The Deliberate Creative

Everyone gets stuck at times. You know that feeling where you want to be creative, but it's just not happening. Instead you procrastinate, you avoid the project, or you do other "important" things. This episode explains reasons why we get stuck and provides solutions to move into full creative breakthrough mode. Ready to get unstuck? Just click play!

What You’ll Learn

• How to figure out which stage of the creative process you are stuck in and then how to move forward
• General tips that will help you move forward, regardless of where you are stuck
• Techniques to help you move into breakthrough thinking and active creating

Resources Mentioned in the Episode

• Blog post: Three Tips to Help you Focus When Writing
• Climer Cards
• Zig Zag Cards
• Strict Workflow by Matchu
• Focus@Will
• Book: The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield

The Weekly Challenge

Try out one of the tips or tools shared this week. How did it go? Share your experiences below in the comments section.

A strong sense of purpose is one of the most powerful elements impacting a team's creative success. In this episode hear what the research says about team purpose, as well as stories from my personal life where the power of purpose has been important.

What You'll Learn

• How team purpose impacts a team's success
• Two elements critical to a team's sense of purpose

Resources Mentioned in the Episode

• Book: Teamwork: What Must Go Right/What Can Go Wrong by Larson & LaFasto
• Book: Drive by Daniel Pink
• Research: Pinto, J. K., & Prescott, J. E. (1987). Changes in critical success factor importance over the life of a project. New Orleans. 328-332.
• Research: Pearce, C. L., & Ensley, M. D. (2004). A reciprocal and longitudinal investigation of the innovation process: The central role of shared vision in product and process innovation teams (PPITs). Journal of Organizational Behavior, 25(2), 259-278.
• Book: The Wisdom of Teams by Katzenbach & Smith
• Book: Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Lencioni
• Episode 17: Seven Norms of Collaboration

The Weekly Challenge

Invite your team to talk about their purpose. At your next team meeting, ask each team member to write down on a Post-It Note what they believe is the team's purpose. Hang each on the wall and gather around to read them. What do you notice? Is there alignment or confusion about the team purpose? Then, facilitate a conversation to clarify that team purpose, if needed.

In this episode, Keith Sawyer talks about the Zig Zag model of creativity, one that he developed after years of research with creative teams. He explains how he developed the model, how to use it, and shares a few practical tips you can implement right away to help your team, or yourself, be more creative.

What You’ll Learn

* The eight stages of the Zig Zag model to creativity

* What business teams can learn from Jazz Improv groups

* How juggling can help you be more creative

Dr. Keith Sawyer is one of the country’s leading scientific experts on creativity, collaboration, and learning. A professor of education at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, he studies creativity, learning, and collaboration. After receiving his computer science degree from MIT in 1982, he began his career with a two-year stint designing videogames for Atari. His titles included Food Fight, Neon, and Magician. From 1984 to 1990, he was a principal at Kenan Systems Corporation, where he worked as a management consultant on innovation technologies. His clients included Citicorp, AT&T, and U.S. West. In 1990, Dr. Sawyer began his doctoral studies in psychology, where he studied creativity with Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (author of best selling books such as Flow and Creativity). Since receiving his Ph.D. in 1994, he has dedicated his career to research on creativity, collaboration, and learning. He has been a jazz pianist for over 30 years, and spent several years playing piano with Chicago improv theater groups.

Dr. Sawyer has published fourteen books and over 80 scientific articles. His research has been featured on CNN, Fox News, TIME, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR and other media. A popular speaker, he lectures to corporations, associations, and universities around the world on creativity and innovation.

In this episode, Keith Sawyer talks about the Zig Zag model of creativity, one that he developed after years of research with creative teams. He explains how he developed the model, how to use it, and shares a few practical tips you can implement right away to help your team, or yourself, be more creative.

What You’ll Learn

• The eight stages of the Zig Zag model to creativity
• What business teams can learn from Jazz Improv groups
• How juggling can help you be more creative

Dr. Keith Sawyer is one of the country’s leading scientific experts on creativity, collaboration, and learning. A professor of education at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, he studies creativity, learning, and collaboration. After receiving his computer science degree from MIT in 1982, he began his career with a two-year stint designing videogames for Atari. His titles included Food Fight, Neon, and Magician. From 1984 to 1990, he was a principal at Kenan Systems Corporation, where he worked as a management consultant on innovation technologies. His clients included Citicorp, AT&T, and U.S. West. In 1990, Dr. Sawyer began his doctoral studies in psychology, where he studied creativity with Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (author of best selling books such as Flow and Creativity). Since receiving his Ph.D. in 1994, he has dedicated his career to research on creativity, collaboration, and learning. He has been a jazz pianist for over 30 years, and spent several years playing piano with Chicago improv theater groups.

Dr. Sawyer has published fourteen books and over 80 scientific articles. His research has been featured on CNN, Fox News, TIME, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR and other media. A popular speaker, he lectures to corporations, associations, and universities around the world on creativity and innovation.

Resources Mentioned in the Episode

• Zig Zag (Book) by Keith Sawyer
• Zig Zag Cards by Keith Sawyer
• Explaining Creativity by Keith Sawyer
• Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration by Keith Sawyer
• Keithsawyer.com
• ZZdeck.com
• climercards.com
• Wallas, 1926. The Art of Thought - the source of the first creativity model

The Weekly Challenge

Engage in the third step of the Zig Zag "Look" and take yourself on a field trip to a new art museum or a new town. Pay attention to what is different. What do you notice? What inspiration do you find? You can find this idea and many others in Keith Sawyer's deck of Zig Zag Cards.

