Creativity is your prerogative.For an organisation to transform itself into one that can flow with the pace of change, it will need to transform its thinking. This equates directly with mining our potential now. It is usage, not age, that determines the creative output from our brains.
It will be better still if these brains communicate with each other, for whilst magic does happen in one mind lost in reverie, it becomes dynamic when several illuminated minds meet within a sparkling shower of intellectual enthusiasm.
George Land, in his masterwork 'Grow or Die: The Unifying Principle of Transformation', conveys the basic law of human nature: the most fundamental drive of human nature is growth.
A more down-to-earth version of this sentiment emerged from Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s: “When you’re green you’re growing, when you’re ripe, you rot.”
In referring to the work of George Land, Joyce Wycoff focuses brilliantly on this theme, where three types of growth have been identified: Expanding – Extending – Evolving.
Expanding is about growing to our genetically determined size – physically and mentally. This could happen for example, to plants, animals and us humans.
Extending refers to an organism reproducing or merging and joining others of a similar type.
Once again, plant or animal life for instance, will grow to a finite size and then start producing “babies” that replicate them. This is the raison d’être for survival where all organisms evolve to a point where they are able to biologically reproduce themselves.
In another sense, we humans extend ourselves through our connections with others, be they family, friends, colleagues and even strangers – the need for contact is a fundamental drive in the average human being.
Evolving refers to the progressive change over time towards a more complex and better-adapted form. The time factor varies with the particular life form, but the evolution is certain.
Stimulation through interaction with other organisms and the environment, will instigate change at a faster pace.
Creativity involves all three stages of growth. It is up to us as unique individuals, to light the fires in our moments of darkness.
As James Higgins states,
“The message for the organisation is innovate or evaporate; for the individual, innovate or stagnate; for society, innovate or degenerate.”
In order to encourage creativity and innovation within an organisation, we need to recognise some factors of paramount importance; these deal with the human and humane elements within an organisation: Respect, Trust, Commitment and Recognition.
The biggest barrier to creativity is fear, which would be eliminated by absorbing the ethics of the four qualities just mentioned.
Fear leads to stress, which leads to distress.
Consultants, specialists, psychoanalysts, experts in various denominations of dysfunction, all proliferate in a society where fear has been allowed to prevail. Organisations fragment and crumble, educational institutions get enveloped in a fog of myopia, families communicate only virtually, and governments lead by misleading.
The recent spate of Fortune 500 corporate mega-scandals has led to the loss of millions of jobs, and done nothing to inspire hope: casualties of greed via creative accounting.
What a start to the New Millennium! It is the thinking-feeling individual that will transform society into one where humanity can prosper, by rediscovering a fresh consciousness of spiritual awareness.
We realise more of our divinity as we become more creative. The more creative we become, the more our spirits soar. When our creativity reaches a climax, when our lives radiate with creativity, we live in God (whatever our concept of Him or Her may be).
When we love what we do, creativity emerges as a fragrance from the blossom that lives within us. The value is intrinsic. Creative acts are love-affairs of the human spirit. No matter how small an experience may seem, it becomes great by the touch of love and delight.
[Excerpted from the 'Ideas on Ideas' edition of The Braindancer Series of bookazines by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.
From Say Keng:
In the light of Dilip's exposition, it is obvious that creativity obeys Mother Nature's command to grow or die, which is her single mandate. As a matter of fact, as George Land had articulated so beautifully, growth is the most basic & universal of drives, through which all biological, physical, chemical, psychological, & cultural processes are intrinsically equivalent.
Please read my personal review of George Land's more or less follow-up book, 'Breakpoint & Beyond: Mastering the Future Today'.]
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