The Fertile Unknown

Creative Mindsets at Work

Michelle [email protected]

Facilitating Creative Process: Being with the Awkward Silence

Inevitably, when facilitating creative process;
introducing participants to a new activity, process
or framework; or asking them a question they
don't readily know the answer you get a
deer-in-the-headlights look, often accompanied
by a palpable silence.

This silence can feel awkward for facilitators. It did for me when I first started facilitating, and I used to do anything to fill it - re-explaining or over-explaining what I just said, asking them questions, asking for their questions, interjecting comments, or anything else to try to reduce the uncomfortableness in the room - theirs and mine. Until I got that this is part of the emergence process when introducing people to something new and unfamiliar for them. I learned over the years to love the pauses, and see them as fertile and alive, and an indication of creative up-leveling.

They are processing in the silence. They are taking it in. They are experiencing the dissonance and discomfort (for some) that comes with learning something new, making new connections, or taking a perceived  - or real - psychological risk within a group. They are thinking, reflecting, and being with whatever you just asked. It's new so not readily available to their conscious awareness. The more experience I got, the more inner work I did, and the more I learned about the brain and its natural meaning-making system, the more I came to love these palpable "pregnant" moments of potential, before something emerged.

Here are some reflections on holding the space and be with the silence while facilitating creative process:

1. Give them the time to take it in and be with it. Hold the space. If they ask questions for clarity of your instructions or your question, clarify. Then go back to holding the space without intervening or trying to fill it. Hold the space for someone to eventually say something, or start the process.

2. Hold the space with positive intention. Have faith in them and their creativity - even if they don't. If you hold the intention that they will absolutely be able to do come up with what they need, you impact the energy in the room differently - with an inner authority - than if you are filled with doubts about whether they can do or get it. Or if they'll like what you're doing. The facilitator is there to be the strong container-holder for the participants, not the other way around. If you hold it with peace and ease in your heart, they will feel it, and it will open them up and put them more at ease.

3. Let it take however long it really takes. (Not how long you think it should take.) Whether they feel ready, or just feel uncomfortable in the silence, someone will eventually start the process. Every time. Then others will follow. That is creative process, and the "group field" at work. Jumping in too soon breaks the dynamic tension that is often needed in the creative process for something new to emerge.

4. Do your inner work to hold space with your full presence. That might include your own pre-workshop rituals to get yourself centered, or energized, or whatever you need to be able to hold space with presence. Being present mean showing up as the facilitator full-on to whatever shows up in your session, and standing in that presence for the group as they navigate their doubts or fears.

5. Delight in and support whatever does finally emerge. If it needs re-direction, or modified instructions, do it then...but build on and support what is happening - that will bring out more from the group. They're already are infinitely creative - you're just helping them remember that, and part of that is giving them the space to pause as they generate from within.

Take what resonates and leave the rest. :-)

Michelle James ©2019
Image from: https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/22654108/deer-in-headlights

Look for more on this topic and others in my upcoming book, Pattern Breaks: A Facilitator's Guide for Cultivating Creativity

The Energized Facilitator: Getting the Most out of Creative Process Facilitation

image from fitnessandwellnessnews.com

As a facilitator of creative process, your energy has an impact of those in the room. It’s an often overlooked part of facilitating creativity, yet it's the most immediate, primal, and direct way of connecting in ways words and actions alone can not (like when someone walks in a room and you get a feel about them before they even say anything). Most people feel energy immediately and instinctively, before the analytical brain gets on board to think about it. Your energetic state can help draw out or hinder the creativity of others, as well as your own.

While most facilitators of creative process already have Energizer activities for participants, not all take time to prepare their own energetic field before the workshop. The energy you enter a space with, and cultivate as the day goes on, adds to or takes from participant experience. Actors, improvisers, athletes all warm-up before they preform. They don’t just show up and start performing. Similarly, warming yourself up with pre-workshop “energizer rituals” helps you not only get present, but also energized and enlivened. If you find ways of energizing yourself before entering the room - “prep rituals” you do alone before the workshop starts - that begins to create an energized container for participants as they enter. Because energy is something felt, and not thought, it is immediate, and has an impact on the nervous system of participants, non-verbally - not just their minds.

There's no limit to the ways you can generate energy for yourself before a workshop or meeting. Over the past 14 years facilitating Creative Facilitation workshops, I’ve heard countless ways facilitators get energized. I play around with different ones myself to keep it fresh in me, and to stay on my own creative edges, mostly improvising as I go with the goal of trying something new. The times I did not warm up, I noticed a difference in the group’s creative energy, cohesiveness, and output, and how I was holding their energy. I learned the hard way how important it is for me to do my own energy prep work. Some people naturally have a full-on energizing presence any time of day, and in almost any circumstance…and others of us can cultivate it consciously.

You can try it playing around with Brain Gym (Google it), dancing wildly, moving non-habitually, brain teasers, tongue twisters, acting things out, meditation and other centering practices, yoga, marshal arts, and other body-centered practices, solo improv games, etc. If you do something more meditative, try also adding in something that expands and heightens your energy, so you can hold an expanded energetic space for a group - a big part of generating risk taking and creative novelty form a group. And, if you try something that pushes your own envelop - breaking your pattern with something you normally do not do - which also engages your own creative edges, the brain research repeatably shows that enhances presence, creativity, and adaptability.

If you already have awesome activities and content to share, and they are interactive and highly participatory, you can take it to a new level if you take some time to generate your own energy before showing up. Preparing yourself energetically is like starching out like a rubber band when you are by yourself, so when you get with a group, you are energetically flexible enough to expand out to whatever emerges in the group. Research had also shown that most people in groups will either consciously or subconsciously not feel psychologically safe to out-energize a facilitator, and that can impact what and how they create. A facilitator who shows up as flexible, energized, and ready for anything makes it safer for participants to engage more enthusiastically and energetically in interactive activities, and explore their own creativity in a group and each other’s creativity as a group.

If you try something new that works well for you, or if you want to chat about some ideas for your next facilitation, please drop me a line. :-) 

©Michelle James 2018

How to Bring Creaitvity to Business - My interivew on the TalentGrow Show

I was recently interviewed on the
TalentGrow Show by Halelly Azulay.
Click here to listen: 

http://www.talentgrow.com/podcast/episode23

In the show we discuss:

• How to build bridges between business and creativity
• The role of discomfort and safety in generating a more creative workplace
• Ways to borrow principles from the world of improv theater to bring more creativity to business
• What it means to be a creative leader
• Where resistance comes from and how to overcome it
• Why using creativity gets you more business bottom line results more easily and joyfully
• The key to applied creativity
• Ways you can create your own job description, think in new ways, go beyond the status quo and existing structures and create something new
• The most important foundational element that can help cultivate creativity 
• The importance of protecting your creative ideas from initial criticism that could otherwise destroy them
• Why is it okay to let go of comfort, but never of safety, when working on infusing more creativity in your work and your team
• A great improv principles that can support greater creativity, innovation, and risk-taking in your team
• Thinking of both of the immediate challenge you’re trying to creatively solve and the long-term relationship and culture you’re trying to foster when coaching employees to creativity
• How to use transparency to get your employees to support your own growth and creativity
• One idea to put to work right away that will help you shift your thinking about creativity
• An ebook I'm giving away to listeners to support your development
  
  

Listen Here

Whole Brain Thinking and Applied Improvisation for Innovation, Ideation and Creative Problem Solving

I was recently interviewd by Michael Smith, President of  TeraTech, on the Conscious Software Development Telesummit on Whole Brain Thinking and  Applied  Improvisation for Innovation, Ideation, and Creative Problem Solving. Below are excerpts from the transcript of the interview. For the complete interview, along with some techniques to apply, sign up for the Conscious Software Development Telesummit for FREE at http://conscioussoftwaredevelopment.com

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Michael:  What  do you mean by "whole-brain thinking" and why is that important?  

Michelle: Whole-brain thinking, or the way I would describe it, is using more of our innate capacities. We were born to both think in linear/logical ways as well as holistic/intuitive/metaphorical ways. Integrating whole-brain thinking is just bringing more of our natural thinking into the workplace, for our intuitive thinking, metaphorical thinking, our capacity to see both the big picture and the details, our capacity to both think from synthesis and integration as well as sequentially, imagining and observing, being able to envision beyond what is, plus in addition to more of the left-brain/linear, proving and verifying, expanding and reducing.

It's using complimentary types of thinking - thinking both in terms of possibilities and strategies and in terms of context and interdependencies…using the visual mind and the verbal mind, not just left-brain/linear-dominant thinking only. By integrating multiple ways of thinking, and using more of our whole-brain capacities even in ways we haven't been socialized or trained or educated in the workplace to do, and by bringing more of arts-based and other different types of thinking into the workplace, it's easier to create new ideas, and create new ideas much more quickly. It accelerates the learning and creativity path that we might be on and expands the mental playing field so we have more options and choices.

Michael: A lot of organizations are pretty left-brain orientated, so how do you integrate this into a company culture?

Michelle: In some ways there's some cultural specificity around it, and in other ways it's more general. I'll speak to the more general ways. For example, resistance. Understanding that once you try to integrate new ways of thinking into any group, individual group, team, or culture, you're going to naturally have some resistance. I call it "natural resistance" because it's the same kind of resistance that you find in nature.

In nature, all systems are designed to maintain the status quo until the new birth starts to emerge. For example, the chick coming out of the egg doesn't feel the resistance of the shell until it's ready to be born. Similarly, you find that as soon as people start to integrate more whole-brain thinking, different kinds of thinking, or different types of practice in the organization, you might initially find some resistance, because there's always those trying to more maintain the status quo while others try to bring in the new thinking.

