The Deliberate Creative

It's nearly impossible learn skills without failing some of the time. In this episode Dr. Amy Climer examines the connection between learning and failing. She shares some stories from her own life and how she was able to use failure, mistakes, and mess-ups to further her learning and her creativity.

What You'll Learn

• How failure is inevitable in the learning and creative process
• The importance of transferable skills

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Resources

• How to Create a Podcast Review
• Amy's email: [email protected]

Weekly Challenge

What is one thing you're working on improving? What is one thing you can do to progress toward developing that skill? Next, reflect on how that went. How do you react when you succeed, when you fail, when things don't go quite as planned?

Transcript

Feel like reading instead of listening? The transcript will be available in a few days.

Note: The links on this page may be affiliate links. That means I get a small commission of your sale, at no cost to you. However, I only share links to products that I or my guests believe in. Enjoy them!

This episode is about the financial impact of creativity to an organization. What is the ROI in creativity and innovation? Does it matter if employees are creative? Is it worth investing in training to help people be more creative? Learn the five levels of employee creativity, the financial impact they have on the organization, and why creativity training is worth the investment.

What You'll Learn

• Five levels of employee creativity and the financial impact they have
• Why creativity training is well worth the investment
• Examples of companies who saw huge returns after creativity training.

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The Deliberate Creative™ Training is designed to provide the creativity skills employees need to move to a higher level of creativity. An in-depth training can move employees up a level and over time they can become amazing assets to the organization's innovative approach resulting in thousands of dollars of increased revenue or decreased expenditures.

[Tweet ""Creativity is both a skill and a process." - @AmyClimer"]

Resources

• Episode 78 with Roger Firestien
• Epstein, R., Schmidt, S., & Warfel, R. (2008). Measuring and Training Creativity Competencies: Validation of a New Test. Creativity Research Journal, 20(1), 7-12.
• The Deliberate Creative on C-suite Radio
• Leave a review on iTunes

Transcript

Feel like reading instead of listening? The transcript will be available in a few days.

Note: The links on this page may be affiliate links. That means I get a small commission of your sale, at no cost to you. However, I only share links to products that I or my guests believe in. Enjoy them!

Dr. Dani Chesson is a thought leader in design thinking. Through her research she identified six core capabilities that design thinkers possess. In this episode, she walks us through those six core capabilities and helps us understand how to be better at coming up with creative solutions to problems.

What You'll Learn

• The six core capabilities of design thinkers
• Why visual expression helps creative problem solving
• The importance of separating out the ideation and evaluation of ideas
• How one company saved millions on a benefit program by using design thinking.

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[Tweet ""Failure isn't a bad thing. Failure is about learning. Design thinkers have gotten comfortable with taking risks and learning from them. " - @DaniChesson on The Deliberate Creative Podcast"]

About Dr. Dani Chesson

Designer turned change manager, turned strategy consultant, Dr. Dani Chesson is the creator of Chesson's Design Thinker Profile, an assessment that measures design thinking capabilities in individuals and teams. As a Design Thinker Coach, Dani helps her clients discover untapped opportunities and put them into action so they can reach their full potential.

Design thinking has been the center of Dani's career and research interest. Throughout her career, Dani has leveraged her training as a graphic designer to help organizations create new products and services, adopt emerging technologies, and successfully implement large-scale change. A former Vice President at Bank of America, Dani has over a decade of experience leading global teams through large-scale innovation and change projects. She has also held leadership and consulting roles at Carlisle & Gallagher Consulting, Sherpa, LLC, and HSBC.

Dani holds a Bachelor of Arts in Visual Communication with a focus in graphic design. She holds a Master of Science in Business Administration and a Master of Science in Organization Development from Queens University of Charlotte where her research focused on how designers approach problem solving. Dani earned a PhD in Leadership and Organizational Change from Antioch University where her research involved developing an assessment for measuring the capabilities of Design Thinkers.

