of age, I found myself running around like a headless chicken.  

A job, a girlfriend, a family business, a catholic movement to help guide, a very busy life.

And as time went by, slowly, I began to realize that there was another calling:  I also needed to save myself.

And do it on a daily basis. 

To date, and having studied the field of creativity for a bit, it has become apparent to me that in this field there have also been grand callings.   

In the 1950s, scientists were called to be more creative to help their country defeat another country in the space race.   

In the 2000s, another calling has been issued in countries like the UK to foster creativity in schools.This call still continues today with proposals by Wagner (2015) and Robinson and Aronica (2016) to change our mindsets about schools:  

Schools are not machines or production factories but organisms.  They are systems that need to adapt and co-evolve with their environments, so that they are able to truly cater for the needs of their students and staff.  

In the 'back office' or 'background' of these callings however is the idea that human creativity, in its different manifestations (now called innovation), is to contribute at least to the economic welfare of its creators, and from there, to their countries.   

The race continues...and so my calling to save myself. 

Looking back at my first 'calling', I remember that in parallel to government efforts to boost economic growth with ICTs, there was also a growing concern with software piracy and legal software licensing in the country.   This was another 'crisis' for some people whilst others were being very creative about it.   Addressing this crisis was not about being creative but abiding by the law.

With emerging concerns about climate change, data security and economic recessions, our creativity now needs to walk on two feet: One that follows and obeys (without forgetting our common sense), the other that does the opposite.

Myself, I need to keep remembering that I have a daily calling.  

This is not about evading responsibility from doing my bit about other callings, but also respecting that, as Elizabeth Gilbert says, creativity has this magic element that can touch many of us to manifest itself.

So in that regard, I think I am doing my bit, and am trusting that others are or are not doing theirs.  

Writing this blog, teaching, fathering, researching bits, writing other bits, and taking time off to breath are things on my creativity agenda.  I strive to do these on a daily basis.  

And what is in your day, your callings, your agendas?

Paradoxical Creativity

Those of us who decide, consciously or unconsciously, to welcome creativity in our lives, are learning how paradoxical this could be.

Creativity, aiming to do something creative, or studying ourselves as potentially creative beings, we do often do so with the conviction that we have been called to do so.

Only that this call is made to many.

We feel uniqueness, being blessed or cursed, as if we are not in full control of our actions.  

And yet, with some practice and habits (as I wrote earlier in this blog), we learn to cultivate some ways in which we feel 'in the driving seat, of that inspiration, a silent driving to destinations we don't know.

Elizabeth Gilbert writes in her book "Big Magic", that there are forces making the above possible (the welcoming of the call, the working silently).   As human beings we are to respect and cultivate such forces in what Gilbert calls a partnership.  

We are to trust such forces, as we trust when we love someone.   We are to make sure that we do not scare them with our anxieties, fears or attempts to over control them.

We are to respect them, if they decide to leave us, temporarily, whilst they find better hosts, whilst we regain our sense of awe to the universe, whilst we regain our trust in them.

With creativity, we stop thinking too much about ourselves, and let enjoyment take over, but not to the point of harming our bodies or other beings.   

We are to host creativity, look after it, but also look after ourselves, our financial and economic sanity.

The more we are able to understand this paradoxical creativity, and treat it like a good old friend who wants the best for us, and who cannot be told exactly who to be friends with, the better.

The wonders of creativity have made Gilbert's book possible, and I believe they have made my own contributions possible too.  

In my new project, I am hoping not to scare creativity away with the demands of daily life.   I also hope not to obsess with it.  Rather I hope to continue working on it, sanely and in tune with forces that I cannot control.   

That, perhaps is the biggest challenge.  To do so with enjoyment and gratitude. Even if the end result is not only mine, or unique.   

Dear creativity, let us sit together in silence, and let us keep working.  

My creativity syndromes

After my last post on creativity habits, which I hope sound positive and encouraging, now I would like to share my 'negatives' about creativity.   I decided to call them syndromes, as this last word seems to be more recognized and acknowledged.

