OK I might have made a mistake by promising to do Creative Links on a monthly basis – there are simply too many good creativity posts. Or maybe it’s like buying a new car – as soon as you decide on the model you want, you see it everywhere. In the interests of keeping up and keeping things fresh I’ll have a go at doing Creative Links weekly from now on. But first here’s the edited highlights of what I found in January, sorted into categories to keep it manageable.

Where do ideas come from?
Scamp takes issue with a piece of research that claims Where Ideas Come From is other people. Beeker claims it’s ethical to Steal Well, and Faris, true to his motto that Talent Imitates, Genius Steals, Couldn’t Resist the joys of plagiarism. Neither could I – here’s the picture he doubtless nicked from someone else:

If you’re looking for a balanced view, Doc Searls weighs up the pros and cons of disclosing your ideas vs keeping them secret in his post 10 Ideas About Ideas (via Creative Generalist); while Brian Lee advocates a middle way between plagiarism and the pressure to be original, reminding us that Creativity Is A Communal Act.

Tortured Artists
It may just be wishful thinking but I don’t see why artists shouldn’t enjoy themselves (and their work) as much as anyone else. I’m glad to learn that at least Douglas Eby agrees with me, in this great post on Pain and Suffering and the Artist.

Creative Partners
The subject of torture brings us neatly to relationships. Scamp continued his excellent series of Tips for Creatives with Finding the Right Partner and How to Have a Good Relationship with Your Partner – useful advice interlarded with (for me) flashbacks to my days as a couples therapist.

Synaesthesia
As a fan of creative synaesthesia and inter-disciplinary creativity I was pleased to see Mark Hancock catch the synaesthesia bug when he ventured out of the advertising world and spent time with videogame creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi. Noisy Decent Graphics did a brilliant piece on What I see when I listen and Russell played around with Electroplankton, which looks a bit like an online, affordable version of the Reactable.

Creative Flow
Speaking of altered states of consciousness, Steve Pavlina wrote a great description of My Experience of Creativity, prompting my inner Creativity Trainspotter to tick off Csikszentmihalyi’s Nine Elements of Creative Flow – can you spot them all? Steve followed up that post with 7 Rules for Maximizing Your Creativity.

Planning
Adliterate hosted a cracking debate on the question Is Blogging Killing Planning? I’m not a planner so I’m not qualified to answer the question, but reading through the comments on that post and judging from the general quality of blogs in the plannersphere, I have to say planning is doing wonders for blogging.

Creative Collaboration
Staying with planning for a moment, John Grant argues the case for Planning as Mediation – between the (potentially conflicting) interests of the client, creatives and customer. Simon Darwell-Taylor bemoans the lack of inter-disciplinary communication in ‘the typical ad agency’, as opposed to the more collaborative approach of TV production. Yet the grass is always greener – Richard Wilson has started a wonderfully dour blog called TV Grouting, where he says:

TV and the internet don’t seem to me to be natural partners. The internet is based on the principle of sharing information and ideas and making everything cheaper. TV is about owning and jealously guarding ideas and extracting as much money as possible from them

He contrasts this sad state of affairs with the world of advertising, where planners like Russell are ‘willing to share their ideas ‘with any number of people who might be prepared to nick them’. (As if they would…)

So what can we conclude about creative collaboration?

• Creative people need to share to be creative
• Creative people get scared of sharing because someone might steal their creativity
• Creative people sometimes need someone around to get them to share a bit more
• Creative sharing looks terrific fun from a distance, it’s a bit messier close up.

For the pitfalls of creative collaboration, see Kathy Sierra’s brilliant The Dumbness of Crowds.

Creative Think
It’s almost impossible to single out individual pieces by Roger von Oech, they are all so consistently and variously creative, you might as well pick some at random – which is exactly what you can do if you click his picture on the Creative Think homepage. A couple of blog posts that stood out for me in January were Set A Deadline to Goad Your Creative Juices, countering the received wisdom that creativity is all about freedom from constraints; and his invocation of the God Janus to usher in the New Year by thinking something different.

Enterprising Blogging
Hugh McLeod knows a fair bit about blogging and being an entrepreneur, his random thoughts on the subjects are more memorable than most people’s considered musings.

