The Fertile Unknown

The Creative Economy

More than a passing trend, there is a global pattern emerging focused on mainstreaming creativity, connecting that which was previously divided, and generating creativity-informed structures and systems. Infusing creative process and imagination into business, politics, and culture is transforming our world at an accelerated pace as people establish groups, networks and organizations dedicated to consciously developing a life-giving future.

Creative Clusters is an international network and conference based in the UK, taking positive global action in the emerging collective effort to integrate creativity into mainstream culture and generate a creative economy. The following are excerpts from their web site and March newsletter:

Creative Clusters is the international conference, network and events programme for people working in the development of the creative economy. We are interested in development and regeneration projects that deliver outcomes in both cultural and economic terms. Our goal is to help people engaged in the development of the creative economy to communicate and share resources with one another.

Creative Clusters explores and advocates the idea that strategies for growth...should address the whole creative ecology, challenging traditional boundaries between art, business, education and science, between for- and non-profit enterprise, between economic, social and cultural policy.

The theme for Creative Clusters 2006 is Mainstreaming Creativity. After only a few short years in the policy spotlight, the creative industries are no longer considered a marginal or specialist sector, but are seen to impact on all areas of the economy. Around the world...creative industries appear as key components in both cultural and economic development plans. There are countless creative development projects in progress, there are rich currents of academic discourse, and there is a huge market of consultants and organisations with creative services and expertise on offer.

Increasingly, the concept 'creativity' is replacing 'knowledge' as the pundit's defining characteristic for the modern economy.

In short, the creative industries are here to stay, and they are a major force in global economic and cultural development...What is more, 'creativity' is increasingly being seen as the strategy that all businesses must adopt to take on the challenges of globalisation.

And if creativity is a driving force in economic development, are the values hitherto championed by culture, or by commerce, driving change? Or is there another future, a third way, in which people, places and profit reach a new accommodation?

Go to www.creativeclusters.com for more information on their conferences and mission.

Yes...Because...And

I'm in an improv theater performing group and we improvise full-length plays. In improv, information self organizes into meaning (a coherent story) and structure (a 90-minute play) from adhering to the principles, not from planning strategy - see December blog post "Contained by Principles."

Yes And. It is accepting the reality that someone offers, and adding a new piece of information to it: A: "Joe went to the store." B: "At the store (accepting reality), Joe got some bananas (adding something new)." And so on.

Yes And...Because, another popular version, takes it a step further. Not only do you accept and add to the reality, you justify (i.e.,this is important because) what you are adding: "At the store Joe got some bananas because, after the accident, he's been on an all-banana diet"...and a story is forming.

With organizations, I use another version I call Yes...Because...And with their real-world situations. In this version, people have to justify why what the other person said is important. It is the opposite of the current working paradigm of fending for yourself and selling your ideas. In this exercise, you have to justify why the other person's ideas are great, and they justify why yours are.

Imagine being in a brainstorming, visioning, or strategy session, and instead of everyone looking for what is wrong with what you said, they have to give reasons why it will work. This process faciliates people in supporting each other, moving beyond initial habitual reactions, and using the imagination to come up with novel ideas. It allows the ideation to keep moving and new potentials to emerge...and it builds trust and safety within the team (more safety = more original output).

Using Yes...And...Because for new product or strategy development: Each person accepts the feature the person in front of them added, justifies why it is a good idea, and adds a new feature, which then gets justified by the next person.

- Accept
- Acknowledge
- Justify
- Add

When it is over, your team has more ideas, more innovative ideas, and threads for new directions from which to choose. Then, after the new ideas and connections have emerged, you begin the process of discernment.

For more on the uses of improv in organizations, click the Improvisation button on my website and scroll to "Why Improvisation?"

Edgewalkers: The New Leaders

An Edgewalker is someone who walks on the "borderland" between two worlds. In nature-based cultures, the shamans entered invisible worlds to retrieve future-focused information, direction or guidance for their community. In modern society, Edgewalking occurs when we actively seek out the edges of accepted beliefs, assumptions and existing paradigms and choose to move beyond them, exploring, expanding and creating into new territory.

Because of the ability to navigate both worlds, the New Edgewalkers are the bridge-builders between current and emerging paradigms. The current paradigms are not expansive enough to address our current challenges - for that we need to push the boundaries of what we know. Edgewalking requires willingness to dip into the unknown and explore, walk the edges of old and new ways, meaningfully weave together that which has been with what is emerging, let go of that which no longer serves us, and create space and time for new ideas and systems, new ways of being and relating, and new experiences.

In her article, "Edgewalking: The Emerging New Century Leadership Paradigm," Cynthia Kemper, founder of the Edgewalker Institute, describes the New Edgewalkers. Here are a few excerpts from her article - I have focused on those that related to leadership and innovation in particular:

Our corporate leaders must take the first steps into this unknown often unpredictable territory at the frontiers. To assure long term success, our leaders must learn to live at the edges first, before they can expect others to do the same. t's only at the edges that new paradigms are formed.