You can learn more about Dani's work at www.designthinkerprofile.com and, she can be contacted via email at [email protected]

Resources

• Dani Chesson's website: designthinkerprofile.com
• Dr. Tina Seelig's Failure Resume Assignment
• What I Learned from a Big Failure (inspired by Amy's interview with Dani)
• The Deliberate Creative on C-suite Radio
• Leave a review on iTunes

Weekly Challenge

Share with one person one failure event in your life and what you learned from it. Then, journal about it. You can listen to Amy's episode about a big failure she experience a few years ago. What's yours? Post your failures below.

Transcript

Feel like reading instead of listening? The transcript will be available in a few days.

Note: The links on this page may be affiliate links. That means I get a small commission of your sale, at no cost to you. However, I only share links to products that I or my guests believe in. Enjoy them!

Inspired by guests Jeff Leisawitz (episode 89) and Dr. Dani Chesson (episode 91), Dr. Amy Climer shares the story of a big failure she experienced in 2006-2007. Most importantly, she talks about what she learned, what she would do differently, and how you can mitigate your risk on a project that might fail.

What You'll Learn

• The story of Amy's failed art practice
• What Amy learned from being a professional artist
• Advice for starting a project that might fail

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Resources

• See Amy's art at: amyclimer.com
• The Deliberate Creative on C-suite Radio
• Leave a review on iTunes

Transcript

Feel like reading instead of listening? The transcript will be available in a few days.

Note: The links on this page may be affiliate links. That means I get a small commission of your sale, at no cost to you. However, I only share links to products that I or my guests believe in. Enjoy them!

Jeff Leisawitz is a musician, artist, and writer whose mission to to help everyone be more creative. His focus is on teaching the power of using creativity as a tool to be seen, expressed, and healed.

What You'll Learn

• How he accidentally wrote a book
• The impact of creativity on the world
• Jeff's advice on getting more creative

About Jeff Leisawitz Jeff Leisawitz burns with a mission—to inspire writers, artists, musicians and everyone else to amp up their creativity, heal their hearts, and shine in the world. Jeff is an award-winning musician/producer, a critically acclaimed author and internationally distributed filmmaker who has devoted his life to the art of creativity. As the guy behind Electron Love Theory, Jeff fused interviews with Seattle's WTO demonstrators into electronic music, garnering more than a quarter million downloads worldwide. Jeff has released five studio albums and has landed more than 5,000 music placements in film, TV and multimedia— including clients like HBO, MTV, Discovery, Microsoft, NBC and many others. As the founding writer for Seattle's taste-making alternative rock station 107.7 The End, he chronicled the alternative grunge scene in the 90s. After training as a Life Coach and practicing NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Re-Patterning) Jeff landed a gig as an adjunct faculty member at Pacific Lutheran University— teaching college students to rock. Seriously. When creative businesses and organizations like King County Library System, Brown Paper Tickets, Tacoma School of the Arts, Northwest Film Forum, Gage Academy, The Writers Store and others need an Awesome Infusion, Jeff leads workshops and events to fire up the creative spirit and empower people to tap into their true potential. Not F*ing Around— The No Bullsh*t Guide for Getting Your Creative Dreams Off the Ground is Jeff's first book. Resources

• Jeff Leisawitz's website
• Book: Not F*ing Around: The No Bullsh*t Guide for Getting Your Creative Dreams Off the Ground
• Camp Log-n-Twig (now closed)
• The Deliberate Creative on C-suite Radio
• Leave a review on iTunes

Weekly Challenge

Create a new habit! What would serve you well - writing 10 minutes a day, a drawing a day, a poem a day, look for more beauty in the world? Make that small change and reap the tremendous benefits.

Transcript

Feel like reading instead of listening? The transcript will be available in a few days.

Note: The links on this page may be affiliate links. That means I get a small commission of your sale, at no cost to you. However, I only share links to products that I or my guests believe in. Enjoy them!

Dr. Teresa Lawrence has found a unique niche teaching project managers how to be more creative and effective by using tools and techniques from Creative Problem Solving. In this episode, she explores how project managers can use divergent and convergent thinking and better use the specific tools they select.