A sticker from Hyper-Japan Fair,2019

My creativity syndromes are certain habits and ways of thinking about myself and the world that do not help me.  In a nutshell, they keep me with fear and doom about my creative work.   They are now easy to spot, but difficult to manage, specially because they are ingrained in how I think about myself and the world around me.   

I seem to have acquired them when growing up. They probably helped me for a while, but now they seem to be in the way of me trying to live more creatively.    They drain my energy, and make me feel miserable at times.  

Because of these and other reasons, they need to be identified. So here they are:   

• Misplaced loyalty: I tend to overcommit to clans or tribes.   My commitment of saving the world by writing about it often leads me to say yes without thinking too much.   I give my allegiance to people and causes which, after a while, end up draining my energy because they do not align with my inner values or motivations.   I overdo helping those who have trouble in their academic careers, those with few friends, those who insist in working with me or those who praise me. I create unbalanced relationships in which I am willing to give more than what I receive. 

• Perfectionism.  I grew up thinking that I could become one of those ancient Kings (including Jesus Christ) that I read about in a book of Sacred Religious Catholic history: Noble and helpful, one which never complained and did good to everyone around; never tired, living according to high moral standards.  When I talked about this to a psychotherapist many years ago, he told me that I had a wrong idea about being 'good':  Jesus Christ expelled those who were trading in a sacred place!. It is difficult for me to accept failure and I fear failing.   So I often decide not to try, specially when there is strong competition around me. However, I also react when I see that things are not right.  

• Being an imposter.  I keep thinking:   Did I really deserve praise?   Do people really value me or my work?  Combined with the above misplaced loyalty and perfectionism, I have these moments of anxiety where I decide that what I do is not enough and I fear that someday, someone is going to 'find out', so I work harder.  

Life has taught me (sometimes the hard way), that these syndromes are not good for my health and thus for my creativity.   I now recognize more often and earlier when these syndromes show up. When they do,  I try to give myself a hug and say:  I am OK, I am good enough.   Work is just work.   Life is bigger than this or that situation.

I recently heard someone suggesting that we need to look at our relationship with both success and failure, so that we keep a balance in the stories about these guys that we entertain in our minds.   Wise words...

This guy will always make me feel special

I also try to remind myself now and again that what I creatively do has to do with my own personal values, and that they are good enough.   When I feel anxious, I talk to loved ones, to colleagues that do not take life too seriously, to people who know what I have been through or .  Or even if they do not know, they who are not judging me as hard as I judge myself.

To my dear creativity syndromes:   You are welcome to visit, but not to stay too long, I have more important things to do in life, and that includes being creative!

My creativity habits

Since reading Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi's book "Creativity", and also taking an online course on creativity, innovation and change in 2015,  I have been encouraged to develop my own habits to nurture my creativity.

Csikszentmihalyi's book refers to habits that could help a person develop and maintain an adequate environment to work on his/her creativity,  whatever that might be.   This includes finding a good space (physical and timewise); combining work with other activities (for example playing a musical instrument); learning to say no to things that could take our mind away from our creative projects; and even having a car decorated in ways that reflect who we are as creators.

The online course I took encouraged me to develop deliberate practices or activities that I would not normally do or which would take me out of my comfort zone.   So one day, I went around the neighborhood walking in my pajamas!  And I took to do drawing and painting, because I wanted to find other ways to express my self.   People who visit my office can see some of my works of 'art', and often they praise my kids for them!

Virginia Water Lake

For me creativity now is what I do, an effort to walk the talk, an effort that also involves my well being as I said in my book.   I do not walk on my pajamas but I cycle whenever I can.  I have painted my office to make it more lively.   I also have some hiding places (mainly cafes) where I do my writing and thinking.  I also go to a nearby lake (Virginia Water) to have a walk and wind down when I feel stressed.  

And I am learning to say no, or to say yes with conditions. This helps me not to feel overwhelmed or guilty, and increasingly to have more realistic expectations about my creativity, work and life in general.  So for instance I am now beginning to take longer holiday breaks, and accepting that this is to be the case whether my perfectionist mind likes it or not.   This has not been easy to learn and still is one of my biggest challenges in life.   I was brought up to face up to any challenge, so I am learning and unlearning about myself in this regard. 