New paradigms of business that may include product development, expanded markets or creative ways to communicate with new customers. Since innovative ideas and new solutions generally emerge from the margins - and rarely from the center of prevailing paradigms - learning to live at the confluence between different points of view, experiences, languages, cultures, religions etc. is actually the only way to stay ahead of the competition. For a leader to tap the future, he or she must live at the frontiering margins. There is no other way.

Edgewalkers are the translators, bridge-builders and communicators in a rapidly transforming world. They lead the way. They pioneer new paths, connect divergent worlds, and make the hard decisions that create a better, more fulfilling, safe and prosperous future for us all. In essence, they are the creators of our world. So the support and development of Edgewalkers is paramount - for their leadership, presence and contribution are the key to managing in an increasingly uncertain, changing world.

Edgewalkers are also courageous leaders who take stands, speak out, and challenge the status quo - with integrity, authenticity, and class. Because our world has rapidly outgrown much of what we knew and depended upon in the past, we're faced with tumultuous times of transformation in the months and years to come. Here Edgewalkers take the lead in understanding, envisioning and implementing these changes, while guiding, serving and reassuring those who follow.

Edgewalkers stand at the "edge" between two worlds, and make sense of them both. They live in the past - and the future - while thoughtfully applying their wisdom to the present.

Bottom line? A more globally integrated, interconnected approach to our diverse humanity and life/work choices is necessary for our corporate survival. Thus, at this pivotal point in history, a new leadership paradigm must be defined and birthed at the edges. One where thoughtful, globally-minded, well-rounded Edgewalkers — who come from the head as well as the heart — are heard, trusted, respected and followed.

Emergence in Evolutionary Dynamics 1

Emergence happens where the known and the unknown meet. By consciously engaging the unknown - going inward, reflecting, seeking patterns, making novel connections, telling stories that weave together different parts of the whole, using whole brain processes to draw out information, entering exploration and discovery mode, opening to new and expanded structures, seeking purpose, using creativity methods - the unknown begins to reveal itself as we create the next idea, product, system, service, approach, method, technology, etc. We begin to see interconnections that were previously invisible...and leaps in innovation can happen.

Since emergence is a natural process occurring all the time, we can choose to work with this dynamic process in creative ways for new levels of intelligence, integration and innovation. Tom Atlee, founder of the Co-Intelligence Institute, just put out an article entitled "Learning to Be Evolution." In it, he reflects on eight Evolutionary Dynamics, one of which I have posted here:

Self Organization and Emergence

Evolution has steadily enriched the capacity of life to organize itself into ever-more creative, remarkable, complex, and workable forms. The wonder of the universe is not that it was designed from outside, but that it is designing itself from the inside, and getting better and better at doing so.

As complexity increases, linear forms of understanding and management become less and less workable - both in the realm of human societies and ecologically in the world at large. The complexity sciences have vividly demonstrated that life operates primarily with distributed, evocative, loopy, self-generating, whole-system organic forms of organization and leadership, rather than through straight lines, boxes, command hierarchies, conformity, and unchanging rules (except for the deepest laws of nature).

Using whole-system forms of intelligence, life generates its own newness at the evolutionary edge, which we experience as emergence, as a creative upwelling within us, among us and around us. The growing body of knowledge about healthy self-organization and emergence can help us transform problems and crises into evolutionary leaps.

To read the entire article, click here.

Emergence in Evolutionary Dynamics 2

After I posted the last entry, I revisited a complexity sciences website I visit every so often and stumbled upon an article entitled "The Paradigm of Complexity: The Law of Emergence" that I think is a nice compliment to the previous post. It is written Dr. Vladimir Dimitrov, who heads the "Complexity, Chaos and Creativity" graduate program at the University of Sydney. The following are short excerpts from his article:

Emergence is a manifestation of the wholeness of our being, therefore the more developed our ability to see the whole picture, the totality and completeness of our relationships with the world and with our inner selves, the deeper our understanding of the emergent phenomena. Unfortunately, [when we focus] on tiny fragments of our experience...we lose the great connections and inner relations which give meaning and harmony to the flux of life.

Emergence can be perceived only in the present. By being occupied constantly with the past or by anticipating the future, we are far away from understanding the emergence...When we are free from the burden of the past and future, then we can fully ‘sense’ and experience the emergence.

Emergence exhibits rhythm and direction, which are at the core of any self-organising process (Dimitrov, 2000).

To understand self-organisation means to reveal consistency of its rhythm, stability its direction and continuity of its organic development. Although the mind is a powerful coordinator of our senses and instrument of our remembrance, projections and awareness, it is not enough to grasp the emergence and self-organisation.

Without the participation of our hearts and souls, without constant efforts to expand our consciousness and thus to grow in wisdom, the emergence and self-organisation will never reveal their secrets to us.

Shape Shifting

In Homer’s The Odyssey King Menelaus, stranded and longing for home on the remote island of Pharos, had nearly given up all hope. After weeks without the strong winds to carry his ship seaward, fate brought him to Eidothea, the daughter of the wise and just sea god, Proteus. Menelaus needed to know which gods were thwarting his return and how to go forth. She told him that only her father, the shape-shifter and soothsayer, could answer.

