The Deliberate Creative

In this episode, Sarah Gibson of Accent Learning and Consulting talks about intergenerational teams. You'll learn what a generation is and the defining events that created the five generations alive today. Learn how generations might clash in the workplace, yet they need each other in order to be the most creative.

What You'll Learn

• The definition of a generation
• The four types of generations in the workplace today
• How intergenerational teams might have more conflict and what do to about it
• How to help your intergenerational team be more creative

About Sarah Gibson

Sarah Gibson founded Accent Learning and Consulting, LLC in 2004 because it allowed her to share her passion for speaking and teaching practical workplace skills that help individuals and businesses succeed. Since then, Sarah and her team have helped companies understand the impact of workplace communication through a large variety of professional development and leadership classes.

Sarah wrote The Zoom Guide to the Generations to help people learn more about the impact of generational pieces in the workplace. She has worked with more than 100 organizations across a variety of industries throughout North America. Beyond her corporate experiences, Sarah has also taught for the University of Wisconsin-Madison evening MBA program and as an adjunct instructor at Madison College, UW-Whitewater and North Dakota State University. Sarah holds a Master's degree from North Dakota State University.

Resources Mentioned in the Episode

• Free Generational Job Aid by Sarah Gibson
• Sarah Gibson's website
• Book - The Zoom Guide to the Generations
• Patrick Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions of a Team

The Weekly Challenge

This week, pay attention to the different generations you work with. What do you notice in meetings and other interactions? Share with your team the job aid from Sarah Gibson and have a conversation about how your different generations show up in your work and interactions. Share in the comment section or send me an email and let me know how it goes.

I am often asked to explain what creativity training is and how it works. In this episode I clarify creativity training by walking through sample activities and describing a typical creativity training. I also explain three different types of creativity training and the one you need will depend on your goals. Organizations much continue to innovate if they want to thrive. Creativity training gives team members the tools and techniques they need to be more creative and solve problems for the organization.

What You'll Learn

• The importance of being creative and how creativity training can help
• Three different purposes of creativity trainings

Resources Mentioned in the Episode

• Zig Zag Creativity Cards by Keith Sawyer

The Weekly Challenge

Think about how you can be more creative in 2016. Do you need creativity training? Can you deliver training to your team? Reach out if you need help. It's what I do best!

Parents want the best for their kids. They give their kids advice to help them grow into healthy, happy, and successful adults. However, the best-intentioned career advice might be decreasing the creativity in your kids and that might be causing a number of other problems. In this episode Amy Climer talks about how you can make a living doing anything and why saying Yes to your kids’ career ideas might be the best way to help them live healthy, happy, and successful lives.

What You’ll Learn

* How your best intentions as parents might be decreasing your kids creativity

* How the career advice you give your kids might impact their creativity

Resources

* Pet Rocks

The Weekly Challenge

When you hear a child talk about what they want to be when they grow up, say yes. Say yes even if you don’t know how they can do it. There are so many options today and by limiting the career options of kids we decrease their creativity and teach them that there are only certain professions that are worthwhile. Say Yes!

Transcript

Feel like reading instead of listening? Download the free PDF Transcript or read it below. Enjoy!

Transcript for Episode #030: Career Advice to Increase Creativity

Amy Climer: Hi everyone. Welcome to The Deliberate Creative Podcast Episode 30. My name is Amy Climer and this episode is coming out on Christmas Eve so I want to say to all of you who celebrate Christmas, Merry Christmas! I hope you are having a wonderful holiday season. I hope you are enjoying this last week of 2015. Very exciting, as we are almost in 2016.

