Zhuangzi, Hundun and communities

For the last few years, I have been learning about The Zhuangzi.   It is traditionally regarded as a seminal text from the Daoist tradition alongside the Tao Te Ching. 

The Zhuangzi is is a historical text that was possibly written by Zhuangzi himself around 400 B.C.  It has been commented or interpreted by others through time.  

My interest in Zhuangzi started when exploring the rise of the profilicity phenomena which has been identified and proposed by the authors Hans Moeller and Daniel D'Ambrosio (2021), and which I included in my book about ritual and systems thinking.  

I became interested in the idea that, in our modern societies, we have to develop and maintain profiles in our different interactions with people.  This was contrary to what I thought up to that point: that we need to have a consistent identity, something to do with our inner values.  

During my writing of the book about ritual and systems thinking, I started realising that I had been driven too much by my own upbringing.  To have a sincere, authentic identity.  To be consistent with a set of values, and try my best to live up to them.  It has also taken me several years to identify which values I had maintained.  One of them for example is loyalty.  In the ritual book, I reflect it when I talk about my rituals to ensure that I belonged to a team of very competent individuals.  

Hans Moeller himself had written about Daoism before (2004), identifying allegories in both The Zhangzi and Tao Te King texts that they consider very important to help us deal with our complex world.  Moeller has joined efforts with D'Ambrosio and later on (2017) where they study and explain in more detail the art of "genuine pretending", an attitude of acceptance, spontaneity, and easiness to help us with our dealings. They also use the Zhuanzi's translations and included commentaries from Zyporyn (2009) in their work.   

As an attitude (am sure there are better terms for it), genuine pretending embeds humour and satirism in both the allegories that Moeller and D'Ambrosio bring forth from the Zhuangzi (and others).  In a nutshell, it is about not commiting oneself too much to fixed identities in situation, or if doing so, accepting that these identities are contingent and temporary.  So ironically we are to try our best when assuming such identities (or roles), knowing that we are to move on from them.  

In my rituals book, I narrate how I showed my loyalty during meetings and when interacting with technology vendors and users.  I upheld the strategy of our organization.  I also did not put colleagues on the spot.  But through time, something changed in my projects.  I was the one on the spot.  Some colleagues challenged (sometimes with good reason) my competence in public.  This made me rethink how I needed to approach work.  I then fought back.  I spoke out more often and loudly.  And then I left after a while, seeking other career prospects.  

Perhaps I stopped pretending.  Am very thankful though to people I worked with.  I learned a bit about what happens in work meetings.  

Hans Moeller has found strong similarities between genuine pretenting and the work of the systems author Niklas Luhmann.  Although Luhmann would regard human agency as the wrong essential component of social systems (it is more about communication than agency), genuine pretending can lead us to acknowledge that our identities are (not) determined to some extent by the communication demands of such systems (for example the economy, law, the market).  We are, if possible then to engage in communications by treating them as second order observations, in other words observing and being aware of how others observe (us).  

The market for example is based on what others say about it. The law continusly decides what is legal or not based on what others (judges, rulings, previous laws) have observed.  Nowadays, our social media profiles communications are composed by what other people say about them (i.e. comments, likes).  Therefore, our identities, our profiles can and need to be regarded as being formed by observations.  They are constituted when we engaged in communications with 'peers' (other and usually more visible, powerful or influential profiles).  

We are, somehow to detach ourselves from what we think we 'are' in our dealings with communities.  This is because, according to Daoism and the Zhuangzi, we will never fully aprehend what goes on, and it does not matter!.  There is no point in staying attached to identities that somehow we think are part of such reality.  We are just to assume identities temporarily.  And protect ourselves from what they ask of us if they ask us for too much.  

Hundun

Genuine pretending can embrace many of the allegories of the Zhuangzi to help us humurously recognise issues about our identities in situations.  Moeller (2004) and Moeller and D'Ambrosio (2021) bring forth several of these allegories.  They range from short paragraphs to more extensive ones, from long narratives to phrases that end with a 'pun' or unexpected twist.  