One framework I like to use is divergence and convergence. Divergent thinking is going big and wide, building on things, engaging possibilities, visualizing, seeking out what's unusual. We hear about it often in brain-storming…suspending judgment as you're expanding the playing field - expanding what's possible - but you do it for a certain amount of time, not indefintely. Then you bring it back into a convergent thinking where you're narrowing the playing field, you're selecting from the ideas, contracting, honing in, discerning, focusing, rating by criteria, making sense of…

Unfortunately, what happens is many people don't leave the convergence to go into convergence. They will get meetings and say, "All right, now let's organize what we have," but they haven't stepped out beyond their current framework to play with and expand possibilities first. When you play with possibilities, it is messy, and it might not make sense for awhile, and it can look a little crazy. Like Einstein said, "If at first the idea is not absurd, there's no hope for it," and while that doesn't mean all good ideas appear ridiculous at first, it really speaks to oftentimes the seed idea is the instinct for something new, it's messy, it's just a seed, it's not refined. It needs to be nurtured into fruition to become something viable. So before you evaluate it and start to converge, begin to explore with it, play with it, build on it, add to it…taking something beyond just convergence and adding in time for divergence.

I'll give an example of how this looks in one organization I worked with, a very large organization, where they used to have meetings that they felt the creativity wasn't their problem, but everybody was vying for who's idea was better. They started applying some of these principles and practices and giving this process lot more divergent space. They started calling their meetings "Discovery Sessions." They allowed for a certain amount of divergence time. If they had an hour, maybe twenty-five minutes was in divergence first. They started finding that they were creating better ideas, more novel ideas, more collaborative ideas…and when it came time to get the convergence, the convergence went so much more quickly because they allowed themselves some divergence first.

I would say allowing conscious time, consciously creating a space to diverge, where no one can judge or evaluate ideas, you just build on them, explore them, and expand them, before you go into the convergence where then you rate it...then you connect it to the criteria and the objectives of the problem that you have. Then, just knowing that sometimes you have to practice low-risk, low-stakes exercises, practices or games, they might seem frivolous, but by practicing low-risk, low-stakes
exercises, then that better prepares you for high-risk, high-stakes problem solving. With this practice, you become more nimble and flexible and adaptive inside yourself. That piece is connecting to, looking at new, perhaps non-conventional principles and practices to sort of break those patterns, so you begin to think differently.

Michael: Earlier you mentioned using applied improvisation and you talked about you take part in improvised plays for 10 years. I'm not sure everyone here has even attended an improv session or knows what that means. When you say "improvised plays" does that mean there's no script whatsoever for the play and the actors just make up the play on the spot?

Michelle: Yes, I'm glad you brought that up, because that distinguishes improvising, like improv theater, like you might see on Whose Line, or improvised plays like our performing group used to do which the goal, the objective, was to entertain the audience using improvisational theater principles and practices. We would use the improv principles, but there was absolutely no script. We would completely improvise a full-length play, and that's when I discovered the power of the improv principles…because by adhering to the principles and the practices of improv, you truly could self-organize and create something out of nothing, and you'd begin to learn that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, which is a big facet of Emergence.

Applied improvisation, in the way we use it in organizations, is taking the same principles and practices, but with a different goal or set of objectives. The goal isn't for entertainment, the goal isn't to be improv theater performers for people who go out on a Friday night to watch you. The goal with Applied Improvisation is whatever your business goals are: better leadership, solve problems more quickly,  think more creatively, adapt, have more cohesive co-creative teams, reduce turnover, more novel ideas if you're doing product development, or any kind of development, etc.

Your applying improvisational theater principles and practices to something larger than performance. For example, in my work with organizations I don't throw people up there to perform improv because the goal isn't to teach them to be performers. I often get them working either as a whole group or with partners or in small groups using various improv practices and games, but, most significantly, embodying principles to work on real-world issues or problems they're solving or visions they're creating.

The practices are simply a way of embodying the principles, but it's the principles in action that are what's transformative. For example, "yes, and" except most organizations live by "yes, but". So "yes, and" is very good in the divergent space. Heighten and explore, allow yourself and your ideas to be changed by what's said and what happens. Those, and may more, are a big part of improvisation. You're up there and something new emerges and you have to adapt instantly. You don't fight it, you don't resist it, you just adapt to it, and you allow your character to be changed, you allow your ideas to be changed, you allow the direction to be changed. That's a real significant part of the creative process when developing anything.

Another thing about improv, because it happens in real time, you're focusing on presence over polish. Oftentimes, in brainstorming sessions or ideation sessions, people are afraid to speak up or they wait until their idea's fully formed. In improv, literally the practices force you to be so present, you have to say something, you have to say something right away, and by practicing that, you truly bypass the editor, and you become more comfortable with throwing things out there. If people have to, for a certain agreed upon amount of time in the divergent space, "yes, and" it, go with it, explore it and expand it, the first idea thrown out often isn't the best idea. It may be, but in many cases, it's just a seed idea
or it's has a messy fragment of a good idea, and by expanding it and exploring it, and "yes, and-ing" it, you give it the chance to become something new and different.

There are many more, but one other very significant part of doing a lot of creative activities and improv-based activities with people and organizations is that you begin to have a different relationship to failure and the concept of making mistakes. Mistakes become invitations to create. Mistakes are simply iterations in the creative process. They're not binary finalities, like "yes/no", "good/bad", "right/wrong". They're invitations to modify, to explore, to grow. A lot of people know that when you're prototyping, you then try it out and you modify it. One of the things that improv-based practices allow you to do is get a lot of practice in realtime with instant modification, instant trial and error, and so then you become less resistant to change, and more adaptive when you're doing it around a real world project.

Michael: Do the principles, in your experience, make a difference? Does it really make a difference whether you literally say, "yes, and" to someone's idea instead of "no, but"?

Michelle: Literally saying the words "yes, and" can be helpful at first, and is simply a good way to remind your mind to do it, but it really is more the concept of "yes, and-ing" - the concept of accepting an idea as it is offered and building, adding onto it, before you negate it, before you hone in and say, "Well, that won't work, because…" that makes the huge difference. That, to me, is the difference between generative thinking - which is connected to the divergence process, and critical thinking - which is often connected to the convergent part of the creative process.

Both are essential, but the key is not to go immediately into the critical thinking, until you've gone into some generative thinking. I like to think of it in terms of the way nature generates and creates. The branch "yes, ands" the tree, the leaves "yes, and" the branches. Nature creates generatively. Our mind is designed to create generatively, and unfortunately, we are not socialized and educated into doing that. But we have nature on our side - remember back to when you're a little child or watching kids play…someone throws out an idea, and others instantly add onto it. They start creating fantasy worlds and they're "playing pretend" and they're building on each other's story. Then all of a sudden, we go to school and we get thrust into binary thinking, so we leave our natural beautiful, multidimensional way of creating and making associations and connections, and we get into binary thinking - right/wrong; good/bad;  yes/no.

People begin to associate that if you get the "right" answer, you're a good person or a smart person - so then people freeze up, afraid of saying something wrong or silly. "Yes, and" is simply a way, a tool, of getting back into your natural generative, creative self. Then, you generate more ideas, you think of them and then you can use some of the more critical thinking to put it up against, "What are the criteria we're trying to beat here? What are the objectives we're trying to create?" Absolutely. "Heighten and explore" is another big improv principle which fits into that.

The principles, it's been my experience, are what create the container for new ways of thinking, new ways of interacting, new ways of being, and therefore, new and more accelerated ideas to emerge. It allows people to be safer, to put ideas out there, so you do get the most of your teams, and you get the most of yourself.

Michael: Is this more a team or co-creative way of solving problems vs. a hierarchical way as well?

Michelle: It's very much a team and collaborative and cocreative way. It can also be a very individual way. You can "yes, and" your own thinking. Often we, in the shower or running or doing something, get an amazing idea and in that moment we get excited. Then all of a sudden, before we allow ourselves to "yes, and" each other or "yes, and" our own idea, we find all the reasons it won't work, and we start "yes, but-ing" our own creative ideas, so individually it works.

Even within a hierarchies this can work if the leaders are embracing the principles. It becomes challenging if you have a "yes, and-ing" team and a "yes, but-ing" leader of that team. I think it's less that hierarchy impacts it, it's more the way of being in the mindset and the principles that the leaders within the hierarchy embrace - that creativity is there available for anyone, no matter who you are in the organization. It always behooves a leader to be able to embrace principles and practices that will allow the most creativity to emerge from their employees.

Michael: How do the rules of improv fit in with a more conscious way of being and creating software?

Michelle:  I love the improv principles because they lend so well to a collaborative work culture, a collaborative team, and collaborative groups. First of all, you don't have to agree with someone. There's a difference between accepting an offer and agreeing it, and the idea of acceptance allows an idea to be heard before you jump down on it.

You don't have to necessarily like everything about a particular person, but if we agree on some principles of engagement - that for the next twenty minutes or the next two days we'll apply them - or that we want to embed in part of our ongoing culture that we're going to do, then it creates more spaciousness and more safety for people to think of ideas.

A big part of consciousness, in general, is becoming conscious of what is in front of you. It helps you become very present. You listen more. You listen more deeply, you listen more generously, and by that meaning you're not listening for what you're going to say next, you're listening to what the person really has to say, and in that, if you are completely present, you then have so many options of how to respond. If you're present within yourself, which improv principles and practices help you access your own presence, when you're more present within yourself a well wellspring of options and possibilities emerge that you know would not have previously imagined.