Today I want to talk about advice that we give our kids. I’ve been wanting to do this episode for quite a while, but I’ve been a bit hesitant because I’m not a parent. You know sometimes when non‐parents give advice about parenting, it doesn’t go so well, so I get that. But I think what I have to say is valuable even though I am coming from a non‐parent perspective. I might be a parent someday hopefully I will, so we’ll see. This episode is about career advice and as parents usually you want your kids to grow up and be happy and healthy and have a wonderful life as adults. We tend to be concerned about kids choosing careers that are going to help fulfill their dreams and help them be happy and healthy and stable and all that good stuff. Unfortunately, I think what happens, at least in the US. I’d be curious to hear from listeners in other countries. Is this the same in your culture? But at least in the US, it seems that we try to steer our kids in certain directions and usually it’s one of only a few professions. That top two have got to be doctors and lawyers. We often steer kids towards those professions because we think of them as very productive, very successful, very well respected, well paying positions. This has been true for the last fifty to a hundred years. I don’t know long. But definitely for our lifetime this has been true. So for those of you who are Gen X’ers like me, I’m 40, for those of you around my age maybe a little bit younger who are parents, for our entire life it has been true that doctors and lawyers have been respectable, well paying positions. But who knows if that’s going to be true in the future. I am not suggesting that it is not. I just don’t know. But I think that it is just interesting that we tend to push kids into 1 www.climerconsulting.com certain fields regardless of what aptitude they maybe showing. I think this can be really detrimental to their health.

[3:27]

I’ve seen these in so many different ways. The first I’ll talk about is just watching parents either give kids advice or listen to them talk about ...

Parents want the best for their kids. They give their kids advice to help them grow into healthy, happy, and successful adults. However, the best-intentioned career advice might be decreasing the creativity in your kids and that might be causing a number of other problems. In this episode Amy Climer talks about how you can make a living doing anything and why saying Yes to your kids’ career ideas might be the best way to help them live healthy, happy, and successful lives.

What You’ll Learn

• How your best intentions as parents might be decreasing your kids creativity
• How the career advice you give your kids might impact their creativity

The Weekly Challenge

When you hear a child talk about what they want to be when they grow up, say yes. Say yes even if you don't know how they can do it. There are so many options today and by limiting the career options of kids we decrease their creativity and teach them that there are only certain professions that are worthwhile. Say Yes!

In this episode I interview middle school teacher Will Gibbs. Will was a participant in the North Carolina Outward Bound Educator’s Initiative in 2009-2010. Now, six years later he has completely changed how he teaches his students with a focus on a caring classroom. The results are impressive. What he does in the classroom can be done in nearly any context with teams including adults or younger kids.

What You’ll Learn

* How and why Will Gibbs spends 7 days on building community before starting the curriculum.

* How to build trust and community amongst students and team members.

* The value of a virtual campfire

* How to get students to not commit one of your pet peeves

About Will Gibbs

Will began teaching at the ripe old age of 22. He started in a computer lab as a technology teacher at Cape Henry Collegiate School in Virginia Beach, moving into the history department shortly thereafter.  He is now in his 11th year at The Episcopal Academy outside of Philadelphia, PA. There, he is the Middle School History Department Chair, a classroom teacher, and coaches soccer, squash, and lacrosse… along with dozens of other roles taken on by Independent School teachers. Will is a 2009-10 participant in the Educator’s Initiative with North Carolina Outward Bound. Upon finishing the program, Will has redesigned his entire pedagogy and is continually searching to improve and push the boundaries.

Resources Mentioned in the Episode

* North Carolina Outward Bound Educator’s Initiative

* The Episcopal Academy in Newtown Square, PA

* Padlet collaboration tool

* Book The Caring Classroom by Laurie Frank

* Will Gibbs Twitter handle: @mrgibbs34

* Will Gibbs Email: wfgibbs at episcopalacademy dot org

The Weekly Challenge

This week, follow Will’s advice and make one change to begin developing a sense of community and trust within your classroom or team. How did it go? What were the results? Share in the comment section below or send me an email.

Transcript

Feel like reading instead of listening? Download the free PDF Transcript or read it below. Enjoy!

Transcript for Episode #29: How One Teacher Builds Trust In His Classroom

Amy Climer: Hi everyone! Welcome to the Deliberate Creative Podcast Episode 29. In today’s episode, I interviewed Will Gibbs who is a middle school teacher in Pennsylvania. He talks about some unique ways that he builds trusts and creates community in his classroom. This episode is a continuation from last week’s episode about how to build trust in a team. I happen to meet Will this past weekend and I thought, “oh! This is perfect for the podcast.” Will is also connected to Episode 12. Episode 12 you might remember was an interview of some participants of mine on a North Carolina Outward Bound Educators’ Course. Well those participants, who are all teachers, all K-12 grade teachers. They’re a part of a year long program through Outward Bound that is teaching them how to bring the Outward Bound philosophies and principles into their classroom.