In allegories, the characters are named intentionally to resemble identities that Confucionism regarded as venerable, with (powerful) roles that establish distance between participants.  The narratives then provide conversations and interactions that challenge the prevailing tatus quo or the norms whilst still operating within them.  

One of my favourite allegories/ narrative is that of Hundun (Zhuangzi, chapter 7).  In it, and according to Moeller (2015), a powerful 'emperor' dies after being identified by others as very benevolent.  A brief text is as follows:  

The emperor of the South Sea was called Shu [Brief]; the emperor of the North Sea was called Hu [Sudden]; and the emperor of the central region was called Hundun [Chaos]. From time to time, Shu and Hu came together for a meeting in the territory of Hundun, and Hundun treated them very generously. Shu and Hu discussed how they could repay his kindness. “All men,” they said, “have seven openings so they can see, hear, eat, and breathe. But Hundun alone doesn’t have any. Let’s trying boring him some!”

Every day they bored another hole, and on the seventh day Hundun died.

For Moeller (2015), this short passage confirms the dangers of overidentifying oneself with a role, an identity or a way of thinking and acting. Through time, the 'emperor' Hundun fails to protect 'itself' from such an overidentification. Those that contribute to 'kill him' (the other emperors) think that they are helping him become more 'human', in other words someone with a clear and dependable identity.

'Hundun' is not an emperor per se.  It represents also the 'Dao' that which cannot be named, the force that moves everything. Why should we then 'tame' it, instead of letting it flow through us? In other words, why we should tame ourselves to fixed, 'humanly' recognised identities?  Why should we stay so 'loyal' to them?  

Community work

Back to the present.  After recently finishing two of my 'research' projects (you can read about them in previous blog posts) I have attempted to continue them.  And somehow I have begun to succeed.  

I am in contact with community managers at my university and beyond.  I have also begun to involve some of my students from my course on creativity and problem solving (2025-2026).  We have had several meetings and are trying to better understand a complex situation.  I keep showing up, offering ideas and support. All of this is voluntary work. 

What has transpired so far is that at times I find challenging myself about why I want to continue.  I experience frustration or dissatisfaction, as things take time to get off the ground, other people do not show up for meetings or them and I are simply too busy. 

With the Zhuanzi in mind, am now trying to be more careful about my loyalty and commitment.  I have asked myself: 

• Is this project or idea what is needed? 
• Why?  
• What do I want to achieve? 

And perhaps more importantly: 

• What is my identity here, is it too fixed?

On this last question, perhaps I am becoming one of the 'emperors' that is trying to help Hundun, by identifying myself with this identity,  and by also 'forcing' things, trying be loyal, and grateful.  

Zhuangzi and Hundun would remind us that at the end, we are not who we think we are, at least not in the eyes of others.  We observe and are being observed, things often move quickly, and we also move on.  With the best of intentions, we can only smile about how things pan out. 

Sheerwater rediscovered follow ups

A photo about our event in October 29 2025 reported in the Woking News and Mail 

After our successful event in 2025 "Sheerwater rediscovered!" (also reported in this blog), in 2026 I have been following up with several activities which I would like to share and reflect on.  

Here is a summary to date: 

• In November 7^th, 2025, and thanks to the support of the Mascot Hub and St Michael’s church, I was radio interviewed in the BBC Surrey Breakfast by Mr James Cannon (at 7:21am). I offered a quick summary of the project leading to the event, and highlighted the key project finding that “The Sheerwater community is still alive, we just need to know where to look for it.” 

 

• Also in November 18^th,  Mr Paul Salt visited Royal Holloway, University of London (my workplace) to talk about the “Sheerwater group” to the business school’s M.Sc. students.   This Facebook© group of around 2.3k members currently acts as a main forum for discussion and news about the Sheerwater community issues. Paul engaged very well with our students, and they enjoyed his company.  He made us all aware of the importance of having clear boundaries in both the design and use of social media and technology in general. Thank you Paul, it was a pleasure having you on campus! 