This episode brings together topics from three previous episodes: 9, 34, and 35. I explain the connection between Stages of Group Development (episode 9), Three Elements Teams Need to Succeed (episode 34), and the Leadership Continuum (episode 35). Understanding all of these together and can help your team move into the Performing Stage and become amazing and more creative.

What You’ll Learn

• When to adjust your leadership style according to the group's stage of development
• Why you shouldn't always intervene when your team is in conflict

Resources Mentioned in the Episode

• Free Cheat Sheet about Leadership Styles
• From Conflict to Resolution: Managing and Mediating Conflict at Work workshop Amy's leading in Milwaukee on April 26, 2016
• Climer Cards
• Tuckman, B. W. and Jensen, M. A. C. (1977) Stages in small group development revisited. Group and Organization Studies 2; 419-427.
• Episode 9: Stages of Group Development
• Episode 34: Three Elements Teams Need to Succeed
• Episode 35: Leadership Styles Continuum

The Weekly Challenge

Download the Cheat Sheet and teach your team about the stages of group development, the leadership styles, and about task, process, and relationship. Then, invite feedback on your leadership style.

Teams need to attend to three elements in order to be successful in their work: task, relationship, and process. Balancing and attending to these three can lead to high functioning, creative, successful teams. This episode explains what each of these are and how to attend to all three.

What You'll Learn

• The difference between task, relationship, and process for teams
• Why teams need to attend to task, relationship, and process, but not at exactly the same time.

Resources Mentioned in the Episode

• Episode 23 - How Conflict Impact Creativity
• Episode 8 - FourSight, an Interview with Blair Miller
• Episode 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 - The Creative Problem Solving Process
• Climer Consulting Facebook Page
• Amy's Twitter Feed

The Weekly Challenge

Take a look at the team(s) you are in. Where can they make the most improvement - in task, relationship, or in process? Talk with your team about the importance of each of these and dialogue about how you can improve to make the team even stronger.

The word team is often used a bit too casually to refer to any group of people working together. However, not all groups are teams. Knowing whether or not your group is a team or a working group can make a difference in how you work together. Both are valuable, but treating a working group like a team or visa versus can cause problems. Listen to this short episode to learn the difference and why it matters.

What You’ll Learn

* The definition of a team and working group and why you need to know the difference.

Resources

* The Wisdom of Team by Katzenbach & Smith

The Weekly Challenge

Assess the groups you are a part of, which are teams and which are working groups? Talk with the group and come to a consensus. Talk about why it matters.

Transcript

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

Transcript for Episode #033: The Difference Between Teams and Working Groups

Amy Climer: Welcome to Episode 33 of The Deliberate Creative Podcast. My name is Amy Climer. This podcast episode, we are going to talk about the definition of a team. That may seem kind of elementary, a bit silly, but this podcast is all about building innovation in teams, and I do not think I have ever actually defined what a team is. The reason I wanted to share it is because I had a huge aha! moment when I read the book The Wisdom of Teams by Katzenbach and Smith, and they define teams in there and it really helped me understand some confusion that I had experienced as a member of teams in the past.

Definition of a Team

So let me explain. Katzenbach and Smith give this definition of a team; that “a team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.” So there are three things that a team needs in order to actually be a team. There has to be a common purpose. There are performance goals; there are some goals that they are setting for themselves. And there is an approach and they are holding themselves mutually accountable.  

Now, I think this definition is actually somewhat aspirational, that high functioning teams would have all those three things. But perhaps not every team is there yet. But the aha! moment for me came when I was reading this and I read a different definition, the definition of a working group. Because I realized there are some teams that I have been on that actually were not teams but they were actually working groups.

Definition of a Working Group

So a working group is where members are coming together primarily to share information, to share best practices, or perspectives, and to make decisions to help each individual perform within his or her area of responsibility. So there is not necessarily a shared accountability, there is no common purpose, at least there is not like a small group common purpose. Ultimately at the end, each individual is making their own decisions about how they want to move forward and there is no collaboration, essentially.

So let me give you an example. I am a member of a mastermind group. If you are not familiar with mastermind groups, first of all, they are super awesome and I highly recommend creating one.

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

* 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.

Transcript

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

Transcript for Episode #032: The Creative Power of Intergenerational Teams

Amy Climer: Welcome to the Deliberate Creative Podcast Episode 32. My name is Amy Climer and Happy New Year everyone! This is the first episode of 2016 and I am very excited to kick off the first episode with an awesome special guest.

On today’s show I am interviewing Sarah Gibson of Accent Learning and Consulting. Sarah and I have known each other for a few years. We are both consultants in Madison, Wisconsin. Sarah is an expert on Intergenerational Teams. She has been working with teams and organizations for at least a couple decades, and she has written a book on intergenerational teams. She is here today to help us understand what generations are, and how they work, and how they can be both beneficial and how they can sometimes be a challenge within teams.

There are a number of resources that she is going to mention, and you can find all of those on the shownotes at climerconsulting.

The word team is often used a bit too casually to refer to any group of people working together. However, not all groups are teams. Knowing whether or not your group is a team or a working group can make a difference in how you work together. Both are valuable, but treating a working group like a team or visa versus can cause problems. Listen to this short episode to learn the difference and why it matters. What You'll Learn

• The definition of a team and working group and why you need to know the difference.

Resources Mentioned in the Episode

• The Wisdom of Team by Katzenbach & Smith

The Weekly Challenge

Assess the groups you are a part of, which are teams and which are working groups? Talk with the group and come to a consensus. Talk about why it matters.