You are not trapped by a pre-designed agenda, although that can be a guide and a starting point, but you're interacting with truly what's happening in the moment, whether it's in your own creative unconscious as you're generating ideas or if you're collaborating with others. By being completely present, you have access to an abundance of creativity that you don't have, if you have an idea you're going to be set on the idea, and then your only goal is to push that idea forward.

It may happen that you have a great idea and you do push it forward, but by being present it becomes much more clear if there are other options and other people can contribute better to that idea. I think presence and consciousness go hand-in-hand, and these principles are simply a way to help activate more presence in a group or a system. Another thing is, by practicing a lot of these in low-stake, low-risk environments, you begin to naturally embody it more in your everyday life.

For the complete interview, along with some techniques to apply, sign up for the Conscious Software Development Telesummit for FREE at http://conscioussoftwaredevelopment.com

Creativity-Centered Work Paradigm

Image source: Fotalia

Last year we curated a Creativity in Business eBook asking over 30 other creativity and innovation practitioners, facilitators and leaders the same 6 questions...and got a myriad of diverse approaches, ideas, philosophies, inspirations and practical applications. Over the course of 3 years, I shared them on this blog before forming them into an eBook. I tried the exercise of answering the questions myself, and my responses are below. To download the complete book of all 32 interviews, along with applicable practices click HERE.

My take on the 6 questions:

How does your work engage creativity?

My calling so far feels like it has been to integrate the worlds of creativity, service, meaning and commerce; cultivate whole brain, whole-body, whole-person engagement and full-on aliveness in the workplace (and in life!); and help co-create - with others who are similarly inspired - new, more generative foundations upon which to develop soul-based, vibrant businesses, organizations and communities. Also, my work (The Center for Creative Emergence) integrates more “yin” practices, whole-brain and body-centered practices and ways of being into the more conventionally “yang” left-brain dominant work culture. All of my workshops and events are highly audience-experiential – with the focus being on the emergent creativity of whose in the room.

What do you see as the New Paradigm of Work?

This is a big question for me, one I have been exploring for a long time. One of the meta themes that I see emerging is that the new work paradigm resolves the paradoxes of the conventional paradigm – in values, mindsets, and ways of thinking, being and interacting. In other words, what has been considered opposites, or “either/or” choices in a limited work world view is moving into “both/and” opening of myriad possibilities in an expansive, creativity-centered framework. The new work paradigm has a a much larger playing field – our concepts of success, making a living, service, purpose, meaning, creative expression are changing. The lines are blurring…these things are not silo-ed and separated as much. Creativity is no longer seen as “woo woo” or something you engage after work on your free time – it’s right in the center of the new work paradigm.

A creativity-centered paradigm requires new foundational principles of engagement. The same rules that applied for a static, conformity-based, do-as-you-are-told workplace are very different than those of a dynamic, alive, adaptive, resilient, independent-thinking, creative workplace. I believe we have much to learn from the principles of improv theater (yes-anding, makes everyone else look good, serve the good of the whole, mistakes are invitations to create, etc.) to help us both adapt to and co-create the new paradigm. I’d love to see improv theater training as part of the core training curriculum at all organizations – it’s hugely transformative.

What do you see as the role of creativity in that paradigm?

I see it as the core. Breaking old patterns, creating new foundations, developing more generative structures, and the expressing richer, fuller, more alive aspects of ourselves require us to actualize deeper levels – and use multiple expression - of our creative potential.

What mindsets do you see as essential for navigating the new work paradigm?

A shift in core values and foundational ways of being that are more expansive, generative and inclusive. I see the new mindsets as “Yes Anding” and containing older ones, and adding a new dimension to what was there before - a developmental, emergent process.

Some of the emerging mindsets I see are moving from either/or thinking to include more yes-anding, generative thinking; moving from valuing conformity and getting it right to valuing more exploration and original thinking; not just tolerating, but actually anticipating mistakes as part of the creative process and allowing for it much more liberally than in the past; moving from seeing “failure” as binary (pass/fail, right/wrong, good/bad) to experiencing it as an iteration - an invitation to learn, grow and evolve; moving from a selling-only mindset to a service mindset; using intuition and resonance as much as logic in decision making; increased comfort in improvising; using more heart, empathy, caring, co-creation in structuring the workplace, establishing the culture and environment, and engaging our work daily; and more focus on empowerment coming from the creativity withIN ourselves to name a few.

What is Creative Leadership to you?

A Creative Leader, to me, is a leader who chooses to use more of his or her own creative potential on an ongoing basis – choosing to always learn and evolve personally as well as professionally; one who is dedicated more to exploring possibilities than being right, and more to discovery than maintaining the status quo. Creative Leaders facilitate meaning, creativity, and contribution of those he or she serves – employee, colleague, team member, customer, participant, etc.

Creative Leadership is paradoxical: strong and soft; directional and flexible; strategic and emergent; focused and open. The creative leader, to use and improv terms, does what he or she needs to serve the scene…sometimes taking a lead role, other times support role and following what is already happening….stepping up and letting go as the situation dictates. Creative Leaders welcome, inspire, and awaken the Creative Leadership in those they lead.

MAKING IT REAL  

Image source: The Agency Post

What is one practice that people could start applying today to bring more creativity into their work or work place?

Transforming uncertainty into discovery. Once uncertainty is no longer something to be avoided, you can use it as a creative resource. It goes form being intimidating to being fun…and can lead to surprising creative breakthroughs. Here is an exercise to get started in making the unknown your BFF.

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. (i.e., improv theater groups use movement warm-ups to get out of habitual thought patterns and get fully present to create).

I created a workshop activity called The Creativity Walk which has many variations. In it, participants walk, move and nonverbally interact in myriad ways, each one designed to have them experience the conceptual framework of a certain states of being related to aspects of the creative process. One is discovery.

The Discovery Walk

In this practice, participants 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 judgment as they look like deers frozen in headlights. The energy is stagnant. Neither focus nor newness surfaces.

They are then 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 contentment, ease, and a feeling of openness. Connections are made. Newness is possible.

There is a noticeable visceral difference between openness of the discovering unknown shut-down stuckness of the fear-based unknown. In both cases, we are with the unknown. In the former, we have possibilities open to us. Once felt in the body (embodied), it is much easier to re-access that feeling later when faced with uncertainty in real work and life situations. Discovery is instant empowerment.

You can do this as a team or group, or by yourself in a room. The key is to really feel the discomfort of static uncertainty in the body, and then let it transform into the dynamic openness of discovery. By consciously practicing transforming 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 on a more consistent basis.

~ Michelle James ©2012

For 31 other approaches to these same 6 questions, and 31 other creativity practices, download the  Creativity in Business eBook  (FREE for the next month!)

Mistakes as Invitations

FREE Creativity in Business eBook: Navigating the New Work Paradigm

For the next month, we're offering the Creativity in Buisness eBook to download for FREE! 
(regularly $9.97)

In it, 32 Creativity and Innovation Thought Leaders explore 
navigating the new work paradigm, applied creativity and innovation. Each content-rich interview includes a "Making in Real" section with juicy exercises to apply to your work!


Includes interviews with Dan Pink (A Whole New Mind), Michael Gelb (How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci), Kat Koppett (Training to Imagine), Dr. Win Wenger (The Einstein Factor), Julie Ann Turner (The Creator's Guide), Stephen Shapiro (24/7 Innovation), Dr. Paul Scheele (Natural Brilliance), Peggy Holman (Engaging Emergence), Mike Bonifer (Game Changers), Gregg Fraley (Jack's Notebook), Sam Horn (POP!), William Smith (Your Creative Power), Jeff Klein (Working for Good), Annalie Killian (Chief Magic Officer at AMP), Michael Margolis (GetStoried), Robert Richman (Zappos Insights), Dr. Stan Gryskiewitz (Positive Turbulence), Larry Blumsack (Face-to-Face), Brian Robertson (Holocracy), Frank Spencer (Kedge), Corey Michael Blake (Round Table Companies), Leilani Henry (Being & Living Enterprises), Seth Kahan (Visoinary Leadership), Tim Kastelle (Innovation for Growth), Seth Kahan (Visionary Leadership), Cathy Rose Salit (Performance of a Lifetime), Jay Rhoderick (Bizprov), Marci Segal (Creativity Land), Russ Scheon (Creative Leadership), George Por (Collective Intelligence), Doug Stevenson (da Innovise Guys), Rick Smyre (Communities of the Future) and Michelle James (The Center for Creative Emergence)

Click here to download your free eBook.

Expand Your Story: Improv for Creative Reinvention

This was a from an online talk I gave on Creative Reinvention using principles and story-based practices from improvisational theater...one of the ways to live into a larger story....

http://www.slideshare.net/mjames7770/improv-for-creative-reinvention

Expand Your Story: Improv for Reinvention from mjames7770

Whole Brain Creative Facilitation Workshop in December!

Using Whole-Brain Creativity Practices and Principles to create Vibrant, Agile and Innovative Learning  Environments

http://www.creativeemergence.com/wbfacilitation.html

2-day Workshop ~ December 7th and 8th.
PLUS 1 follow-up one-on-one coaching session.
Led by Michelle James, CEO of The Center for Creative Emergence.


Image from Mercedes Benz ad

This workshop is for professional facilitators, trainers, OD practitioners, coaches, consultants, educators, leaders and anyone else who wants to facilitate creativity, dynamic learning and positive culture change for their participants.
 