My folders for a new book project

In addition,and as the choreographer Twyla Tharp suggested in her book about the Creative Habit, I keep a 'box' in order to 'think outside the box'.  So I have several folders where I store notes or articles that I want to use for my next book(s).   The folders are decorated with stickers of my favorite movies (star wars, alien, ghost in the shell, yamato).  A good and also relaxing routine is to (re) organise the content of these folders, moving things around.  That also helps me remember what I am doing and why I am doing it.

Finally, in my mobile phone and tablet I use Evernote, a nice app that helps me write notes on the go, so I do not forget what I was dreaming about or what pops up in my mind when I am least thinking about ideas. When I feel that I am not much motivated, I check the notes that I have written and I edit them.This helps me regain a sense of confidence and purpose in my work

I am certain that creativity can be pursued with these or other habits.    For you reader, you might like to ask yourself what works best to get yourself into a good thinking and acting mood, so you can think of new ideas and make them happen.   I hope this post helps you.   Good luck with your creativity.  And please remember that you are a human being after all!.

Creativity and the planet:Bike recycling

During the last academic term, me and students of one of my courses had the opportunity to visit the Surrey Bike Project, a social enterprise whose main remit is the recycling of bicycles.  It is a very interesting organisation that gathers many volunteers as well as youngsters around the topic of repairing, servicing and selling recycled bikes.  

Royal Holloway Students with John Thurlow, Project Manager

My students were asked to observe what goes on there, ask questions,and then select one specific process that they could improve, all of this using creativity ideas and techniques.

They did a great job coming up with solutions.    Some proposed a generic process of attracting more customers or enhancing the visibility of this organisation, whereas others focused on improving the diagnosis, repair and quality check activities and even suggesting new processes (i.e. making wallets out of tire rubber tubes).  

In the UK, the bike industry is economically strong, and within it repairs/recycling contribute a good deal.  The Surrey Bike Project provides education to youngsters who have left traditional education for whatever reason.  This is a great human aspect of the organisation. Other organisations around the country are also providing education through recycling in what appears to be an emerging, hybrid model of operation.   

This visit made me think that many of us, in our own ways, are doing something for the planet.   For creativity to emerge we need to set up spaces for different minds to come together and explore a common problem.   In her book "Peripheral Visions", Mary Catherine Bateson talks about the importance of setting up such spaces so that people can join in, learn and be allowed to make mistakes.   Like learning a language.   That is what the Surrey Bike Project does, ensuring a very high standard of quality as well.

I am sure my students learned a lot from this visit and the work that followed. I am also sure that John, Jim and colleagues from the project benefited from having different perspectives about their organisation.   We hope to continue our conversations and learn from each other.    

More Mundane, Humane Creativity? Anna Craft's Little C Creativity (LCC)

Professor Anna Craft (1961-2014) was a leading researcher in the area of creativity and early education.  I did not come across her work until recently, when deciding to explore what happens with creativity before my students arrive at university.  

This coincided also with my review of Csikszentmihalyi's model of creativity as part of a new book project already mentioned in this blog.  Craft seems to have adopted a systems view of creativity, only that she was interested not in the eminent but in more mundane forms of creativity when people like myself want to do something about our lives.  

Craft's notion of Little C Creativity LCC stroke a chord with me.  She regards this notion as one that can be enthused in children.  We can nurture their desire and intention to change things, and we can also inspire them to have a vision of what they want to do with their lives.   This is not to say though that as educators, we are to define such a vision for them.  Rather, we can enable them to explore and find out things for themselves.  We can also encourage them to channel their energy to identify obstacles and frame problems as challenges which they can then set out to overcome.  All of this under a 'can do' attitude that sees life as a big domain to learn and act on.  

All of this by thinking that we as human beings do not need to be recognized as eminences in our efforts to live meaningful lives.  

