Designing for Creativity: Design from Your Edges, Not Your Comfort Zone

We are most alert, alive and present when we are on our own creative edges, not when we are in our comfort zone. Designing to keep ourselves on our own creative edges can help bring fresh energy into the design.

It can be as simple as trying new variations of an activity (doing it non- verbally), a new type of activity (using a poetry-centered activity), or new ways of interacting (having people change levels physically). It can be anything that engages you in your own discovery. Talking with others who have different creating styles than you about what would keep them engaged, or bring out more of their creativity, is also helpful for ideas beyond your norm and comfort zone.

Designing for your own surprise—when you’re not exactly sure what might happen, but willing to be present to follow the emergence when it does—keeps you at your creative edge. While you are the one creating the container and holding the space, this role is balanced with your own openness to what emerges. Creative facilitation is a both/and open system.

Creativity thrives between disciplined and wildly undisciplined thinking.

Creative Edge Questions

• Where do I imagine my edges might be?
• Are there times I play it small, safe, or familiar in my facilitation because
  to play bigger means a change or commitment inside of myself?
• Are there places I only go if I feel certain the group would like it?
• Are there places I wish I could go, but hold back? Why do I hold back?
• In what ways might I add something new to what I do or how I do it?
• How might I use my knowledge or expertise, and still hold space
  for something beyond what I know to emerge?

From Chapter 5: Workshop Design in my book, Pattern Breaks: A Facilitator's guide to Cultivating Creativity. Link to book