In this episode I interview middle school teacher Will Gibbs. Will was a participant in the North Carolina Outward Bound Educator's Initiative in 2009-2010. Now, six years later he has completely changed how he teaches his students with a focus on a caring classroom. The results are impressive. What he does in the classroom can be done in nearly any context with teams including adults or younger kids.

What You'll Learn

• How and why Will Gibbs spends 7 days on building community before starting the curriculum.
• How to build trust and community amongst students and team members.
• The value of a virtual campfire
• How to get students to not commit one of your pet peeves

About Will Gibbs

Will began teaching at the ripe old age of 22. He started in a computer lab as a technology teacher at Cape Henry Collegiate School in Virginia Beach, moving into the history department shortly thereafter. He is now in his 11th year at The Episcopal Academy outside of Philadelphia, PA. There, he is the Middle School History Department Chair, a classroom teacher, and coaches soccer, squash, and lacrosse... along with dozens of other roles taken on by Independent School teachers. Will is a 2009-10 participant in the Educator's Initiative with North Carolina Outward Bound. Upon finishing the program, Will has redesigned his entire pedagogy and is continually searching to improve and push the boundaries.

Resources Mentioned in the Episode

• North Carolina Outward Bound Educator's Initiative
• The Episcopal Academy in Newtown Square, PA
• Padlet collaboration tool
• Book The Caring Classroom by Laurie Frank
• Will Gibbs Twitter handle: @mrgibbs34
• Will Gibbs Email: wfgibbs at episcopalacademy dot org

The Weekly Challenge

This week, follow Will's advice and make one change to begin developing a sense of community and trust within your classroom or team. How did it go? What were the results? Share in the comment section below or send me an email.

This episode topic was requested by several listeners. In a recent survey, several asked how to build trust in teams. This episode introduces three ways to start building trust within you team. But first, I explain why trust matters and how it impacts creativity.

What You'll Learn

• Two types of trust that are important to creativity
• The relationship between trust and conflict
• Three strategies you can implement to increase trust within your team.

Resources Mentioned in the Episode

• Take the Team Survey - support my dissertation research!
• Episode 17: Seven Norms of Collaboration
• Book: The Progress Principle by Amabile & Kramer
• Dougherty, D., & Takacs, C. H. (2004). Team play: Heedful interrelating as the boundary for innovation. Long Range Planning: International Journal of Strategic Management, 37(6), 569-590.
• Fairchild, J., & Hunter, S. T. (2013). 'We've got creative differences': The effects of task conflict and participative safety on team creative performance. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 48(1), 64-87.
• Peltokorpi, V., & Hasu, M. (2014). How participative safety matters more in team innovation as team size increases. Journal of Business and Psychology, 29(1), 37-45.

The Weekly Challenge

This week, try to do one of the suggestions shared in the podcast: Either implement regular meetings or set up a structured process to help team members get to know each other. How did it go? What were the results? Share in the comment section below or send me an email.

This episode topic was requested by several listeners. In a recent survey, several asked how to build trust in teams. This episode introduces three ways to start building trust within you team. But first, I explain why trust matters and how it impacts creativity.

What You’ll Learn

* Two types of trust that are important to creativity

* The relationship between trust and conflict

* Three strategies you can implement to increase trust within your team.

Resources

* Take the Team Survey – support my dissertation research!

* Episode 17: Seven Norms of Collaboration

* Book: The Progress Principle by Amabile & Kramer

* Dougherty, D., & Takacs, C. H. (2004). Team play: Heedful interrelating as the boundary for innovation. Long Range Planning: International Journal of Strategic Management, 37(6), 569-590. 

* Fairchild, J., & Hunter, S. T. (2013). ‘We’ve got creative differences’: The effects of task conflict and participative safety on team creative performance. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 48(1), 64-87. 