My son Fabrizio is going through a phase of not liking school and fearing to be bullied.  My wife has encouraged him to talk about what goes on, and together we have spoken to teachers at his school.  At times he feels sad, other times he is very happy.  

I still have not found a way to use LCC fully, only we have been able to ask him to identify a problem.  Afterwards, maybe he can then decide how he wants to solve it.

Within LCC, there are two elements that are included within it: play and imagination.  They both can help a person to pose questions and explore possibilities to address a challenge.  They both also imply a relationship with something and someone.  Fortunately Fabrizio has Sofia to talk about things.  He also has found a friend in the neighborhood and yesterday he confided in him about his fears.  When he came back, my wife tells me he was a different person, the bubbly one we normally see hanging around and teasing others, the one who plays (and has learned to download and play lots of electronic tablet games!).  

Perhaps LCC needs guidance in whoever wants to use it to positively move on in life, in particular if we are to consider self-determination, development and depth (the left hand side system in the figure above).  Perhaps its reliance on the 'can do' attitude needs to be taken a step back so we can ask questions like:  What if we are sad or depressed to even consider that we can do something? Maybe these and similar questions are ones we can pose in our search for possibilities to positively move on.  For Fabrizio, playing and imagining seem to apply more at the moment.

Perhaps we also need to have a bit of faith that things have a way of working themselves out...so we can imagine that bad situations are just temporary, and that we will find appropriate support to get out of them.  We can imagine that we can talk to friends, to listen and be listened to.  

For my management students, I think LCC and its elements shown in the figure as two systems (self-determination, development/change, depth in having identified challenges and conventions about a problem, innovation, conscious risk taking, play, being imaginative, being open to possibility and posing questions) could help.

As educators we could instill some of these elements in our classes, and we could connect these systems as we see fit.  How we do so would need a more conscious reflection of who our students are; what are their motivations, and what they want to make of their lives.  

We could instill their desire to be who they are, to be human.  

Thank you Anna for your gifts to the rest of us !

And thank you Fabi for giving me all these life lessons! 

My Creativity Book Tour - Third Stop: Manchester and Hull in the UK

Have I been preaching to the converted when presenting my book about Managing Creativity at Manchester and Hull in the UK? 

Not really 😁.  

I have visited colleagues in Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) Business School, and Hull University Business School,.  I want to thank them and the fantastic audiences that my seminars had.  

Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) Business School

At Manchester, I was asked about individual creativity, and how I see it.   In my book (Chapter 1), I venture to lay a distinction between individually and collectively oriented creativity. 

The creativity field has progressed in consolidating a sort of established tradition of the first one, not so much in the second one, which was one of the reasons that led me to write the book.  Systemic creativity, or conceiving of creativity as resulting from creators and their circumstances, could find a place under the second one.  

Green square in front of MMU Business School

In between these (which the sociologist Andrew Abbott associates to lineages or branches on trees as the picture on the right aims to emulate), I see a great deal of creativity research that is focused on the processes associated with creativity, be them internal (cognitive) or external to a creator. Whichever lineage or body of knowledge we consider in creativity, what is becoming clearer is that in each, there are different criteria to study and assess a creative process, idea or individual.  The audience at Manchester also saw that creativity needs to consider environmental constraints and tensions, many of which shape such success criteria.  

I was also asked about how I plan to continue developing my ideas.  Since finishing this book, I have continued looking at creativity, this time in management education   My claim so far is that we as management educators have narrowed down our ideas about creativity, and have become somehow passive instruments of a big trend in digital innovation.


To overcome this situation, we will need to develop more ethical awareness and choices in relation to creativity.  I want to further research on how creators (students, educators) could assume more ethically driven responsibility for our own creativity, a responsibility that also implies engaging with others and accepting that our life and work has some inevitable 'shit' we have to deal with.  

The renovated Hull University Library

At Hull, the discussion and questions after my presentation moved towards how creators need to learn a specific domains of knowledge, in order to be able to improve them.  But how far do creators want or have to go when  learning something new? What motivates them? What criteria of can we then use to assess our own creativity and that of others?  