Join the creativity facilitation and training revolution! In this workshop you will learn and experience a variety of both right and left brain creativity approaches and techniques designed to enliven your workshops and accelerate participant learning.
 
Learn how to * Quickly and easily engage participants * Modify activities for the particular group and learning objectives * Draw forth the energy, passion, and assets already in the room * Cultivate the attitudes and behaviors for using whole-brain approaches * Create a safe and receptive learning environment
 
Effectively getting groups to open up to experiential creative approaches begins with increasing your own comfort and flexibility with the techniques you facilitate. This workshop will focus on two levels at the same time - you as a professional, authentic facilitator and you as a creative individual. You will have the opportunity for personal expansion as you gather useful tools.
 
Experience whole-brain training activities based in storytelling, improvisational theater, visual imagery, somatics, accelerated learning, ritual, systems thinking, Socratic and analytical processes...and more!  You will learn key creative facilitation principles, creativity training design guidelines, and whole brain approaches to design and facilitate innovative learning environments.
 
Explore using whole brain methods to:
    * Get your own creative juices flowing
    * Draw forth your natural gifts as a facilitator
    * Explore the applications of these new tools
    * Have fun. Surprise yourself and each other
    * Let go of controls; think and respond spontaneously
 
Leave with creative activities for:
    * Icebreakers
    * Energizers
    * Creating group story
    * Innovation & idea generation
    * Team & community building
 
In this pattern-breaking program, you will learn how to let go of controls and mindsets that otherwise inhibit your creative thinking. As you facilitate this for your participants, they will experience a deeper level of meaning and learning.
 
When: Friday & Saturday, December 7th and 8th (9:30: 4:30) and a follow up phone one-on-one coaching session. Where: Falls Church, VA. Directions will be provided.

More information and registration:
http://www.creativeemergence.com/wbfacilitation.html
 
Contact information:
email: [email protected]
phone: 703-760-9009
web: http://www.creativeemergence.com

Applied Discovery - Free Telesummit

I am excited to host this FREE Creativity in Business Telesummit!

REGISTER at http://www.BizCreativitySummit.com/

Featuring 15 Pioneering Creativity & Innovation Leaders, Explorers & Practitioners!

October 22-31 ~ Calls at 12pm & 2Pm EST daily

The theme is Applied Discovery - setting the stage for discovery, generating new ideas and insights, and using your creativity to apply your discoveries in your work.

This event is for entrepreneurs, leaders, executives, managers, learning and innovation officers, facilitators, trainers, OD and HR practitioners, consultants, coaches and anyone who wants to be more innovative, adaptive, resilient, and expressive in the changing world of work, or facilitate that for others.

Leave with principles, practices, techniques, approaches, and frameworks you can start applying to your work, life or business right away to help you discover, create, and innovate!

http://www.BizCreativitySummit.com

Plus, you'll get a free Creativity in Business ebook when you register through October 21st, in which 32 thought leaders explore applied creativity and making it real at work.

Hope you can join us!

CCN 2/8: Turn Boring Meetings into Fun Discovery Sessions

After taking a haitus for the Creativity in Business conference last year, the Capitol Creativity Network is back in action with regular monthly meetings in 2012!

If you are, or will be, in the DC metro area this coming Wednesday night, feel free to join us from from 7:00-9:30pm at the Ceveland Park Club House. I'll be facilating a whole-brain session on turning mind-numbing meetings into mind-expanding creative discovery sessions. Hope to see you there! :-)

Here's the write up:

People can say, "I had better things to do. Same old, same old. I couldn't wait to get out of there" or they can say "Wow - that was awesome! We actually got A LOT done - and had fun doing it. I didn't even realize I had all those creative ideas." after leaving one of your meetings. They can feel anywhere from drained to motivated, mind-numbed to mind-expanded, detached to engaged. The good news is it's your choice. If you'd prefer the latter, come join us in the dynamic, fun, NEW session on creating and facilitating vibrant, generative, productive meetings - ones where people get things done, ENJOY the meeting, and leave feeling motivated.

Meetings come to life when you engage the whole brain and participants get to discover something new in real time. There is ALIVENESS in discovery. Come explore and experience divergent and convergent creativity principles and practices - including improv, storytelling, embodiment among others - that are easy to learn and apply for any meeting you facilitate. Learn how to structure meetings that bring out more creativity, discovery and motivation from the participants to better meet your business goals. Leave with practices you can apply right away; a set of guiding principles; greater understanding of how to integrate both divergence and convergence into a meeting of any length; and increased self awareness. And we'll have FUN in the process! :-)

Info and Directions: http://www.capitolcreativitynetwork.com/

Creativity in Business Conference Re-cap

It took me a few weeks to get to this post, after integrating what unfolded at and after our Creativity in Business Conference a few weeks ago. On October 23, we produced a (sold-out - yay!) conference in Washington, DC with the help of many amazing, generous souls. It was gratifying that people seemed to get a lot out of it - I think the feedback reflects a juicy and alive day. Everyone really stepped up, took risks, pushed their edges, had fun and engaged fully. Photographer, Alexander Morozov of Photography by Alexander, captured the energy of the day with these pictures.

It Started with Principles of Creative Engagement

The day kicked off with introducing the 160 participants to the Principles of Creative Engagement for the conference: Yes-And, Make everyone else look good (both from improv theater), Creativity in Messy and Have fun! Participants were invited to leave with more questions than answers, and use the day to intentionally explore their passion, aliveness and curiosity with the applicability of what they learn/think/create into their work and business.

Lots of Options

 

At any given time, participants had 4 options - a choice between 1 of 3 breakout sessions or a panel - for that time period of 75 minutes. The 12 breakout sessions were designed to be rich in both innovative content and creative experience. They each engaged different aspects of whole brain integration, including storytelling, improv, embodiment or visual thinking.

Engaged Immersion 

Tweeting was not encouraged during the breakout sessions, nor was having laptops, so participants could be immersed in the full-on experience of the session. The intention was that these were not sessions for sitting back, taking notes and reporting out. Each session was about discovery by undistracted engagement in real time, trying new things, engaging the whole brain - and the body in many cases. Low on observing and recording; high on awareness, presence, creating, engaging...then integrating.

Experiential Breakout Sessions

 

The morning began with breakout sessions from Corey
Michael Blake on Breathing Life into

Improvisational Storyteller session

Your Story, Kat Koppett on The Improvisational Storyteller and Bill Smith, PhD on Your Creative Power followed by Gregg Fraley on Holistic Innovation, James Jorasch on Hacking the Hippocampus and Cathy Salit on Performance of a Lifetime. The afternoon included sessions by Dr. Win Wenger on Creative Solution Finding, Carol Sanford on Whole Systems Creative Change and Jack Ricchiuto on The Power of Narrative followed by Sean Kelly on Visual Brainstorming, Leilani Henry on Movement Anthropology, and Michael Margolis on Reinventing Your Bio as a Story. (More on the presenters here and the sessions here).

Heart-Centered Service at the Core

While each of the presenters and panelists has been a keynoter at events, there were no keynoters or "speakers" at this event. There were experiential facilitated sessions and participatory panels, a storytelling plenary and an audience-interactive Imagination Festival. This event was designed to have the central focus be the creativity of who was in the room, not on one of the many luminaries who were there. While each presenter and panelist is a clear creative leader in their own right - a credible expert and pioneering creator - they also are deeply heart-centered in service of that creativity for the greater good. The balance of head (knowledge, experience and ingenuity) and heart (service, kindness), is what I believe makes them so awesome...and made the conference work. Low on ego; high on meaning and service.

Interactive Panels captured by Graphic Recording

The 4 panels were thought-provoking (thanks to the wisdom and kindness of the amazing panelists) and audience-interactive. There was no distancing 4th wall between expert and participants - anyone could contribute. Graphic Recorder, Diane Cline of Over the Horizon Consulting, captured the juicy content from the 4 panels.

Click on the panel links for the graphic of that panel. The Creative Leadership Panel included John Hagel, Robert Richman, Annalie Killian and Rita King. The Creative Work Cultures Panel included Carol Sanford, Steve Dahlberg, Kristi Faulkner and John Hagel. The Social Media & Creativity Panel included DC-based 'tech titans' Jesse Thomas, Peter LaMotte, Shashi Bellamkonda, Maxine Teller and Jen Consalvo. And the Emergence & CoCreation Panel - which I had fun moderating - included Peggy Holman, George Por, Bill Smith and Jack Ricchiuto.

Pioneers who Lead by Example

One thing that I loved that each presenter and each panelist had in common is that they were pioneers in some way...each had created their own approach, structure, services or products. Each had something original they have developed as part of their business offering. It was significant to the design of the event that every one of the presenters and panelists was offering something new and original to participants - thereby modeling applied creativity in business. This "ownership of personal experience" also gave them the real-time flexibility in thinking that allowed them to be present to addressing what was really showing up, without having to rely solely on third party knowledge. And it allowed for the real-time discovery that comes from being in the moment.

Themes Extracted from Stories

The Storytelling Plenary Session had compelling stories from leaders who are bringing creativity in business into the corporate world - with transformative results: John Hagel, James Jorasch, Rita King and Annalie Killian, each of whom shared their personal creativity in business journeys - which made them meaningful and accessible. The themes that emerged from their stories captured in Diane's graphic recording are here.