What You'll Learn

• The definition of a project
• How to know where to start in a project
• The importance of using divergent and convergent thinking in project management
• How to use the activity Card Sort

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About Dr. Teresa Lawrence

Teresa Lawrence, PhD, PMP, CSM, provides training, facilitation and coaching in creativity and the application of creative problem solving in all methodologies of Project Management across all industries. In addition to consulting as a project manager and trainer, she provides professional services in the management of strategic initiatives and change. Over 10,000 Project Managers have earned PDUs from Teresa's workshops, presentations and webinars. Teresa is an alum of the International Center for Studies in Creativity (ICSC) and serves as the VP for Certification Training in the Buffalo PMI chapter. She is the past recipient of Buffalo Business First "Women of Influence" and the University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education "Distinguished Alumni" awards. Teresa is a previous superintendent of schools and the current president of International Deliverables, LLC. You can contact Teresa at teresa@internationaldeliverables.com or find her on projectmanagement.com.

Resources

• Teresa's website: internationaldeliverables.com
• Project Management Institute - projectmanagement.com
• PM Network
• PMXPO
• Project Management in Practice
• The Deliberate Creative on C-suite Radio
• Leave a review on iTunes

Weekly Challenge

Think about a project or task you are currently facing. There are many elements that need to get done. Do the technique Card Sort that Teresa mentioned. If you could only do one of the tasks, which one will get you the furthest along right now. Use this to prioritize the top three thing that would have the greatest impact.

Transcript

Feel like reading instead of listening? The transcript will be available in a few days.

Note: The links on this page may be affiliate links. That means I get a small commission of your sale, at no cost to you. However, I only share links to products that I or my guests believe in. Enjoy them!

Jane Dunnewold shares what she has learned about creativity in her decades as an artist and creativity teacher. She talks about how she stays creative in her own life and how she fosters it in her students. Her insights are applicable to artists and non-artists alike.

What You'll Learn

• Who is "the committee" and why you need to be aware of them.
• The one piece of advice that all artists on this podcast have shared.
• How the power of a simple conversation could change someone's happiness at work

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About Jane Dunnewold

Jane Dunnewold teaches and lectures internationally about art and creativity. She has mounted numerous one-person exhibitions, including Inspired by the Masters (Visions Quilt Museum 2016). Her work won Best of Show in the exhibition Timeless Meditations (Tubac Art Center/2013). She is a recipient of the Quilt Japan Prize, and Gold Prize at the Taegue (Korea) International Textile Exhibition.

Dunnewold has authored numerous books, including the classic Complex Cloth (1996). Interweave Press published Art Cloth: A Guide to Surface Design on Fabric (2010.) In 2016, North Light Books published Creative Strength Training: Prompts, Exercises and Stories to inspire Artistic Genius. She is the former President of the Surface Design Association.

Resources

• Jane Dunnewold's website
• Jane's Creative Strength Training online course
• Episode 83 with artist Hollis Chatelain
• Episode 69 with artist Greg Climer
• We! Connect Cards by Chad Littlefield
• The Deliberate Creative on C-suite Radio
• Leave a review on iTunes

Weekly Challenge

Jane offers two challenges for the week. 1) Each day, take a photo of something close up. Spend a minute or so paying attention to those small details. What do you notice after doing this for a week? 2) Think of something that you would like to know about other people, something you are curious about. Ask those questions when you are meeting new people or talking with someone you don't know well.

Transcript

Feel like reading instead of listening? The transcript will be available in a few days.

Note: The links on this page may be affiliate links. That means I get a small commission of your sale, at no cost to you. However, I only share links to products that I or my guests believe in. Enjoy them!

Steve Garguilo is an expert at taking action. In this episode he explains his blueprint for how to take action on ideas, big or small. You will learn what gets in the way and blocks us from taking action as well as strategies to help you and your team take action and make progress.

What You'll Learn

• How to take action on your ideas
• Learn how to adapt a bias towards action
• How the difference between productive and unproductive procrastination

About Steve Garguilo

Steve Garguilo works with people from all walks of life from all over the world to help them make their ideas happen.