In my book I present how I addressed a situation which required knowledge about inter-disciplinary creativity.  I found myself having to learn about the domain of creativity and also having to follow certain conventions about how knowledge in an inter-disciplinary research proposal was to be generated.  This situation led me thinking about the risks of following conventions to the letter, in particular if we as creators have to flexibly deal with challenges that we encounter along the way.   Add to this the need to look after our own well being, and the picture becomes more complex.

I was also asked about what notion of creativity I use in my book, which perhaps by now you as a reader are also intrigued about.   My response was that I do not subscribe to a particular one, except that I am aware that in the creativity field some attributes to something creative have been defined:  Novelty, Value and Implementation.    An idea, person, process or product needs to be seen as novel, valued by others and it needs to 'fit' or to 'work' somehow in a situation or context. 

A view of Ferens Way, Hull

On further reflection about these and other questions, perhaps not all creators want to be worldwide recognized eminences in a domain of knowledge.  Not everyone would aspire to write academic journal articles or win prizes or research grants at all times.   This is a lesson that has been difficult for me to accept and assimilate.  Partly forced by circumstances, partly motivated by curiosity and interest, I decided in the last few years to write my latest book instead of writing high impact journal articles.  Writing a book made more sense to my family situation and health.

Now I am pursuing another book project, am putting more effort into this blog, and am collaborating with others in writing some journal articles.  This to me means striving for success using my creativity.  However, and because I am a perfectionist academic, it is still not easy to see myself as different from colleagues or previous role models both in academia or elsewhere.  There is the daily temptation to look at my academic citations and compare myself with others.  

Centre for Professional Success at Hull Business School

There is a lesson from the above:  Perhaps we need to be honest with ourselves and say something about the inner motivations and the external pressures that guide us as creators, and how we could take them forward. Achieving success (fame, economic benefit, fitting in within a community, or even pleasing those who we think deserve credit) needs to fit in with who we want to be.  There is a need to better link creativity with ethics, and do that through education and reflection.   

Many thanks Manchester and Hull, see you soon, with new ideas about creativity and how best to make it happen! 

Creativity and our digital selves

I am grateful to have the opportunity to continue exchanging ideas with IMT Business School staff and students. 

This time, masters students from there visited Royal Holloway and I could give them a bit of a tour guide as well as continue encouraging to pursue their creativity.  I would like to thank my collaborators Maria Alejandra, Diego Martinez-Castro and Xiaouyu Zhang (Kevin), with whom we ran a very engaging workshop for these students.

It was challenging to pitch a session for an audience who combines studying and working on a weekly basis.  Creativity offers though the possibility of reflecting how work offers opportunities for self -realization, and how challenges and skills need to be carefully managed by ourselves and our bosses at work to keep creativity alive and flourishing. 

To achieve this requires courage, as our systemic thinker Russ Ackoff always said. Courage to ask for what we need, and to place ourselves in appropriate and supportive working environments.  Courage to acknowledge our skills and limitations, and seek challenges appropriate to our current situation and values. And courage to keep trying, to stand up for what we believe, and follow our own path even if that is not what our loved ones want for us.   

After we touched on the individual and work dimensions of creativity, we ventured in proposing to our students a number of challenges related to what we called 'our digital selves'.  Increasingly, we as individuals are nudged to present and manage our online identities and other footprints of our lives, often to our dislike.  Under the idea that this could help us improve our opportunities in life, we are now part of many online outlets.  

Diverging in formulating several possibilities before deciding

I then proposed to students to form groups and address one of three challenges: a) supporting university students having mental health problems (a worrying trend in the UK), b) protecting households data from unwanted use by utility service providers (related to Kevin's research), and c) helping marginalised communities preserve their memories through digital (potentially related to Diego's research).  They were to draw a storyboard explaining their solution. 

For a variety of reasons, students chose to address the first of the above challenge.  It might have been that they felt a degree of connection to it, or that they considered the other two 'too technical'.  In their choice there was discussion.   We then asked students to elaborate a storyboard of a digital solution which they thought could help them address the challenge.  And I encouraged them to think not only in an app as an innovation. 