Making a Living as an Artist
The online opportunities for creative producers can be bewildering – Jonathan Bailey clarifies the strategic options available in an excellent post on The New Content Economy.

Writing
Delve into the voluminous archives of Liz Strauss’ blogs and you’ll see she’s no stranger to Unblanking the blank screen so it’s worth listening to what she’s got to say about it. She’s got loads more great posts on writing, but 10 Ways to Start a Blog Post should keep you going for a while.

For What Not to Write, look at Claudinho’s post about 20 Words Most Used in Press Conferences. ‘Best of breed’ anyone?

And just when you’re relieved that the words are finally starting to flow, up pops killjoy Brian Clark to tell you Why Creativity Can Kill Your Copy. Brian’s a master of the headline that draws you in – admit it, you’re itching to know what’s so bad about creativity, aren’t you?

In my last post I described psychologist Mihaly [tag]Csikszentmihalyi[/tag]‘s concept of creative flow. Now I want to focus on how coaches and managers can help creative professionals achieve [tag]creative flow[/tag] more often in their work – and by doing so, produce creative work of a higher standard.

If you are responsible for managing or developing professional creatives or artists, I invite you to consider how you use the following behaviours, which can help you engage their full enthusiasm and continually raise the bar of creative performance.

Flow can be unpredictable and elusive. It requires a delicate balance of many different elements, so it cannot be controlled – in fact, a controlling mindset tends to interfere with it. But through coaching it is possible to influence performance in a way that increases the likelihood of achieving flow. And it should be taken as read that the following needs to be applied with sensitivity to the needs of each individual.

Creative [tag]flow [/tag]is defined by Csikszentmihalyi as “An almost automatic, effortless, yet highly focused state of consciousness” that occurs when we are working at the peak of our creative abilities.

See my previous post for a more detailed description of the nine characteristics of flow. Below I’ve listed these characteristics again, with each one followed by ways that you can influence it through coaching to help people achieve creative flow:

1. There are clear goals every step of the way. Goals are central to coaching – it has even been said that without a goal, you are not coaching. For any given task or project, ensure that the goal is clearly understood by all parties, and has the right balance between an inspiring challenge and a measurable target.
2. There is immediate feedback to your actions. Delivering genuinely constructive feedback is another fundamental coaching skill. By providing clear feedback on people’s creative work and their professional behaviour, you help your team to gauge their performance relative to the agreed goals. When dealing with highly skilled (and sometimes sensitive!) creatives, it is critically important to deliver feedback in a way that is appropriate to individual motivations, personalities and working styles.
3. There is a balance between challenges and skills. Take care to match tasks to people’s abilities and help them them to develop their skills, through coaching them yourself or offering other training or development opportunities. You should also notice whether someone is trying too hard or not enough, and compensate by switching to a supportive or challenging style of coaching accordingly.
4. Action and awareness are merged. When we are congruent, our actions, thoughts and feelings are all directed towards a single goal. Every person you manage or coach will be giving you many verbal and nonverbal signals that indicate their level of congruence. If you are sensitive enough to notice incongruence, you can address the concerns or conflicting priorities that are interfering with focused work – see 5.
5. Distractions are excluded from consciousness. If an individual is finding it difficult to focus on his/her work, you can use coaching as a forum for resolving the distracting issues. If there are perceived conflicting priorities, you can negotiate or explain the real priorities. If the individual is being held back by a lack of confidence or personal problems, you may be able to help by coaching them, or referring them to an appropriate specialist. If there is interpersonal conflict, you can address it by coaching the people involved and mediating between them. As a manager or director, you may have the authority to minimise external distractions such noise or demands from other workers.
6. There is no worry of failure. Coaching works on the assumption that it’s OK to make mistakes – as long as you learn from them. By delivering accurate feedback about performance and demanding that people learn from their mistakes, you ensure that failures become less frequent and less damaging. By creating an accountable but supportive environment, you help your people to spend less time worrying about failure and more time pursuing excellence.
7. Self-consciousness disappears. All artists and creatives have had the experience of being fully absorbed in a creative task, and entering the altered state of consciousness called ‘flow’. As a coach, you can raise the individual’s awareness of the flow state – such as the elements of visualisation, auditory imagination and physical sensation – and help identify the actions, environments and other triggers that lead to flow.
8. The sense of time becomes distorted. Although it is possible for a coach trained in hypnosis to use suggestion to create an altered sense of time, this is not necessary or desirable in a business context! For practical purposes, it’s best to regard this element of creative flow as a by-product of the other elements, and to simply notice the signs in others. For instance, are people clock-watching and eager to leave, or do they seem absorbed in their work and oblivious to the passing of time? Remember, this is not about monitoring their ‘timekeeping’, but noticing how absorbed and self-motivated they are.
9. The activity becomes ‘autotelic’ – meaning it is an end in itself. ‘Time flies when you’re having fun’ – a wise coach will bear this in mind, and pay attention to the levels of enjoyment within a creative team. This doesn’t just mean whether people are nice to each other or can share a laugh (although that certainly helps) but whether they find the work itself enjoyable and stimulating. If they do, then you don’t need to worry about ‘motivating’ them – and you can all concentrate on creating work that exceeds expectations.