Before a question was answered, however, Proteus would test the seeker’s strength of purpose. He transformed himself into many shapes of animal and natural elements. If the seeker could hold onto Proteus through his myriad shape changes, Proteus would then answer truthfully any question put to him.

Menelaus summoned up all of his determination and courage before approaching Proteus. He grabbed Proteus and the sea god began rapidly transforming into a lion, a serpent, a leopard, and then a great boar in attempt allude the King. He even changed into running water and a tall tree. But Menelaus held fast. Recognizing he couldn’t shirk Menelaus’ strength of purpose, the sea god returned to his natural shape. Proteus then began answering the Kings questions, thereby assuring his return to his people.

In these rapidly changing times, organizations are finding that by holding on to a generative purpose (which may mean re-evaluating the current one), letting go of the old paradigm values and maximizing internal creative resources, they more easily embrace the fluidity of change. In doing so, they expand possibilities of what they can create and become. The process is as important as the results. In fact, becoming adept at navigating the creative shape shifting process is what facilitates new results.

Walking from Uncertainty to Discovery

Research shows that moving differently creates new neurological pathways that free up the brain to think differently - an essential ingredient for innovation and new solutions. Moving in non-habitual ways requires the brain to be used in non-habitual ways which then leads to novel thinking. (That's why improv theater groups use movement warm-ups - to get out of habitual thought patterns). It can also illuminate metaphorical states of being quickly and experientially.

Afterward, participants report that discovery feels the most free, most alive and the most comfortable - and they could be more effective and creative in that state of being. In going about our days, we can develop a new relationship with the unknown. By consciously choosing to transform that which we do not know into a discovery process, we can more easily move through the fear of not knowing amidst the uncertainty around us.

I created a workshop activity called The Awareness Walk which has many variations and dimensions. In it, participants walk and nonverbally interact in myriad ways, each one designed to have them experience the conceptual framework of a certain state of being. For example, they are asked to walk around and engage from a place of certainty, a place where they know the answers. Without exception, inevitably chests pop up, walks become linear and directed, bodies straighten up, eyes focus ahead, etc. Not too much interaction as people move around the room in a rapid, straightforward pace. Focus, yes. Newness, no.

Then they are asked to walk form uncertainty, a place where they do not know the answers. Bodies shrink, movement slows or stops altogether, eyes dart around or look down. Almost no interaction. There is a feeling in the room of fear, trepidation and judgement as they look like deers frozen in the headlights. The energy is stagnant. Neither focus nor newness surfaces.

Finally, they are asked to transform that uncertainty into discovery. They are told they still do not know the answers - still in the unknown - however, they now experience it from a state of discovery. Suddenly, the entire energy of the room shifts and awakens: they look about thoughtfully, they are fluid in their movement, they explore their surroundings with all of their senses, they are content, alert, curious and present. They look at each other. Movement goes back and forth from linear to non-linear as they keep moving ahead. There is a sense of content ease and a feeling of openness. Newness is possible.

Whole Brain Rap

In Dan Pink's book, A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future, he writes:

We are moving from an economy and a society built on the logical, linear, computer-like capabilities of the Information Age to an economy and a society built on the inventive, empathic, big picture capabilities of what’s rising in its place, the Conceptual Age...the capabilities we once disdained or thought frivolous—the metaphorically “right brain”qualities...will determine who flourishes and who flounders.

Hip-hop artist, Wyatt Jackson, was so inspired by Dan's book, he used more of his whole brain to create the Whole New Mind Rap about it. Click here to hear it.

Conscious Entrepreneurs and Creatives

Last Saturday I facilitated a portion of the Conscious Entrepreneurs and Creatives reception in Washington, DC. CEC was recently founded by Charlie Frohman. There was much energy in the room as people engaged in an accelerated networking process, talked about their passions as it relates to their work in the world, developed resonant connections, and generated future-focused seed ideas for this emerging community. Everyone was excited to move forward into this fertile unknown we are all creating together.

What does it mean to be a Conscious Entrepreneur? There are different definitions out there, but the one I like most (found on the social network zaadz) is “Getting paid to do what you love while serving the world.” The sustainable business model talks about the triple bottom line: people, profit and planet. From experience with my CE clients, conscious entrepreneurship adds passion, purpose and voice (or creative expression) to the mix. Conscious entrepreneurship is not limited to business owners – it is a way of thinking, acting and being that can be cultivated by anyone in any organizational system.

What about the "Creatives" part?  Cultural Creatives, a term coined by the authors of the book, Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People are Changing the World refers to a rapidly growing group of people who are reshaping the fabric of culture, work, business, service, community, expression, education, politics, ecology, etc. - collectively engaging the process of co-creating a new, integral, life-giving world. There is a Cultural Creatives Business Network for “passionate, conscientious business owners and corporate employees who are using their work to create a more healthy, more just world.”

I am so excited about CEC and the innovative directions we all are intuitively going together that the The Center for Creative Emergence is now one of the CEC sponsors, along with Globond, FLOW, Global Integral Solutions and others. If you’re interested in being part of a dynamic, lively, co-creative approach to business and service that integrates profit and passion, go to Charlie's website to sign up for the listserve.