A combined app and device

Students came up with very sensitive and thoughtful proposals.   As seen in this picture on the left, someone with a mental health condition could be supported by a digital innovation (app and device called buddy) that records her moods and provides options for sharing / not sharing this information with relevant others, also depending on circumstances. It was also interesting to see that the device might not be a mobile phone.  

IMT students presenting their work

Through the presentations and short discussion afterwards, I noticed that these students were very open in considering either/or possibilities.  With this exercise, many of them valued the  opportunity to reflect on their own careers, as well as finding bit more about what the world of work or research has to offer in the near future.   A key insight that could be drawn for me is that we could use our creativity to better shape the ways in which we want to see our selves in the digital world and work with others in doing so.

It seems that with the right learning environment and activities, we can encourage our students to be thoughtful and creative.   Thank you for visiting us and for venturing to explore your own creativity!

Student Elise Deffain from IMT

My Creativity Book Tour - Second Stop: Paris, France

Sahid and Imed from IMT, Myself and Ines from Royal Holloway

It was a pleasure to accept the invitation from the Information Systems Department of IMT (Institut Mines-Télécom) Business School to visit them in Paris, and use it to present my book on Managing Creativity.  I was also fortunate to take one of my undergraduate Royal Holloway management students, Ines Boussofara,  to be part of the conversations and activities during this visit. 

IMT staff were very kind, making sure I was looked after at all times. That also included helping us move hotels when reservations for our second night there were missing!.

At my book presentation, it was great to see how my colleague educators and researchers wanted to make something workable and usable of the book ideas. Something to guide information systems researchers or company managers. Perhaps something that could be publishable in a journal article.

Staff members from IMT Business School, Ines and Myself

My answer to this was that the book is an attempt ( a risky one considering pressures to publish journal articles) to bridge gaps between disciplines (creativity, systems thinking).  I added that my proposal to use the systems idea as an inquiring device to help me make sense of my own creativity (which then became two creativities) could be of some use.  I had to say though, and referring to my own research, that in the field or discipline of information systems we have become good at using some ideas as 'front ends' of systems implementation or adoption processes.  In this regard, I wished we could talk to students and to other researchers less about success and more about failure and anti-innovation.  

At IMT creativity means innovation, making ideas happen, making them commercially successful. Students are continuously challenged to work with others from different disciplines, to learn how to do things on the go, to present ideas, to elaborate business plans. This is a valuable form of creativity, one which in management education has taken center stage. It might be useful to see it as a form that could be further enhanced by linking it to creators' inner motivations, a form that if it fails, should not take down creators with them. 

IMT Incubator Hall of Fame

Me talking during the seminar (I was just getting started!) 

During the presentation, it was rightly pointed out by the audience that the ideas of the book, in a way which I did not fully intend, could help us reflect on creativity, its manifestations, how it unfolds in contexts like universities, and how it could become a mere instrument of economic power if we do not pause and reflect.


Another question related to this latter aspect of creativity was about how we could enthuse our management students to think of big ethical questions. This is not only relevant for students in information systems but in all other areas of management. Perhaps by consciously developing our creativity, we could then use systems ideas as tools to help us talk about ethical values and do something about them.


To make this happen, it might be that we need to acknowledge that we as educators and our students pursue limited forms of creativity, those which help us secure employment or give us economic and social benefits in the short term. It was good to know that at IMT they also value mindfulness as an alternative to living our lives in pilot modes.  This commonality, together with possibilities to entice students to think of using their ideas to deal with pressing issues in our societies (i.e. recycling), could help us positively shape the role of education in helping us all to save our planet. 

Ines and myself at the IMT business/technology incubator. Be mindful of the alien!  

Ines made great contributions at the seminar by giving her own examples of how the use of some creativity tools (i.e. de Bono's six hats) and working on 'real' problems (i.e. student ideas for recycling at residences) have enabled her to identify and appreciate different perspectives, and think of new ways of using information technologies to deal with emerging problems.  During our visit, she taught me a lot about her use of social media and mobile technologies.  I could see that she belongs to a new generation of people who make technology part of their daily lives, as perhaps I did many years ago! Maybe it is time for me to learn new things.