Nonverbal Creativity to Deepen the Learning

In keeping with the whole-brain engagement and pattern breaking themes of the day, I facilitated the Nonverbal Creativity Closing Session accompanied by musician extraordinaire, Anthony Hyatt of Moving Beauty, who masterfully put to music participants non-verbal expressions of the day. Each group of 8 produced a moving sculpture that was captivating to behold - both visually and energetically. The music fed off of them and they fed off the music in a feedback loop.

Improvisation-Imagination Festival

The day ended with an incredibly fun and frolicky Improvisation-Imagination Festival led by Kat Koppett and Cathy Salit, premiere improvisers from New York. Imagination, Play, and Improvisation were the main themes of the Festival. Not just watching from the sidelines, participants were the creative action. It was a great time!


Thankfulfor and More

The Thankfulfor display - created and curated by Jen Consalvo (pictured right) of Tech Cocktail - invited participants to post what they were thankful for at any given moment throughout the day. With 160 people in "gratitude energy" a palpable appreciative field was created. I think every event needs a gratitude wall. :-)

After the Festival, there was time for connect-working over hors d'oeuvres, catered by Leigh DuWolf, followed by dinner at a local Georgetown restaurant. DJ Rasul Sha'ir, President of Cnvrgnc, kept the music flowing throughout the day to add to the creative atmosphere, and the Conference Team, led by the amazing Tya Bolton, kept the flow going and the contianer strong.

Post-Conference Presenter Retreat
 
After the conference, several of the presenters enjoyed some down time at Kayser Ridge, located on 20 acres of wilderness in the stunningly beautiful Shenandoah Mountains in West Virginia. We were fortunate to be there during the breathtaking peak foliage week. It also so happened that were there to behold the fluke occurence of the Northern Lights in the night sky - which "never" happens this far south - a perfect way to cap off a time full of pattern breaking, good juju and emergent surprises.

Conference Links

•  Conference Pictures
•  Blog Posts by Corey Blake, Melanie Sklarz, Patrick Ross, Shashi Bellamkonda and Annalie Killian
•  Conference Facebook Page

I really feel grateful for the co-creation at every level of this event, the learnings I had, and new and/or deepened connections I made. Putting on this second conference was passion-in-action for me - in service of the emerging creativity-centered work paradigm. I look forward to whatever unfolds next.

Our 2011 Creativity in Business Conference - October 23 in DC!

http://www.creativity-conference.com 

Come learn, think, create and engage with applied-creativity thought leaders, pioneering entrepreneurs and business innovators from around the country - in the fields of creativity and innovation, organizational change, social media, and transformational leadership - for a full-day event focused on:

* Harnessing and focusing individual, group and organizational creativity
* Organizational structures/business models conducive for creativity & innovation
* The integration of creativity, purpose, business and serving the greater good
* Bringing your whole brain - and whole self - to work

This new breed of business conference conference is about going beyond talk-only into exeperiential immersion - immersing you into the experience of creative process and your own creativity. The content is is designed to be informative, intelligent and practical. It will expand your knowledge and understanding. The experiences are designed to be rich and revelatory. They will expand your self.

New ideas, new innovations, new systems and new structures depend on accessing new levels of creativity. At this event, we will explore different facets of creativity as the key driver in navigating and thriving in the new work paradigm.

Come engage your whole brain with practices such as applied storytelling, improvisation, visual thinking, creative inquiry and dialogue, movement and embodiment along with innovative business models and approaches you can apply right away to your work or business.

Conference: 9:00-5:30 Festival: 5:30-7:30

CONFERENCE:  - Lively, Content-rich, Experiential Break-out Sessions each with a different focus related to the theme of Applied Creativity in Business  - Engaging Thought Leader Panels explore the creativity-centered work paradigm through the lens' of leadership, social media and creative thinking. There are no keynoters - just thinkers, leaders and facilitators in service of YOUR creativity and your business.

IMAGINATION FESTIVAL:  Improvisation, Live Music, Connectworking, Book Signings, Give-Aways and tasty hors d'oeuvres.

REGISTRATION:  Earlybird discount through Friday, September 16, 2011. Seating is limited - early registration is recommended. http://www.creativity-conference.com

Hope you can join us! :-)

Creativity for your Calling: Engaging Your Aliveness

I have create a new summer program - a week-long immersion into the Creative Self:

Creativity for your Calling: Engaging Your Aliveness

Do you feel you have a calling - a purpose - but are not quite sure what it is? Do you yearn to connect with and express that juicy creative wellspring you know is in you? Do you desire to move beyond the voices of fear, resistance and judgment into the voices of aliveness, meaning and passion? And do you want to have fun doing it? Then come play with us as you become more of YOU!

Your calling is unique to you and you are the only one who can bring it out into the world. A purpose, a path, an invitation, vocation, contribution, passion and/or a business, it’s your most significant "mission" in life - the call you know is deep inside of yourself just waiting to be expressed out into the world. It can be challenging to clearly hear that inner voice in the midst of everyday distractions. The good news is that your Creative Self knows how to carry it out

In this fun, soulful and wildly creative program, you will use your whole-brain and your body to answer the call. You will immerse yourself in arts-based activities, improvisation, body-centered practices, storytelling, intuitive reflection tools and other forms of creative process to hear your calling, draw it forth, and discover ways of making it real in the world. You already have your unique “signature” set of gifts, skills, experiences, and talents. This retreat will give you the chance to indulge and cultivate them. This program contains a balance reflection and action, receptivity and generativity, heart and mind; body and soul; and lighthearted play and diving deep.

By combining your unique creativity with focused intention you can: 
•   access and use your rich inner guidance
•   awaken deep layers of your creative potential
•   understand your big picture patterns and archetypal drives
•   discover delicious new possibilities and directions
•   connect with your "creative source" to move toward inspired expressions
     and outcomes
•   channel anxiety and overwhelm into productive creativity
•   feel more engaged and alive in your every day life

You are vaster and more creative than you can imagine. This program is designed to have you experience the full-on aliveness of your Creative Self as you unfold, shape and form your distinctive “Calling Card” - an Action and Reflection Plan to continue the journey beyond the retreat setting. You’ll also leave with approaches you can practice at home, and ways of navigating the resistances that can show up. Creativity materials provided - just bring an open mind and heart!  

Check my the Workshop page on my website for the next one

Thrivable Interviews Me on Yin/Yang of Creative Emergence

Todd Hoskins of Thrivable.net interviewed me
on the dynamic balance of the yin and yang of creativity and emergence in the workplace. You can see this interview and many others on thrivability on their blog: http://bit.ly/fI2mRF

                                   ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Todd Hoskins:  Michelle, you lead conferences, workshops, and do coaching around facilitating creativity in business. How do those in business organizations, beyond the design team, work towards fostering creativity?

Michelle James:  The most effective and meaningful changes I’ve observed have come from both embracing creative practices and also establishing new foundations: generative principles of engagement, expanded mind sets, new frameworks, and entering into a “co-creative partnering” type of relationship with each other, and with the unknown.

For example, weaving improv-based principles as the rules of engagement in meetings can transform both the energy and outcomes. One client transformed their meetings – which were either boring or contained continual battles for whose idea was best – into Discovery Sessions just by setting three of the improv principles as the foundational container for each meeting: yes-and, make everyone look good, and serve the good of the whole. Their once dreaded meetings, where little got done and all felt drained, became lively, co-creative sessions where new and different ideas and applications emerged in the meeting itself by just adhering to new principles of engagement. People began building on each other’s ideas instead of only defending their own.

Another example: an aspiring entrepreneur may have three different passions or business ideas and believes he or she has to choose one. By engaging emergence by conscious pattern breaking, whole-brain and somatic creative techniques, and deep immersion into the question, a new and completely unexpected pattern can emerge that reveals a coherent structure that could not have been predicted before that exploratory deep dive. A new coherent business structure can emerge that contains what is most alive and relevant of the three previous ideas, along with surprising new qualities.

I have seen this so many times with entrepreneurs who are creating a business that doesn’t fit neatly into a current business model, my own business included. One level of thinking’s either/or question becomes the next level of thinking’s both/and solution. It often requires hanging out in “not knowing” for part of the process.

Todd:  How is emergence related to creativity?  What does it look like when it happens?

Michelle:  I’m not sure how to do that question justice in a few sentences without it either being vague or too reductive, and there can be many different answers. After years of working with it, It’s still hard for me to define because I see it as a universal process linked in to how life itself works – and myself as a life-long student of that process. Creativity, for me, is both means to cultivate the emergence – using creativity practices to engage emergence – and the outcome of an emergence. That’s why “creative emergence” resonates with me – the terms are so intimately linked. Creativity generates emergence, and emergence produces creativity – the whole process is an ongoing creative, emergent feedback loop.

A creative, emergent process requires navigating the dynamic balance of listening and choosing; knowledge and discovery; stepping up to create, and letting go to receive – in other words, doing what is yours to do, and letting the self-organization of emergent creativity do its part. Like midwifing any new birth, there is a natural trajectory already happening…and…there are things you can do to help facilitate a healthy birth, and then clean it up and make it accessible to the world.

In groups, you can see this emergence in action in highly functioning improv theater groups, jazz ensembles, sports teams, etc…and in co-creative work teams that have trust at their core. Often the emergence happens after the “efforting” is released. Something takes over that is greater than any individual’s agenda that has an intelligence of its own. The group “field” produces something unexpected that emerges from the interaction of its members – whether it’s comedy line, a piece of music, a new strategy or business, a world changing idea or the next iteration of solution. In a group, emergence has the after-effect of “Look what WE did!” Something new was created that no one could expect, and each person sees how they needed the others in order to become something beyond any single person’s vision or agenda.

