Nick Owen - Professional Development - Leadership Development Framework

Creativity

"The sane fool has one way to see the world. the wise fool has many."

Too many people with responsibility for taking decisions, creating strategy, influencing people, and planning for the future put their playful, creative self away and become way too serious to see the world with the clarity of vision that a child has. Young children live in the present moment and see what is real without the accretion of assumptions and prejudices that blind most adults to what the wise fool sees.

When leaders and managers learn to reconnect to the wonder, awe, and curiosity with which a child or seer experiences reality, they can strip away the tendency to uni-perspectival approaches and engage with multi-perspectival exploration. Creativity offers structures through which to create cultures in which people can genuinely listen to each other and share the most powerful resources that are available to the organisation: the people and their ideas.

Of course we need to be serious, and we also need to be playful.
Of course we need to conform, and we also need to be creative and innovative.
Of course we need mastery over processes, situations, and relationships, and we also need to build empathetic relationships in which we can feel good about what we are doing together.
Of course we need to think about self, and we also need to think about others too.

In this way, we can build an organisation of foresight, insight and wisdom to which everyone can contribute and everyone can belong.

What would happen if an organisation was really like that?

Leadership is far too important not to see things without the illuminating perspectives and flexibility that come with creative thinking.