I was left curious by other questions related to how some social structures or institutions shape our creativity.  My book has a framework to help make sense of some of these when it comes to collaborate between academics and social organisations.  This idea that the use of systems thinking might not show these structures or institutions keeps popping up when I talk with other academics.  I would still like to think that we have some degree of freedom when deciding to include or marginalize these structures in our creativity efforts.  

Thank you IMT for having me, hope to be there again soon! 

My Creativity Book Tour - First Stop: Tarragona, Catalonia, Spain

So off I went with my newly published book on Managing Creativity to show it to dear colleagues and students. First stop in 2019 has been at Universitat Rovira I Virgili (URV), in Tarragona, Catalonia, Spain.

Near Tarragona with Teresa

My colleague Teresa Torres kindly hosted me, and the presentation of the book was intertwined with a fantastic experiential learning situation where we got to practice some ideas on creativity with curios and engaged students.

At the seminar, I got a warm feeling that I was among people who want to be creative and like myself, find several institutional challenges and constraints to make it happen. Paradoxically, creativity is being institutionalised as a way of bringing more students to our universities, something that we did not see it coming but that we now need to manage and do so creatively!

Our students in Tarragona value experiential learning. They like to see how to use ideas in practice, they would like to have hands on experience, perhaps by working in projects. This idea of project or problem-based learning seems to be a common trend in other countries including the UK and France. URV has great connections with local industry, which gives students unique possibilities to learn in a job whilst studying.

We as academics still think that alongside, we need to infuse a critical spirit in our educational activities, so that people have a chance to become aware and act to save our planet. This call inevitably links to our own local contexts, where we also need to sensitise our management students to what goes on, what is in front of us and we cannot just dismiss.  If we think of creativity as inquiring system as I propose in my book, reflecting on our values could help us connect them with the activities we do, both as educators and as human beings in general.

Students and staff at URV

In Tarragona, creativity as a combination of experiential learning and critique is developed by enabling students with learning difficulties have the opportunity of attending university and gaining skills if not a community of friends to help them gain or regain employment. To me this is a worthy goal towards which creativity could be directed.

 The hope is that my book’s ideas inspire students and educators to think of their values and linking those with their activities, be them in education or elsewhere. We also need to rescue our curiosity, that which we held dearly as children, and which could also help us deal with the complex challenges that we face.

Digital Innovation Laboratories for Management Education

As an management educator, and despite my ego telling me to be at the forefront of the action, I have come to accept that I am too old or too wise to be part of the group that makes decisions when it comes to innovate in management education. However the corridor chat, a coffee with a a dear friend and the apparently innocuous email gave me some insights about what is going on.

There is to be a new digital innovation laboratory at work.

Yes.

Yes, an attempt to catch up with what goes on in industry, a test bed for ideas to be incorporated in the classroom. Something that has happened, is to happen.

Yes, bit more of the same, a mechanism of isomorphic behavior so that we are seen as doing what others are doing.

No, I am not trying to be cynical, just to be me, which means I am supporting it. However, in the past, I have seen new labs being set up, some of their metamorphoses to make them more appealing, some intended and unexpected uses of it, some people taking charge when it matters, others being taken charge of when it does not, and finally, some noise being turned off.

So this is my take on it:

Inevitable, necessary, something that needs to be done, something to live with, something that some people have decided, and some others will have to justify so as to face corporate face. Something that in a few months hopes not to be forgotten.

There is still, some room for action.

If I was to be included in this, which I have some hope for, this is what I would do to rediscover creativity using this lab:

• Instill some playfulness. So that we have some fun exercises and gradually find our way into it.
• Instill curiosity, so that those teaching and learning find ourselves as not knowing everything, in a good environment of trying and failing. 
• Instill some safe failure, so that we try to break the lab by rearranging it, by inviting unexpected guests (my children, your children, my inner child, yours maybe?), by switching it on and off.

Let the fun begin!