 

Sheerwater resident Paul Salt talking to Royal Holloway M.Sc. students (AI in Business and Business Analytics 2025-2026, November 18^th, 2025)

 

• In January 14^th 2026 I was invited to talk to teachers about the history of Sheerwater at the Broadmere Primary Academy in Sheerwater. The feedback received was very positive. One of them suggested to have the same talk at the David Bishop Brown secondary school next door. This is something to be considered for further funding and dissemination.  Many thanks to Tracey Francis (St Michael's Church in Sheerwater) and Karen Barham (Headteacher at Broadmere) for making this talk possible. 

 Presenting a history of Sheerwater at Broadmere Primary Academy

• On the 23rd of April 2026 and thanks to the invitation of Trevor Wenden, Sheerwater Football Club secretary and a long standing member of this club, I attended a Sheerwater residents meeting which included residents and local councillors.  During the meeting, I ventured to speak out to present our research project and one of its posters (history of Sheerwater).  Having listened to several problematic issues raised by residents during the meeting, I suggested that our project gave us the key suggestion to work together to face these and other issues as it was done in the past. I also offered an idea: to join forces with the Sheerwater Football club to help clean the rubbish that is still lying around from the buildings that have been vacated for more than a year now.  Am happy to report that the community engagement team of Woking Borough Council had a similar idea, and in May 22 2026 they organised a community litter picking event. Whether they took my suggestion or not, that will be up to the jury (of the meeting) to decide.  

• Throughout the football season of 2025-2026, I have become an almost staunch supporter of the Sheerwater Football club.  It is a great community of fans and volunteers which has given me a place to learn more about Sheerwater, take my children to live football on Saturdays and meet lovely people. We are to volunteer for the children's tournament on the 13th of June and are looking forward to see the mini-sheers in action.  

As I finish writing his post, and finally have managed to join the facebook Sheerwater group,  I can still say that the Sheerwater community is much alive, and that now I am more familiar with the places and events where this happens. I hope to help them continue rediscovering their communities and regaining a sense of hope for the future.   We all need it!

Sheerwater rediscovered!

Since 2014, the Sheerwater housing estate near Woking, in Surrey (UK), has been the subject of a partially completed regeneration project which is negatively affecting residents and despite some achievements. 

The regeneration project was stopped due to Woking Borough Council facing financial difficulties. At the end of 2025, some decisions were announced to refurbish dwellings that had already been vacated. Others were to be sold for redevelopment.     

December 2025 Map of Sheerwater planned refurbished/completed/to sell dwellings

(courtesy of the Mascot Hub) 

The Systemic Life Stories Project

I have been a regular visitor to the Sheerwater Parkview community centre since 2015.  In 2025 and after a very intersting conversation with a university colleague, I decided to apply for funding to organise a research project with Sheerwater residents and organisations. 

I partnered with the MascotHub (a partnership that provides aid and advice to residents) and the SurreyHistory Centre (a council sponsored organisation with more than 16 million historical records about Surrey). I recruited Dr Cecilia Loureiro from the Business School and Isabelle Kemp from the Social Science Impact Accelerator team. The project effectively ran between July and December 2025, with a main exhibition-workshop event on the 29th of October.  

 

Mr Paul Salt (left), resident of Sheerwater for 61 years being interviewed at the Mascot Office (September 2025).

 

With the help of partner organisations and personal contacts, I interviewed residents for their life stories. Using the systems thinking rich picture technique, with the information obtained from the interviews we (myself and Cecilia) produced and disseminated a visual history of Sheerwater as told by residents.  

A history of Sheerwater

We organised the picture (see above) into three (3) stages:  a ‘past’ (of resilience), a ‘present’ (of diversity) and a ‘future’ (of hope). In a nutshell, the past shows a community where people cared for each other.  The present shows the arrival of diverse community groups, supported by new facilities and by social media communication.  The reader can zoom in in the picture above for more detail.  

The future of Sheerwater

The future of Sheerwater as perceived by residents, is about building bridges between different community groups or constituencies.  

Participants at the "Sheerwater Rediscovered!" event, October 2025, Surrey History Centre. 