Facilitating emergence in an organization is partly about creating the conditions that allow people to contribute more of themselves than just their job description…to bring their unique creativity out in service of the vision, the team and the organization. People buy into what they help create. To bring out the creativity requires leaving the “control” mindset, and trusting in the natural self-organization of the creative process, while also creating boundaries for that creativity to emerge. One paradox of emergence is that flow needs boundaries.

For both individuals and groups, one activity to practice engaging the unknown is to ask the question, hold it without rushing to answer, then get the right brain involved and start drawing it – with NO recognizable pictures or symbols. Just draw the “energy” as you feel it moment by moment – colors, lines and shapes. This can be uncomfortable at first for some people because all the inner voices of judgment and the fear of the unknown can show up – and it is unfamiliar. Allow yourself to not know what it is. Get in the practice of not knowing…and just keep drawing.

With practice, it actually becomes liberating. Research has shown the right brain processes more quickly than the left. And it expresses differently, so working this way can be like learning a new language at first. If you rely only on images you already know, you’re still letting the left-brain dictate the process. After allowing the right brain’s expression, THEN go back and bring in the left brain to try to find meaning through inquiry into the abstract drawing. It’s amazing what patterns and practical, concrete insights emerge just from diverging into the abstract unfamiliar first before converging back into the familiar.

Resistance often show up in the creative process, and it’s temping to turn back to what’s familiar. The act of moving through the discomfort of the contraction of resistance gives more power to the expansion of the new emergence – like the chick’s beak, which gains its strength by having to peck through the resistance of the shell as part of its hatching. The status quo wants to maintain itself; the new birth wants to come forth…and both are essential parts of the dynamic tension within the creative impulse.

Todd:  What other tensions and paradoxes are in the process of emergence? How can an organization move from either/or to yes/and, allowing for these tensions?

Michelle:  Included would be the dynamic tensions/interaction between divergence and convergence, the yin and yang archetypes, planning and improvising, stillness and activity, reflection and action, logic and intuition, using both what is seen and unseen, directing and unfolding, incubating and birthing. There are many more. The creative emergence process itself is paradoxical – what seems opposed or disconnected at one level emerges into something new at another level.  It is learning how to not see these aspects in conflict and to welcome the dynamic tension as a gift of creative process. And, of course, it can still be challenging – and messy – like any new birth while it’s happening. It can feel exciting and energizing at times, and painful and doubt-ridden at others.

Creativity contains both “yes-and,” which is expansion and divergence, as well as “either/or,” which is contraction and convergence. The key is to expand the playing field by diverging (yes-anding) first, before starting to organize and focus on convergence (discerning). I believe organizations need to create space, time, a value system, and set of practices that more explicitly embrace divergence. We need to infuse that into the company culture at every level. The need for exploration without judgment is significant before going into strategizing – it informs new structures. Discernment is necessary in the creative process – we just need to give more time to divergent practices to generate more novelty first before going there.

Todd:   With the yin and yang, what have we been missing within culture and organizations?

Michelle:  Culturally, we have been out of balance. We have focused mainly on the creative yang archetype: outward-focused, production, efficiency, results; forging ahead, focused, driven, goal oriented. When in balance with the creative yin archetype these can be healthy parts of a larger co-creative whole. But we have left out the yin as “too soft” or even “woo woo” so we have experienced a predominant work culture of the yang out of balance. Without the yin for balance, we experience the shadow side of an out-of-balance work culture: cut throat, uncaring, stressful, back stabbing, lack of work/life balance, fear-based, driven to excess or striving to keep up, trying to impress, lack of feeling safe to explore or take creative risks, binary thinking (success/fail, right/wrong), disconnected, etc. I believe many of our challenges in the workplace stem from our over-emphasis on the creative yang and our de-emphasis, or sometimes complete rejection, of the creative yin instead of integrating them.

Creative organizations need both. The yin is relational and includes incubating, being with, integrating, supporting, and yes-anding. More than just left-brain linear thinking, the yin is about engaging embodiment and somatic wisdom, intuition, right brain, non-linear practices. It is experiential and whole-person. It more than just talk, and more than just action – it is a connection to what is most alive in ourselves; a connection to our stories, our inner voice, our senses, our bodies and our hearts. Actions and interactions that emerge from an integrated connection to the yin archetype look different than the actions we’ve seen come form its absence. The yin and yang archetypal energies need each other for generative, whole-systems, meaning-filled creativity.

This integration is something I have been deeply committed to in my work for a long time. Some years ago I created a program on “Creativity and the Yin/Yang Archetypes” about the integration of both for a more engaged, alive, creative workplace. I found – and still do – it’s easier to facilitate and apply it than to talk about it because it needs our whole brain, not just left brain, to engage it. We’re in a time where more whole-brain practices (improvisation, visual communication and thinking, ritual, storytelling, embodiment, movement, etc.) are being brought into the business world all the time.

We are also seeing more focus on meaning, calling, passion, aliveness, empathy, finding your voice, deep listening and internal motivation. Our metaphorical landscape is expanding to include more yin-centered metaphors. By infusing more yin practices, language and foundational ways of interacting into the yang workplace, it becomes holistically generative. The creative yin and creative yang are deep, archetypal patterns which, working together, allow exponential levels of creativity to emerge.

Todd:  You’re producing your second Creativity in Business Conference in October. How does the mode of your conferences, retreats, and workshops reflect the purpose?  How does the form follow function?

Michelle:  I believe the most dynamic, alive, creative organizations and individuals are those most in dynamic balance with yin and yang creativity. The intention of my work is to have my all my workshops, events, and coaching session reflect that balance of rich content and whole-brain/whole-being experience; mind and heart integration. They all use multiple dimensions of creative process and they are based in life-giving principles of engagement.

At our conferences, we use improv principles as our guidelines of interaction for the day. At our creativity network, presenters commit to doing something new to be on their creative edges. I also constantly create new activities, offerings or programs to keep and me on my own creative and evolving edges. My passion, among other things, is to create structures and conditions to support the balance of learning, wisdom, real-time creativity and emergence that supports aliveness, generative connections and serving the greater good. Part of living that mission is to imagine it, try it, get feedback, and modify. They do not all play out as hoped – some better, some worse – but they all contain seeds of learning and new growth. 

15 Foundations for Facilitating Creativity at Work

The following are lessons learned and insights gleaned from the trial and error of facilitating creative process with hundreds of individuals and organizations over the past 12 years. It requires a different focus, skill set, way of being and "container creation" than facilitating analytical processes. Below are some of the many principles and practices I've learned or discovered. Take what resonates and leave the rest :-)

Dynamic Balance and Facilitating Creativity in the Workplace 

1. Set intention and embody purpose. Get clear on your intention - not only from a business perspective, (i.e., leave with a Strategic Plan), but also from the human element. Creative process in human beings is organic, and contains emotional energy. In fact, the more passion and inspiration, the deeper and more coherent the creativity that emerges. If you intend to support the growth, creativity and awareness of those you serve, you facilitate from a more meaningful place than if focused only on the business goal. If you take time, both in the program design and in the room when facilitating, to think about what is the service you are providing - the gift you are offering - it frees up your own creativity more to support that in your facilitation. Focusing solely on the task limits the creative potential. By genuinely focusing on what is yours to GIVE, (not how you come across doing it), participants pick that up – either consciously or unconsciously - and are more receptive to trying new things with you. Creative Facilitation adds some new “yes-ands” to what already works.

2. Focus on awareness in addition to what happens. Focusing on the awareness aspect allows it to be transformative. In all facilitation, the debrief can be one of the most powerful parts. It integrates the learnings and serves as a bridge to what’s next. In debriefing creative process, focus on what was going on INSIDE of the participants as well as what actually was created OUTSIDE in the room. This leads to self-awareness, which increases the chances of continued creativity and co-creativity after the workshop, program, or process is over. The more aware participants become of what emerges within themselves as they create - both what was most alive as well as what was most challenging - the easier it is to continue to navigate and cultivate their creativity beyond the workshop setting.

3. Understand the normal resistance that occurs with navigating the unfamiliar. Resistance is a healthy, natural part of the creative process. It only becomes unhealthy when it is allowed to block the process (by overemphasizing it and spending too much time engaging it, or by not acknowledging it all and trying to barrel past it). Be prepared for resistance to show up. It's usually a result of fear of entering the new territory, and it can show up in a myriad of forms - deflection, sarcasm, distraction, disengagement or, most often and most subtly, talking about what is already known. It's not something to be pushed down or avoided, but rather something to be acknowledged and moved through if it shows up. Acknowledgment ahead of time gives it permission to follow it natural course when and if it emerges. It is the natural “contraction” to balance the creative expansion. You find this in all of nature’s creativity. The flower feels the resistance of the bud most just before it blossoms.

4. “Fail” gracefully - be comfortable with messing up. This is a great lesson from improv theater. Improvisers do not see mistakes as static failures. Instead, we see them as dynamic invitations to learn in real time and an opportunity to create something new. To authentically learn how to deepen your experience in facilitating a transformational creative process requires you to be the explorer as well. Unlike facilitation that relies on what is known, creativity depends elements of the unknown. You can better facilitate that which you're willing to experience for yourself. Applied creativity has vulnerability attached to it as being experimental means being vulnerable. And, that means something you try may not work, or may work differently than you had anticipated. Go with it. USE that information as feedback to either refine for the future, or, in that moment, to take the group to another place. The facilitator’s discomfort with the challenges of creativity can inhibit the group's craetive process. (If you can take an improv class, do it…it's the quickest way I know to free yourself of the “the fear of failure” and develop a comfort with thinking on your feet.)