Rediscovering creativity in management education - some initial thoughts

After publishing "Managing Creativity", I was left with some energy and motivation to continue exploring the field of creativity and its surroundings. 

Since September 2018 I began thinking about the importance of creativity in education, and how we as educators might be contributing to kill it. 

This might sound like a radical comment, but I strongly feel that due to lots of institutional pressures, management educators like myself find it difficult to instill curiosity and imagination in our courses.
Many of my current management students (mostly undergraduate) have also pressures.  They want to graduate as soon as possible and get jobs to validate their long standing education.  Like me, these guys have been in educational systems for most of their lives.  At their early twenties, they find that finally they are to be rewarded by spending long hours in classrooms, taking tests and surviving in often hostile environments to their personalities.  

In this climate where time is precious and debts grow, there could be little room for creativity. in education  Novel ideas might be valued but even if they are, implementing them into monetized products or services could take longer than expected.  The competition for marks at universities is replaced by competitions about funding and success.  A competition that seems not to have an end in social media.  

I am not sure if even claiming that "the problem of management education is the lack of practice" will solve our creativity drought.  Putting students in work placements or making available more entrepreneurship opportunities is to me a way of transferring educational responsibility to other places.  

For some students this sort of opportunities helps them to be more attentive to the world around them and to gain problem-solving skills to tackle complex challenges.  But they might not be a preferred option for others.  

Fostering curiosity, imagination and somehow a re-encounter to that inner self that makes us happy (perhaps that child that we still have within us) might not be part of an employer's agenda.   As educators, we could encourage our students to be honest and reflect on what they really enjoy doing (not only what they think management education is to give them or what their parents think they should be doing).  

We could open up other types of experiential opportunities to students. Management could be about art, spirituality, community, family. 

Our students need to know that failing is OK, not because celebrities say so, but because we are human.   We all have the right to change our minds and our hearts. 

We might need encourage to go and find that which is mysterious, magic, that which we do not fully comprehend, that which like a new tree, animal, park or friend, we enjoyed venturing to find when we were children. 

Exit and data uncertainty

Talking to a couple of friends over tea made me realise how anxious we are in the UK about the possible exit from the European Union.

We don't seem to know much about what is currently happening or what could happen with immigration.

We would need more data.

The problem is that such type of data does not give much certainty.

I have received two leaflets:  One advocating staying in the EU.  Another opposing this.

They both expose short facts.

Am amazed that in this era of digital information, statistics, data mining and artificial intelligence, there does not seem to be data to help us make informed decisions.

Some could argue that this issue gets us into unknown territory.

True, but how could we learn from the past?  Is that now what technology would enable us in order to prevent rather than to react to situations?

Maybe I need to do more internet search about the issue.

Or maybe governments need to make data more available.  As a sign that they care about transparency.  Even if they do not know.

Managing Creativity: A Systems Thinking Journey (and afterwards)

Happy 2019 and sorry folks, I have not been much active in this blog since August 2018, as I was (among other things), finalising the writing and the publishing the above book 😊.  You can find publishing details here in this link.

The book aims to pay homage to the fields of creativity and applied systems thinking by establishing a dialogue that provides useful insights for people who like myself, want to see ourselves and creators, and find it challenging to have a balanced life.

Si I embarked in a journey to make sense of creativity as a messy field, and use the idea of a system as an enquiring device to help us make sense of this field, in particular when we want to be creative in our own lives and jobs.

The result is a collection of thoughts, reflections, insights into issues (like mental health) and an ethics to help us live a more creative life.

Out of this experience, I am now working on a new project to help myself and my fellow management educators to rediscover creativity in management education.

Am enjoying working on this sort of projects.  I found that I could be myself a bit more than on a high pressure - high ranking journal article.  I still keep a couple of the latter projects in mind, and am working with very good collaborators.

Maybe this is also a sign that I am growing older and a bit wiser, where quality and not quantity matter more to me now.

Happy reading of the book (there is also a kindle and other electronic readers version), and hope you also recommend it to your librarian!.

Kind regards,

José-Rodrigo