There are challenges and opportunities to do so.  A key challenge is to facilitated inter-group communication and understanding.   One opportunity to address this challenge as proposed by participants at the main project event (pictured above) is to design disseminate a welcome pack and restablish a community newsletter.  

During 2026, this possibility has been mentioned to representatives from some Sheerwater organisations.  There could be scope to do so, provided that there is an adequate form of leadership to take it forward, and that an appropriate format (i.e. electronic or other) is agreed between interested parties.

Hope for the future

We (myself included) are to 'move on' from what Sheerwater was: a fantastic, a very happy time (as told by many residents).  We are now in the present where, according to the philosopher Bying Chul Han (2024), it is still possible to act with hope and despite a sense of despair: to do something meaningful, to do something for others, spontaineously or in improvised forms.  To be open to possibilities as we do when we 'dream'; to positively turn to each other (positively), to trust in each other, and search for those possibilities together.  

The hope, paraphrasing the philosopher Byung Chul Han (2024) is for Sheerwater residents and groups to be open to accept that the future is uncertain, and that hope "increases our sensibility for what-is-not-yet, on which we have no direct influence" (p.27).  

With hope, the future becomes then up for the taking.  Let's try to infuse a good sense of hope in Sheerwater.  As we do when we cheer the Sheerwater Football Club team:

Come on Sheers!, Up the Sheers! 

Reference

Han, B. C. (2024). The spirit of hope. John Wiley & Sons.

Note

Further details about the event and the project “Systemic Life Stories for regeneration:  Helping Sheerwater” can be seen at: 

https://pure.royalholloway.ac.uk/en/projects/systemic-life-stories-for-regeneration-helping-sheerwater-social-/, accessed April 2026

 

Messages of and about eco-anxiety

The Cop26 meeting is now about to finish.  There are many important lessons that all of us as individuals could grasp, some of them clearer than others.  What follows is my own take on what has happened. I present my own messages of and about eco-anxiety.

At work, we have been encouraged to present what we have been doing (teaching, research, engagement with the community) to better understand the complexities of climate change.  During this summer me and some students decided to explore how our campus is currently dealing with food waste.   We were fortunate to be supported by other academics and a manager of an anaerobic digestion company.  It has been a very helpful exercise for learning to talk to them and also to interact with campus managers in different areas like accommodation services and food production.  

As a result, students prepared and delivered a great presentation where a key message was that we need to better recycle food as well as prevent its potential waste.  How we carry this out could then be divided into two aspects:  

• Increase the value that we attribute to food recycling via better messaging, support processes and awareness
• Adopt new technologies like anaerobic digestion or AD.  

Tackling both of the above requires working on promoting a cultural if not behavioural change in our attitudes to waste and specifically to food.  

During the presentation the audience was very receptive and open to the ideas we were presenting.  One aspect that surfaced to be further considered is that how feedback about the need to generate cultural and behavioural awareness needs to be continuous and at all levels of academic and administrative activity in our campus.  Technologies like AD or those to better support better food waste monitoring (weighting, data analytics) as well as recycling are already available.  Why is it that only a few university campuses in countries like the UK are doing something about food?  

It seems to me that the higher level resolutions and agreements of Cop26 by governments need to be both reflected and challenged by local actions from universities, councils and private companies working together.  This is something that again requires a cultural mind shift from management of these organisations.  

Perhaps more importantly we all need to acknowledge that so far the desire to do something about climate change and doing it now is generating more anxiety than awareness.  Myself I had to slow down in my work and let students and the company manager carry on because I was feeling overwhelmed with so many messages from the media.  

Eco-anxiety is not only an individual but also a collective 'illness'.  During summer of 2021 I started to feel that any change about climate change is going to be slow and has to be concerted: it is difficult to mediate between parties that have different views about what needs to be done.  Every step has to be reflected upon and negotiated.  

This despite what many organisations have already in their strategic plans of achieving net-zero by a certain date.  It is also true that some actions are going to produce more impacts than others (i.e. not flying is more impactful than buying or using electric transport).  So perhaps it would be more important to assess and agree on these actions collectively.  And to establish ways of incorporating our conversations about such actions into strategic plans.  This could also help us all to deal with our own eco-anxieties.  

