The following contains excerpts from the book, inGenius (Tina Seelig).
At our music school in Odessa, Texas we teach that creativity is foundational to a successful life, as well as an artistic career.
This book’s subtitle, ‘a crash course on creativity,’ is appropriate, as the author demonstrates a remarkable knowledge on the subject. Her much research, combined with her own classroom experimentation on the subject, gives her substantial credibility.
From a philosophical perspective, she formulated a diagram of the key ingredients to creativity, those on the ‘outside’ and those on the ‘inside’. The inside ingredients are: 1) Imagination, 2) Attitude, and 3) Knowledge. The outside ingredients are 1) Culture, 2) Resources, and 3) Habitat. She concludes the book by discussing how all of these are inter-related.
Creativity Encouraged
Seelig sees the importance of developing an environment in which creativity and exploration are rewarded, and given rapid feedback. “If you want individuals to be creative, then you need to design a habitat in which the incentives are aligned with that goal. If you want teams to come up with new ideas, then you need to provide them with feedback that demonstrates that creativity is valued.”
Six Thinking Hats
We all play different roles on teams, and the author cites the book, “Six Thinking Hats,” by Edward Bono. “In Bono’s model there are six different roles we play on teams, each represented by a different colored hat. Most people have one dominant color, with one or two other colors close behind.
- A person who is drawn to the facts and is very logical wears the white hat.
- A person most comfortable generating new ideas wears the green hat.
- A person who uses intuition to make decisions wears the red hat.
- A person who is very organized and process-oriented wears the blue hat.
- A ‘devil’s advocate,’ who uncovers what won’t work, wears the black hat.
- A person eager to make everybody happy wears the yellow hat.
“The Six Hats model provides a useful vocabulary for group work of all types. For example, a team can explicitly state at the beginning of a brainstorming session that they should all put on their green hats in order to generate ideas…Later in the process, you can explicitly state that you are all going to put on your blue hats in order to plan for the next steps of the project.”
At our music school in Odessa, Texas we value the individual strengths each student brings into the artistic community. We elevate each person in the collaborative effort, as they learn to come together in artistic community.
Successful Group Communication
All groups should be able to communicate well. Stanford psychologist “Julian Gorodsky teaches classes on working in groups and coaches teams when they run into roadblocks…Julian and his team develop and test team communication tools, such as a checklist for teams to fill out to help them evaluate and improve their working relationships. Here are a few sample questions:
- Do you take time out for reflection and evaluation of your team process?
- Do you stay together when the team is under pressure?
- Do you divide the workload relatively evenly?
- Do you take responsibility for problems instead of blaming other?
- Are you respectful of personal and professional differences?
“Play is an important variable for successful creative teams. Simply put, when you play, you are having fun. When you have fun, you feel better about yourself and your work. And when you feel better, you are much more creative and deliver more. To quote Pixar’s Brad Bird…‘The most significant impact on a movie’s budget- but never in the budget- is employee morale. If you have low morale, for every dollar you spend, you get about twenty-five cents of value. If you have high morale, for every dollar you spend you get about three dollars of value. Companies should pay much more attention to morale.”
“Play is one way to create positive interactions between those on a team. This doesn’t mean that you spend your time doing frivolous things. Instead, it means that there should be a playful environment where experimentation and levity are encouraged.”
At our music school in Odessa, Texas we strive to make the learning process a fun environment, as well.
“Those who are skilled at collaboration, including athletes and musicians who are required to work in teams, know how to lead, when to follow, and when and how to sacrifice their personal goals for the greater good. For most of us, this education comes quite late in life, when we are thrown into a situation where collaboration is required and we are totally unprepared. Many people never master these skills…Teamwork is incredibly important when you are building organizations that foster innovation.”
Benefits of ‘Failure’
Seeing believes that allowing room for experimentation and for understating the value of ‘mistakes’ or failed experiments is one of the most important ways to be creative.
“Creativity is like scientific research in that it involves doing things that haven’t been done before. As such, creative endeavors are essentially experiments, and if they are really unique, you have no idea what will happen. The great news is that you already have vast experience with experimentation. Your entire life is one big experiment.”
“Experimentation is both a personal mind-set and a value in all organizations and communities. Individuals who want to increase their creativity need to be open to trying things they haven’t done before, even when the results are completely uncertain. In addition, organizations that want to be more innovative need to be supportive of experimentation and to communicate that individuals won’t be penalized for experiments that don’t’ work out as expected. As a result, experimentation is relevant in the Innovation Engine in two places- attitude and culture. Each community should be designed to encourage experimentation, and each individual needs to feel free to experiment.”
“Like scientists, we need to stop looking at unexpected results as failures. By changing our vocabulary, by looking at ‘failures’ as ‘data,’ we enhance everyone’s willingness to experiment. This is a big idea!”
“Successful innovations result from trying lots of approaches to solving a particular problem and keeping what works…If you aren’t throwing away a large percentage of your ideas, then you aren’t trying enough options.”
“Failure is a constant companion, and success is an occasional visitor.” (Mir Imran, medical inventor)
At our music school in Odessa, Texas we help students see that failure is an important part of the growth process. Seeing failure through the lens of a learning opportunity means that ‘failure isn’t final.’
Rewarding Risk
“Since experimentation inevitably results in unexpected findings, experimentation can be considered risky. In order to give people a chance to experiment with risk taking and failure, my colleague Leticia Britos and I created a workshop called the ‘Failure Faire.’ The room is set up like a carnival, balloons and all, with booths that participants can visit. One booth is focused on intellectual risks, and other on financial risks, a third on emotional risks, and a fourth on physical risks. We also give participants a ‘risk-o-meter,’ which they use to measure their comfort level when taking these different types of risks. The goal is for each participant to get a chance to think about the different types of risk taking and to reflect upon what it feels like to fail.”
We believe that experimentation is vital to the growth of each student in our music school in Odessa, Texas. It leads to an awareness of broader opportunities. Even if the experiment fails, it can lead to future breakthroughs of understanding.
“You can practice performing small experiments every day, until doing so becomes quite natural. These experiments need not be earth-shattering, just interesting.”
“Many established firms work hard to find ways to build a culture that supports experimentation, while keeping the trains of their core business running on time. For example, Google has a 70-20-10 rule. It puts 70 percent of its resources into the core business, 20 percent into experiments that are related to the core business, and 10 percent toward wild new ideas that will play out over a long time horizon and have a high risk of failing.”
We endeavor to create an environment of support for students to try new things at our music school in Odessa, Texas. The creative artist is always on the front end of carving out new pathways for others to follow. Questioning and experimenting is the only way to engage in the discovery of new opportunities.