[tags]business coaching, management, creative teams[/tags]

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is a psychologist who has devoted his career to researching happiness and fulfilment. His research has shown that although people enjoy indulging in pleasure, such as eating and drinking, sex and shopping, this eventually wears off, leaving us feeling unsatisfied. True happiness comes from learning and developing our skills to overcome meaningful challenges. When we are fully absorbed in doing this, we experience what Csikszentmihalyi calls ‘flow’:

Flow – “An almost automatic, effortless, yet highly focused state of consciousness.”

(from Creativity by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi)

When we are in [tag]flow[/tag], we are fully absorbed in whatever we are doing and find it easy to achieve peak performance. The experience is accompanied by intense feelings of pleasure and satisfaction.

Flow can occur in many spheres of human activity, physical and mental. Athletes call it being in the ‘the zone’, but we don’t have to run a marathon or win an Olympic medal do experience flow – we have all experienced the enjoyment of becoming absorbed in doing a task well.

Flow is particularly common in artistic and creative spheres, during those times when ideas, images, feelings and/or words seem to flow easily and the work takes on a momentum of its own. Many artists make big sacrifices in other areas of their lives so that they can pursue [tag]creative flow[/tag]. Professional creatives have typically had powerful experiences of flow, and can relate to the intense feeling of satisfaction when they enter flow – and equally intense feelings of frustration when they are unable to get into flow in their work.

Csikszentmihalyi identifies the following nine characteristics of flow:

1. There are clear goals every step of the way. Knowing what you are trying to achieve gives your actions a sense of purpose and meaning.
2. There is immediate feedback to your actions. Not only do you know what you are trying to achieve, you are also clear about how well you are doing it. This makes it easier to adjust for optimum performance. It also means that by definition flow only occurs when you are performing well.
3. There is a balance between challenges and skills. If the challenge is too difficult we get frustrated; if it is too easy, we get bored. Flow occurs when we reach an optimum balance between our abilities and the task in hand, keeping us alert, focused and effective.
4. Action and awareness are merged. We have all had experiences of being in one place physically, but with our minds elsewhere – often out of boredom or frustration. In flow, we are completely focused on what we are doing in the moment.
5. Distractions are excluded from consciousness. When we are not distracted by worries or conflicting priorities, we are free to become fully absorbed in the task.
6. There is no worry of failure. A single-minded focus of attention means that we are not simultaneously judging our performance or worrying about things going wrong.
7. Self-consciousness disappears. When we are fully absorbed in the activity itself, we are not concerned with our self-image, or how we look to others. While flow lasts, we can even identify with something outside or larger than our sense of self – such as the painting or writing we are engaged in, or the team we are playing in.
8. The sense of time becomes distorted. Several hours can ‘fly by’ in what feels like a few minutes, or a few moments can seem to last for ages.
9. The activity becomes ‘autotelic’ – meaning it is an end in itself. Whenever most of the elements of flow are occurring, the activity becomes enjoyable and rewarding for its own sake. This is why so many artists and creators report that their greatest satisfaction comes through their work. As Noel Coward put it, “Work is more fun than fun”.

So that’s the theory – read how to put it into practice through coaching in How Coaching Creates Creative Flow.