Creativity: Are You a Hamster?

[chris]

When Sue and I came up with our AQ-KQ framework several years ago we included a section on the theme of creativity.

And under the theme of creativity we agreed there were three essential elements;

• imagination

• discovery

• fun & play
  
  

Many years ago, before I became a facilitator/trainer, I worked in jobs that had a distinct lack of imagination, discovery and fun and play. I felt like this hamster pedalling away, getting nowhere and eventually leaving (though not as dramatic as this hamster). When we go into organisations to run our transformational change programs I keep an eye open to see if the group has imagination, discovery and fun.

Of course most people do when they are allowed to express themselves freely and we see some amazing transformations in attitudes and behaviours.

But sometimes, where the culture of an organisation is tightly controlled and the mission and vision statements don’t match the actions they espouse then creativity is the first casualty. Why would anyone bother taking a creative approach to making the organisation the best it can become, if creativity is not encouraged?

Creativity is the lifeblood of any successful organisation and those organisations that don’t embrace it will end up like the hamster. Going nowhere fast and eventually flying out of control and disappearing.