Navigating through a climate change field

 Our world is now witnessing a global summit to talk about climate change.  Some of us have also decided to contribute to it by organising and running local activities.  At my workplace, we have a full agenda that involves students and businesses.  

For me this was going well until I started to feel what some people call eco-anxiety.  I do not like big gatherings or feeling that I am out of place.  Talking about how we need to do something now and urgently to save our planet got to me in a bad way.  Because to my mind I have been doing things.

From buying and using an electric bike to changing our old family car to one that does not emit too much carbon dioxide to refurbishing our house loft with foam insulation to reducing my car travelling to eating less meat to working with students on looking at how campus food can be better managed, I now feel that somehow this is not 'enough'.  My perfectionist self has kicked again on the face of so much information.  

Perhaps a better way of framing what I feel and think is to say that climate change is a very complex thing and that we are still learning how to do things.  It would be better to be more aware that we are also part of complex systems whose direction(s) are the result of many individual actions.  At the moment, there are some parts of such systems which I find difficult to navigate with, possibly because they are entrenched in their own and radical views about what needs to be done now.  

We need to gain more awareness and continue doing things.  But for me I need to take a small break from all this talk on climate change and breathe.  Maybe take a back seat and let things unfold.    It would be good to listen to what goes on and share what we have learned or what we could be doing differently in our lives or work.  

But not at my own expense.  

Some thoughts for the new and creative 'normal'

Let us face it.  Most if not all of us have been caught off-guard with this pandemic.

(Source: https://clipground.com/free-animated-surprise-clipart.html) 

We still long to return to the old days where we could to go our offices, cafes, visit friends or family, running around like headless chickens in the pursuit of happiness.

The lock down brought a sense of distance to those days.  But for people like me, it also brought a new form of anxiety, which is manifested in my desire to cling on to what I know, what I love to do and what I fear to lose.  

For the new normal, the return to how things were, it might not be enough to continue supporting systems that contributed to fuel this sort of anxiety.  This is because the elephant in the room, the different selves or identities that what we used to get by, are still there.

And we will have to learn to live with these different guys, being now more anxious because of a greater risk to lose them, or to see them go.  

But where would we start in the new normal?  A spell of honesty with ourselves could help.  

Myself, I woke up today and after a hectic week of trying to keep the work-life balance 'right'.  I realise that I have used the pandemic, and it has used me to do things that my selves wanted to keep:  finish writing a book, publishing an academic article and writing a few more, whilst keeping a good parenting role.  I have also learnt to wake up later than before, do more physical exercise and gardening, and catch up with old friends and things that I thought I did not have time to complete.  

In this new normal, my life has still busy and not so busy moments. I have tried to keep some 'precious' things at all cost: my job, my writing, my family, my health. The good friends to have coffee with and vent our mutual frustrations are now at a distance.  For good or bad, the remote family and the children are closer.  

The new normal has allowed me to keep these and other things.  However, some days I feel tired and sometimes angry with myself and the world.  Why is that?  Is it because I try to keep the old (committed, perfectionist) and have some new 'selves' (i.e. the sporty one) at the same time? 

I fear for the return to the 'normal', for the realisation that I need to let go of some of these selves. I wish I could let go of a competitive-creative self: :  feeling demanding audiences in colleagues and students, engaging in fights about our 'novelty' and 'contribution' on a daily basis, attending requests to get funding, travelling, evening meetings or plagiarism panels.  This on top of being the 'good' parent, whilst my bank account balance disappears nearer the end of each month.  And my other creative, writer self, is still here.  

(Source:  https://www.1001freedownloads.com/free-clipart/ma-2-2)

These realisations have made me acknowledge that the new normal for me needs to be, paradoxically, very abnormal.  It would need to be inclusive of uncertainty, self-compassion, introspection, human-sized jobs, doing good enough, touching fragility, developing simple education, enjoying nature locally, breathing, accepting frustration, welcoming the other selves in myself and my loved ones.  