He led the revolution to transform the culture of the 5th largest company in the world by instigating and shaping a grassroots movement at Johnson & Johnson that engaged 23,000 employees and led to countless stories of product and people development. Steve's groundbreaking programs are known for being incredibly engaging and highly immersive and interactive. Net Promoter Scores for his programming range from +86 to +100.

Garguilo has also worked on social ventures globally, including in Kenya and India. In 2014, he completed The Mongol Rally, a 10,000-mile adventure from London to Ulan Bator, Mongolia, fundraising for the African Prisons Project.

He has lived all over the world and has spoken at TED and TEDx events across the globe in the United States, Switzerland, Brazil, Scotland, Tunisia, and Lithuania. A global citizen, he has visited each of the 48 contiguous United States and is a member of the "century club" having visited over 100 countries.

Resources

• Book: Surge by Steve Garguilo and Sergiy Skoryk
• Steve on Twitter
• Steve's websites: stevegarguilo.com and actionsurge.com
• giantflamingo.com
• Episode 84: Using Goal Setting to Increase Creativity
• The Deliberate Creative on C-suite Radio
• Upcoming free webinars
• Leave a review on iTunes

Weekly Challenge

What is one big idea that you want to take action on? Then, ask yourself what is one thing you can do to make progress on this right now. It is overly simple, but it's important. Give it the importance it deserves. Take that first step and get started this week.

Are you looking for some good books about creativity to read for 2018? If so, here are the top 5 books I recommend the most. They will help you be more creative in your personal and professional life, as well as to help you lead your team and organization to innovate more. Happy reading!

What You’ll Learn

* Amy Climer’s top recommended creativity books

* A short review of each book

Resources

* Book: The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield

* Book: From Experience to Creativity by Daniel Cape with contributions by Dr. Amy Climer

* Book: Collective Genius by Linda Hill, et al.

* Book: Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull

* Book: Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

* Podcast: Magic Lessons with Elizabeth Gilbert

Weekly Challenge

Pick one of these 5 books and start reading! Then, let me know what you think. Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Transcript

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

Transcript for Episode #085: Five Creativity Books I Recommend

Amy Climer: Welcome to The Deliberate Creative Podcast Episode 85. In today’s episode, I want to share with you five creativity books that I recommend all the time that I think you should read if you really want to understand creativity. We are just going to jump right in.

The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield

 

The first book is called The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield. If you feel like you need a kick in the pants to help you create or get past procrastination, this is a great book to read. Stephen Pressfield is a writer and he clearly understands how creativity works. You can feel it as you are reading the book. Because he talks about all the demons that get in the way of creativity, yet, he also gets real and talks about how to get over yourself and how to really get going to get past that procrastination.

What I love about the book is just this no-nonsense, no-fluff style. It is a thin book that is worth every penny. I highly recommend The War of Art. So check out The War of Art. It is a quick read. You can probably read it in a day or in a weekend, at least in a week. Check out The War of Art. I highly recommend that one.

Collective Genius by Linda Hill, et al.

 

The next book is Collective Genius. It is by Linda Hill, Greg Brandeau, Emily Truelove and Kent Lineback. Linda Hill is a researcher at Harvard and she and her colleagues got together and they were asking the question; why are some organizations creative and able to innovate again and again and others are barely able to innovate at all? They did an extensive research study looking at leadership and creativity in teams and the book reveals everything that they learned. They share some great stories about creativity and innovation and some of the nuances of it and how it works within teams. If you are interested in creativity and leadership, I highly recommend Collective Genius by Linda Hill and her colleagues.

Are you looking for some good books about creativity to read for 2018? If so, here are the top 5 books I recommend the most. They will help you be more creative in your personal and professional life, as well as to help you lead your team and organization to innovate more. Happy reading!

What You'll Learn

• Amy's top recommended creativity books
• A short review of each book

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Resources

• Book: The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield
• Book: From Experience to Creativity by Daniel Cape with contributions by Dr. Amy Climer
• Book: Collective Genius by Linda Hill, et al.
• Book: Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull
• Book: Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
• Podcast: Magic Lessons with Elizabeth Gilbert

Weekly Challenge

Pick one of these 5 books and start reading! Then, let me know what you think.