5. Adapt in real time. There's always a dynamic balance between creating enough structure and releasing. If you as a facilitator need to control the process, do whatever you can on your free time to get comfortable with letting go, shifting gears, and modifying the agenda in real time. Use the real-time feedback loop: engage, get feedback, modify; engage, get feedback, modify, etc. It’s an ongoing process, and like with all things, takes practice to embody. Do this enough and it becomes comfortable and easy…and alive! In fact, you will get to a point where it takes more energy to try to stick to the exact plans than to follow the creative aliveness of what is trying to emerge in the room. Be ready to adjust your "agenda" at any time for what is REALLY going in the room. Otherwise, you can get engagement, and even expanded perspectives, but generally no real novelty. Novelty contains an unpredictability within it, and to facilitate creative process means adapting to that unpredictability in real time. May as well have fun with it :-)

6. Work from your own Creative Edges, not your comfort zone. This creates a palpable dynamic aliveness in the room. You are all in it together. This may seem antithetical to our "expertise" culture. The paradox is that you must still deeply know and understand what you are doing before you enter the room, but then once in the room, hold it loosely and respond in real time. Be in your own unknown - a co-discoverer instead of the expert on their creativity. Allow yourself to be surprised. Don't limit them, or yourself, by your creativity experience or pre-existing assumptions. 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 an open system.

7. Respect creative style diversity. To further expound on #6, one size, approach, method, technique, or even paradigm does not fit all. One creativity model definitely does not fit all. Understand that each person in that room is at a different comfort level, and will have a unique relationship with the creative process. Each carries unique and different stories of creativity in his or her consciousness. You give them tools and techniques as entry points, but be ready to let their creativity show you ways of creating that you can’t imagine. This expands your own Creative Practices repertoire.

8. Understand patterns found in the creative process. This allows you to facilitate during times of resistance. Another paradox: while each person has different creating styles and approaches that work for them, there are also re-occurring universal patterns that tend to emerge in a creative process. The deepest understanding comes from your OWN experimentation and learning, and will most likely be refined over time. Start with what you know, and open up to being "yes-anded" all the time. Look for patterns, not just techniques. Techniques only get you so far…patterns and principles allow you to create new techniques on and ongoing basis. Start where you are, be gentle with yourself as you learn, and learn from direct experience. Insights that emerge from experience and observation are give you a real-time agility that book learning alone cannot offer.

9. Embrace dynamic balance. Divergence AND convergence. Left AND right brain. Structure AND flow. Reflection AND action. That is one of the re-occurring themes in this post because it permeates all of creative process...and the complexity of being human. Creativity is filled with paradox. Setting up conditions for creativity is as well. Like with all natural systems, every situation, project, and group has a dynamic balance that will allow the most amount of creativity to emerge in that situation. Too rigid keeps the creativity bound; too loose, it gets unfocused. There is a balance between structure and flow. This is why whole brain practices are needed...the right brain to access NEW levels of ideas and information, and the left to discern and organize it.

10. Allow for self-organization when facilitating a group project. Inherent in the creative process is a self-organization found in all of nature. You see this all the time in improvised jazz or improv theater...something larger than the sum of the parts emerges and it is a coherent whole and unexpected. It is similar to the experience you have in those moments when everything just seems to effortlessly come together in a brilliant, yet totally unexpected, way. This possibility always exists in any group. One key is to not over-control the experience and allow enough space for the next level of creativity to emerge in the room. This takes some trust in the creative process itself...and practices recognizing, like in an improv performance, when you need to step up and lead, or step back and follow. Without question, groups have the capacity to self-organize around a creative task - a collective creative intelligence can take over that is larger than any one person's idea. You have nature on your side. We are natural meaning-makers, and creativity is naturally self-organizing. By balancing both directing and following in real time, you can more naturally moving to higher levels of coherence, meaning, and sense. (All “Aha’s” are deeply grounded in common sense at their new level). We have simply been socialized, educated, and trained to over-plan. Instead, we can learn how to work WITH the natural creative process.

11. Seek to make it safe, not comfortable.  
Safety will allow people to open up and move into
unknown territory without the fear of criticism, failure. Too much stability, and nothing new emerges. Asking people to share what they already know is different than guiding them into their unknown. On the other side, without doing the “container creating” to make it safe, taking people in too deep too soon can throw them into chaos and they will shut down – and they lose trust in you. In either case, nothing new emerges. Find the balance of the Creative Zone - the place of creative potential between stability and chaos. Create a safe space AND guide your participants into new territory, which can be uncomfortable. Discomfort is a normal part of the creative process. In fact, if everyone is the room is entirely comfortable the whole time, chances are you did more
of an information gathering process than a creative one.

12. Fun is functional. There is more research emerging all the time that shows how fun, play, and “lightening up” have a serious role to play in increasing creative thinking and establishing creative work culture - not just as an outlet to do on your free time, but as a driver to navigating change and working on serious challenges in work and life. It frees the brain to think more creativity, and frees the energy in the room for more effective and safe collaboration. In fact, I have not come across any research anywhere that points to not having fun and not being playful as a more effective way of living and creating. To facilitate creativity requires accessing and being comfortable with having fun yourself. And, knowing how to bring it in purposefully, and in a way it can be accepted (and not shut people down). It's different for every group and every culture. Once you access your own "deep fun" self, you have more choice on what methods to use and how. As with all facilitation, know your audience.

13. Your inner stories directly impact the container you create for others. Check out all the stories you carry around creativity, fun and play. Do you hold them as separate from a business bottom line? Most of us grew up with the programming that creativity is something you do on your free time after the “real work” is done. Facilitating Applied Creativity carries a new story – that it is an essential part of the real work. It is more than something fun to open up a group, but actually something to help transform individuals, groups, teams and organizations; create a thrivable work culture, and feed the bottom line. Do you carry a story that creativity is for the domain of the arts...or do you know it to be present, in infinite abundance, for every person, group and system? What stories do you carry about yourself as a Creator? In knowing yourself as a Creator, and knowing that you are walking into a room filled with other Creators (whether they are aware of it or not) allows you to help facilitate a new story for those in the room.

14. Diverge...and Converge with discernment. 
Facilitating transformational creativity requires your presence, adaptability, agile thinking…AND
discernment. Discernment keeps whatever
emerges in the room focused on the objectives, relevant, and purposeful…not just random creative expression (unless that is your goal). This means having processes for Convergence as well as Divergence. Divergence explores, discovers, yes-ands, and accepts to expand the playing field – the increase the field of potential from which to draw. Convergence discerns, focuses, fleshes out, uses what is relevant and leaves the rest. For a visual with more on Divergence and Convergence click here. As with each of these points, the dynamic balance is the key: expand, contract; explore, refine; value logic and intuition; planning and spontaneity. Most people naturally gravitate to more comfort with diverging or converging…find out which is your preference and practice giving more time and attention to the other. 



15. Prepare yourself with pre-workshop creativity rituals. Creativity, by its nature, contains a lot of energy and newness. Facilitating novelty is not "business as usual." It's about leading a group into the non-habitual. It requires being resilient, agile, compassionate and an "expedition guide." Taking some time to do whatever you need to enter your own non-habitual state first can makes a significant difference. One of the best ways to do that is by taking some alone time before the facilitation, to do pattern-breaking exercises to increase your own energy and become present, alert, and responsive. The more of the whole-brain - and whole-body! - you bring in, the better. Like an athlete who warms up by stretching muscles, you’re a creativity facilitator who warms up by stretching beyond your familiar patterns. Try different things, like moving in non-habitual ways around your living room before you leave your house. You'll be alone, so the more “out there” you can be in the privacy of your own space, the better. Surprise yourself at how “out there” you can get! It will also help you be more comfortable when something “out there” emerges from a participant. Do it until you transform any negative self-judgment or evaluation you have into the joy of exploration. It will increase your energy and aliveness, and help you be more attentive and at ease with what shows up in the room. Creativity is messy. Non-judgment of self and others during the process is essential!

I am so passionate about this topic that I could go on ad infinitum :-) I have covered some of the basics here. It's challenging to use words-only to describe a fullness of whole-brain experience. This is not about one right way - it's a loose guide and exploration. My hopes is that something in here gives you food for thought, inspiration or validation. 

~ Michelle James ©2010

Go to http://www.creativeemergence.com/wbfacilitation.html  for more on our next Creative Facilitation Workshop. Offerred once or twice a year since 2005 in the Washington, DC area. 

"Dose of Creativity" Blog Interviews Me

Melanie Sklarz, from Dose of Creativity,
interviewed me for their 5 Questions Creator Series about creativity and work. Click here for the entire interview. Some excerpts are below:

DoC: What does creativity mean to you?

MJ: Life, aliveness, life energy, life trajectory, the core, the source, the natural way of being, the driving force, the unique self, the essence of all living being and systems. It is that energy within all of us and all living things which animates, liberates, and generates. It is the same force that paradoxically expresses our absolute individual uniqueness and connects us in community. It unites things, people, ideas, frameworks, concepts that were previously divided. It is there, ever-flowing, for us all to engage it, shape it, form it, express it and apply it to anything - from expression to solution finding to new structure creating...Creativity is not about the one right way...while creativity is ubiquitous and universal, is is also uniquely personal.

Creativity is living paradox. It contains a balance of left and right brain, cultivating and emergence, thinking and being, reflection and action, receptivity and generativity, improvisation and planning, heart and head, analysis and intuition, and structure and flow.

DoC: What is your creative process and what tools do you use to stimulate it?

