Subject: Creativity (was IBM Global CEO Study)

Posted by Chad Green on 8/12/2010
In Reply To:Creativity (was IBM Global CEO Study) Posted by Bill Braun on 8/10/2010

Message:

Bill, you could scale up that argument to include innovative organizations and society for that matter (e.g., the Google-Verizon
plan) :)

I just reviewed the IBM CEO study Capitalizing on Complexity (see link
below) and found this paragraph to be most salient:

"Commit to upsetting the status quo
Standout CEOs expressed little fear of re-examining their own creations or proven strategic approaches. In fact, 74 percent of them took an iterative approach to strategy, compared to 64 percent of other CEOs.
Standouts rely more on continuously re-conceiving their strategy versus an approach based on formal, annual planning" (p. 26).

This passage reminded me of a book that summarized the primary difference between excellent teachers and average teachers as follows:
exemplary teachers view challenging questions from students as opportunities for learning whereas average teachers perceive them to be threats to their authority. In other words, it's a matter of perception

Related to the importance of perception is a heuristic that I have been using lately:

Perception of Quality - Results of Actions/Design = Emotional Response

or (P - R = E)

The idea is "P" should always have a higher value than "R" (as it is
infinite) and "E" should never be equal to or below zero (i.e., perception is not equal to reality or no paradox exists). This equation relates to Schön's notions of reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action in education.

Discussing this simple equation with fellow educators has resulted in some interesting observations. For example, yesterday I asked a colleague what he thought if public education changed its focus from basic skills to targeting desired emotional responses (like marketing does). He said that we'd all become psychologists!

And that relates to my question: How can public education match the sophistication of corporate marketing messages that bombard the senses, supersede perceptions of quality, and ultimately infantilize society (see Barber's book Consumed)? In other words, how do we stop being victims of our own success?

The IBM CEO study also reminds me of Daniel Pink's prediction (A Whole New Mind, 2006) that the 21st century will become a Conceptual Age ruled primarily by creators and empathizers. (It's just a theory, of course.) But if Pink's prediction were taken seriously by policymakers, perhaps the following emotional responses would become targeted in education:
curiosity, inspiration, excitement, imagination, and love (of a topic/discipline/skill). These emotions can be found in the upper, activated area of the circumplex of emotion (see Figure 1:
http://www.ijdesign.org/ojs/index.php/IJDesign/article/view/66/15

Food for thought....

Chad