* Peltokorpi, V., & Hasu, M. (2014). How participative safety matters more in team innovation as team size increases. Journal of Business and Psychology, 29(1), 37-45.

The Weekly Challenge

This week, try to do one of the suggestions shared in the podcast: Either implement regular meetings or set up a structured process to help team members get to know each other. How did it go? What were the results? Share in the comment section below or send me an email.

Transcript

Feel like reading instead of listening? Download the free PDF Transcript or read it below. Enjoy!

Transcript for Episode #28: How to Build Trust Within a Team

Hey everyone! Welcome to Episode 28. Today we are going to talk about how to build trust in your team and why it matters for creativity. But first, I have a few announcements to share. The first announcement is two days ago, I released the initial survey that is leading to the creation of a scale for teams. This is part of my dissertation research and I am so excited because today is Day Three and 391 people have already responded and taken the survey. Thank you so much if you are one of those people! I really really appreciate it! If you have not taken the survey, I would love for you to take the survey. It takes about 10 minutes and it is a survey about a team that you are on. So I will put a link on the show notes which is climerconsulting.com/028 or you could also access it at creativesynergyscale.com. Or you can find it on my Facebook page and there are some posts on Twitter. What is so cool is that some of the people who have taken the survey hav...

This week’s topic comes from a listener who was curious about how to engage reluctant team members and participants in trainings. Do you lead trainings? If so, listen and learn two strategies to help you get participants engaged, interested, and learning more during your trainings.

What You’ll Learn

* Two ways to ensure participants stay engaged during your trainings

* The 5 attitudes that participants have during trainings

Resources

* Download the Free 5 Ways of Being Cheat Sheet

* Workshop: Make it Experiential

The Weekly Challenge

This week, think about which of the 5 Ways of Being do you participants exhibit. Think about how you can apply the two strategies to help your team members and participants be more engaged. Share in the comment section.

Transcript

Feel like reading instead of listening? Download the free PDF Transcript or read it below. Enjoy!

Transcript for Episode #027: How to Engage Reluctant Participants

Amy Climer: Hello everyone. Welcome to The Deliberate Creative Podcast Episode #27. In today’s episode I’m talking about how to engage the reluctant participant in trainings you might be delivering. I’m going to explain two ways that you can get people more engaged and more involved. This question about how do you engage a reluctant participant actually comes from a listener. They were curious about how to get team members more engaged both within my team and within a training. So today we‘re just going to talk about the trainings and I’ll give you two different techniques that you can use. I also want to tell you that there is a free  giveaway related to technique #1 and you can download that at climerconsulting.com/027. It’s just a one page cheat sheet and I will explain more about that in a minute, but you can download that. Also when you download it you will get added to my newsletter. Actually, I just sent out an article this last month that I got a lot of positive feedback on about parenting of all things, which I’m not a parent, but shared one specific tool to help your kids be more creative. I’ll do an episode about that in the future, but for now feel free to download that giveaway, that free cheat sheet that I’ll talk about in a minute. You’ll get added to my newsletter, which I send out maybe every month or two. It’s not super frequent.

Two ways to engage your reluctant participant:

Name it.

Deliver an amazing training that is relevant for the audience.

#1 Name It

Let’s talk about #1. What do I mean by “name it?” One of the things that I do if I feel like there might be a few people in the audience who don’t want to be there, but they are there because they have to be there. You know they are required because of their job or for some reason they have to show up. I feel that they are probably going to feel a little checked out or just not interested, then I would introduce something called The Five Ways of Being. This is actually a model that I got from a friend of mine.  His name is Steve Crosby and we used  to work together at University of Wisconsin and now he’s out in Colorado. He introduced this to me probably 12 or 15 years ago.

This week's topic comes from a listener who was curious about how to engage reluctant team members and participants in trainings. Do you lead trainings? If so, listen and learn two strategies to help you get participants engaged, interested, and learning more during your trainings.

What You’ll Learn

• Two ways to ensure participants stay engaged during your trainings
• The 5 attitudes that participants have during trainings

Resources Mentioned in the Episode

• Download the Free 5 Ways of Being Cheat Sheet
• Workshop: Make it Experiential