Does Process Stifle Creativity?

A couple Friday's ago, I was in a meeting and I reiterated my mantra, "Process stifles creativity." A friend, well, I think she still is, nearly jumped out of her chair. "I need to correct you," she barked, "Only poorly implemented process stifle creativity." The suddenness and passion in her response caused the gentleman sitting between us to slide his chair back quickly in order to avoid being tangled in any physical altercation. The room was full of jeers for us to settle the dispute in the parking lot. Realizing I had just stepped in a hornet's nest, I made a joke of it. However, her attack does not dissuade me. I should have added a little clarity, since the offended friend is a co-author of the Association of Business Process Management's (ABPMP), Business Process Management Common Body Of Knowledge. But, the truth of the situation is that we were both out of order in this strictly facilitated meeting

Click to read more ...

The secret about innovation secrets « Scott Berkun

The word secret runs rampant not only in business magazines, but also in self-help books. To our general disappointment, often the tips and advice described aren’t secrets, and never were, as no one, not even the people mentioned in the articles, ever really tried to keep these facts ’secret’ from anyone. The word secret makes the boring sound fun. Doing laundry is pretty boring, but secret laundry almost sounds interesting. The word secret promises short-cuts, tricks, or things people don’t want us to know, which all connote ways to get one up on others. This little semantic trick works well on newbies, since they know so little, anything can seem like a secret.

Click to read more ...

Anybody Can Learn to Become A Better Idea Generator

Everybody can make himself better at creating ideas. People can increase their creativity by improving their knowledge about the topic ideas should be generated about, practising a range of idea-generation methods, making efforts to create a lot of ideas and having the right attitude, says Lassi Liikkanen, a researcher from Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT. Liikkanen has just finished his PhD on creating ideas in conceptual design. In his thesis, Liikkanen modelled the idea-generation process. For him creating ideas means that a person processes memorized information and combines it in new ways. According to Liikkanen, results improve if the person obtains more background information on the topic. The more a person knows about the topic and can learn from others, the more chances he has to make novel combinations of knowledge.

Click to read more ...

The CLF Roundtable on Creative Leadership in Times of Uncertainty

Facilitated by;
Ralph Kerle, Executive Chairman, the Creative Leadership Forum.

We are finding more than ever senior executives are uncertain of what the future holds and are seeking information, dialogue and conversation amongst their peers and stakeholders, customers and shareholders alike. Our Chairman has recently been involved in designing and running a series of highly successful Roundtables for Australia's leading executive education institution and one of Australia's leading IT companies and their clients with the purpose of surfacing an understanding of what is occurring now in their industry sector, what the emergent future might look like and how they might approach that emergent future creatively. The Roundtables consist of no more than 12 people, needs to be in a private dining room and run from 12noon to 2.00pm with the option of an extension when the conversations become interesting as they have - one lasting well into the afternnon. Guests must be senior decision makers only.

If you would like to know more about how these events operate, please contact Grant Crossley on gc@thecreativeleadershipforum.com