And if possible keeping the writing going.   

In the new normal, my electric bike is also still waiting to be used a bit more.  

Forthcoming Book: Creativity in Management Education - A Systemic Rediscovery

I have pleasure to announce my new book which is due to be published by September 2020, and which I talked about previously in this blog.  

(Click on the image to go to the publisher's website)

The book is the result of critical analyses of management education and myself as a student and currently an educator.  I venture to explore a number of ideas to help us all rediscover ourselves and regain a sense of creativity and transcendence, for our own benefit and for the benefit of those people around us.

Educational institutions are now being challenged to offer new forms of delivery, and with it a rethink of their roles in societies.  In this regard, this book could offer insights on what to do and where to start.  Among other things, I speak about compassionate and technology mediated interactions, which could help us keep ‘soft’ educational tyrannies at bay, and enable us (re) discover different roles and practices to redress power imbalances generated by such tyrannies.  

So if you want to know more about educational tyrannies, myself, my experiences of nurturing creativity in and out of the classroom (the good and the bad, the ethical), buy the book or recommend it to your librarians or sponsors.  

There will be an electronic version available by August 2020 😁😁.

Further links: 

Link to Springer (has PDF promotional flyers)

Link to Amazon’s website (has bit more of detail)

Creativity and Living with the Virus

Like many people out there and in lock down, I am starting to accept the situation that we are currently living in.

My first reaction from the last few weeks was to catch up with life online.  My teaching had to be moved to the virtual world in the space of two days.   

I initially struggled with the online platforms that are on offer (zoom, MS teams). The workplace had not fully set them up and it took sometime for all of us to learn to share their use.  

Still things can be improved, and now we have a full examination period coming up online.

At home I had to become more patient.  Combining work with just spending idle time has not been easy for me.  And as a creative person, I am supposed to make the best of the situation.  

But I am also an anxious one, so my creativity needs to accept that the adjustment is to take some time.  

Cooking, gardening, reading crime novels, video-conferencing, writing a new book, shopping, going for runs, more gardening, cleaning, more cooking, stopped writing the book (it is with my proofreader now), restarted writing old papers and new papers.   And a good support group with bit more of mindfulness practice have become the activities of my week.  

I thought I was not doing much, but on the whole and looking at the above list, it is quite a lot!

Creativity is still here with me, with my family, with neighbors, with key workers in supermarkets and in hospitals, with the self-employed.  It is not the old creativity we used to know.  Rather, and like the virus, she has mutated for good.  She is asking us to focus on the important things, to rest, to chat with loved ones, to make things simpler, to stop unnecessary shopping, to consider how we are going to make the best of the online world, to be more compassionate with ourselves and others.  

For me this would mean being bit more patient, pray again, meditate again, enjoy my slow writing, my close family, my cycling (when possible), and my garden.  

And for you?  

Try to rediscover your creativity, welcome her back to your home and your souls, don't ask her for the impossible.  And enjoy her company.  

A toast to silent creativity

I propose a toast to silent creativity,

that muse that comes uninvited, when we give her the chance.

That creativity that encourages us not to boast but to work diligently,

to be honest with ourselves and ask:  Why is it that we do what we do?

If we are seeking fame, money or ego aggrandizement, she will walk away in the same way she came in. And we will not notice.  

She will wait 'outside', patiently, for us to prepare our hearts,  to find ourselves in our work.

She will visit us in our dreams, whispering a word, an idea, a feeling,

for us to wake up and get back to work, now with humility, zeal and passion.

If we are lucky, she will keep doing this, and when we feel we are ready, we can defend her in court.

The prosecutors will argue that she is passive, useless and mystical.  

The public will get impressed by the lack of evidence.  

Most of them perhaps will ask for a refund, they thought this was a show! 

What shall we do as her only friends in the room? 

Just listen to what she whispers:  

I am with you, do not worry, just keep doing what you love doing. 

Retreat if you must, but remember your dreams, my dreams, who you are.

Seek solitude, seek friends, seek your old diaries, I will be around... 

Cheers!  

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!.

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!