MJ: I call my meta-process the Creative Emergence Process (named my business after it), and within that, there are many types of creative processes I use, and that list is always expanding. The creative Emergence Process unfolded in my consciousness over a period of several years, more as a life calling than a creative outlet , and led me to create a whole business around it. It is a whole-brain, whole-person, whole-systems approach to merging creativity, purpose, business and serving the larger good. It is based on the Emergence Principles - natural principles that create conditions for creativity to emerge - and generative Practices that cultivate and focus creativity. My focus is in the workplace.

I use both left and right brain approaches to engage creativity for myself and with my clients. Some tools I use to engage it are storytelling, improv theater, movement, visual arts, imagery, design thinking, movement, intuition-based techniques, reflection tools, journaling, accelerated learning methods, ritual, insights from psychology/archetypes/mythology and process work, systems thinking, analytical processes and structured creative solution finding approaches...pattern breaking, doing the nonhabitual...

DoC: What is your most creative time of day?

MJ: I have cycles when I feel more creative, and when possible, I try to follow those, and do the busy work in less inspired moments...When I have a project (work-related, artistic, new structure, etc)...time has en entirely different meaning. My energy feels endless. When I am in routine busy work, or work that is predictable, I can lose my creative “mojo” very quickly. I then have to consciously focus on breaking patterns and commitment to get it done...in times when I know everything that needs to be done and still have to do it, I either (1) switch from enthusiasm to discipline mode to keep me going or (2) do something to break my habitual patterns. That usually helps me get the creative juices flowing again...

DoC: How do you infuse creativity into your daily life and tasks?

MJ: It is so integrated into my every day way of thinking and being that is is hard to me to separate it out. My life’s work and business is based on it. Whenever I feel the call for something new to emerge, I seek to find a way to create it.

Because of my belief about the essentialness of making it an explicit part of every day work and life, I started my business, the Center for Creative Emergence...developed Quantum Leap Business Improv...founded and run the Capitol Creativity Network in DC...and put on DC's first Creativity in Business Conference...My mission is to help "mainstream" creativity and engage people into their full humanness for innovative work, positive social change, and consciously creating a life-giving future. That is always at the core of all the choices I make.

Having a purpose and mission larger than yourself, and larger than expression (but including it), is one way to keep creativity infused in your daily life. Another is to make it a priority, and set aside time for your Creative Self - making it your most important appointment of the day. Your Creative Self need space, time and attention, like all living things, to flourish.

DoC: What creative tip or resource would you like to share with our readers?

MJ: Above all else, let go of any voice in you that says you are not creative. That is based on an outdated - and just plain false - definition of what creativity is. Creativity is not reserved for those in the arts. It is in every person and every field and discipline. By expanding your definition or what it mean to be creative, you can become more comfortable with knowing your self as a creator.

One thing I recommend for everyone - and think should be required in all schools, universities, and business training - is taking improvisational theater classes. The transformational power of improv, in my mind, in unparalleled because you learn how to become fully and completely present. You have to leave planning, agendas, judgment, and just be there, in the moment, without any safety net except for the naturally self-organizing creativity that can’t do anything but emerge. It takes you into the present moment - the place where we can really see and feel and get out unlimited creativity. We have just been socialized, educated, and traumatized out of our natural creative selves, and improv is one of the many ways to help us reconnect. It provides you with a set of principles that, when practiced over time, will free you up to be more adaptive, responsive, generative and creative in your life and work. The tip: find an improv class in your area and take it!

For the complete interview, go to the Dose of Creativity Blog.

Presented at TEDxCreativeCoast

I had the great pleasure of presenting at TEDxCreativeCoast in Savannah on Friday. The theme was "Designing Creativity." I did my presentation on what I called the Improvidigm - a paradigm of sustainable creativity informed by the generative principles and practices of improvisational theater. Some of the patterns that emerged throughout all of the presentations included convergence, hybrids/integration, trans- and meta-, the human touch, passion, using creativity for social good/serving a larger mission, working with nature/living systems, connection, presence/mindfulness, new structure creating, transforming challenges into opportunities, and the unwavering commitment to making a positive change in the world.

TedxCreativeCoast - Savannah, GA - June 18, 2010

Yes-And

Yes-And is the new Yes-But

Improv Theater and Complex Adaptive Systems

I am in an improvisational theater performing group. We improvise full-length plays with nothing planned in advance. No structure. No outline. No character or plot development. Nothing, except for 2 locations we get from the audience at the beginning of the play. The play is then titled, "The Space Station and the Bathroom" or whatever locations we get from the audience. Two of us then run on stage and start interacting, and thus the play begins.

When the play goes well, the audience says, "That HAD to be scripted. At least some part of it had to be scripted. It looked too easy." It was easy. When the performance does not go so well, the audience says, "That looked hard." It was hard.

I became fascinated by what makes it work. What creates peak level creativity in our group? What allows a complex, coherent, sense-making structure to emerge from nothing but a simple location? What is the "magic formula" that allows a fully formed, organized play - with believable characters and plot - to emerge before the audience’s (and our own) eyes? And what gets in the way? Why does it work seamlessly sometimes and not so well other times? I became a serious student of improv theory - reading the seminal books in the field and observing the patterns in my group and other groups.

I soon recognized the connections between adhering to the principles of improvisational theater in a performance and being able to adapt, create and improvise effectively in the work place – and in any social system. The same principles that allow a performing group to improvise a 90-minute play out of nothing but a location are the same principles that allow groups, teams, and organizations to solve problems in new ways and reach peak levels of creativity and innovative thinking. The principles form the “container” that allows the group to self-organize to emerge what’s next.

Around that same time, I began exploring complexity sciences theory in creativity and couldn't help but recognize the stark similarities between improvisation and complex adaptive systems such as emergence, self-organization, interdependence, pattern making, increasing complexity, dense local connectivity, coherence emerging out of disorder. Both are open, inclusive, non-linear, dynamic systems that use interactive agents, feedback loops and multiple variables. Both require resilience, collaboration, structure and flow, spontaneity, and engaging the unknown. Both result in a surprising emergence.

In our troupe, we don’t go on stage with a pre-formed notion of our characters, plot, conflict, challenge or situation. We just let them emerge based on our interactions, actions and reactions. The "magic formula" is the adherence to the basic improv principles. When we adhere to the principles of improvisation, something emerges that is more intelligent and creative - and intelligently organized - than any one of us could have planned. As with any good emergence, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. By adhering to the principles, a play unfolds that is so original and unpredictable, that you have a sense of being entirely in flow - getting to fully experience the adventure as you create it.

The principles that allow this to happen are simple, yet profound. They seem easy, but in practice, they are almost the exactly opposite of the ways in which we navigate our everyday work lives. They take re-learning. I say that because we were born natural improvisers and then got "educated" and "civilized" out of the playful aspects of our own improvisational creativity.

The following are 7 basic improv principles – all of which I believe tie in to complexity theory. There are others, but I have found these to be essential:

1. Yes and. Fully accepting the reality that is presenting, and the adding a NEW piece of information - that is what allows it to be adaptive, move forward and stay generative. Each performer (agent) interacts with what is offered and offers a unique contribution.

2. Make everyone else look good. That means you do not have to be defending or justifying yourself or your position - others who will do that for you and you do that for others. Without the burden of defensiveness or competition, everyone is free to create. Complex characters can form that enable unpredictable complex actions and directions to emerge.

3. Be changed by what is said and what happens. At each moment, new information in an invitation for you to have a new reaction, or for your character to experience a new aspect of them. Change inspires new ideas, and that naturally unfolds what's next. You adapt as one structure dissipates and re-organizes into a new structure that expands, yet includes, what was before.

4. Co-create a shared "agenda." This principle involves the recognition that even the best-laid plans are abandoned in the moment, and to serve the reality of what is right there in front of you. You are co-creating the agenda in real-time. In order to keep the play going, you respond to the moment and an "agenda" co-emerges that is more inclusive than anything that could have been planned. It is not consensus, which reduces. It is co-creation, which expands.

5. Mistakes are invitations. In improv, mistakes are embraced – they are the stimulating anomalies that invite the performers into a new level of creativity. By using improv techniques such as justifying any mistake can be transformed into surprising plot point or dialogue that never would have happened in following a conventional pattern. In improv, justifying creates order out of chaos. Mistakes break patterns and allow new ones to emerge.

6. Keep the energy going. No matter what is given, or what happens, you accept it and keep the energy gong. Unlike in everyday life, where people stop to analyze, criticize or negate, in improv you keep moving. A mistake happens - let it go move on. The unexpected emerges - use it to move on. Someone forgot something important - justify it and move on. You’re lost or confused – make something up and trust the process. Just keep moving. The system is not static – it is alive and dynamic.

7. Serve the good of the whole. Always carry the question, "How can I best serve this situation?" and then you have a better sense of when to run in and when to stay back, when to take focus and when to give it, how to best support your fellow performers and how to best support the scene. By focusing away from how you will look into serving the larger good – the aliveness of the system - you have more creative impulses and resources available to you at any moment. And the choices you make are more in alignment with the higher levels of creative integration that form a coherent play.

So, what make it "look hard" when it is not working so well? Simple: any violation of the principles. If one of us tries to orchestrate, or worse impose, our own agenda or plot on the piece. If one of us tries to be the "star" and take too much focus. If even one of us is not present to what is unfolding, moment-by-moment. If one of us worries about the plot, and starts to figure out how to "save" it. If we expect that someone should respond in a certain way. In short, anything that gets us out of the moment and what is emerging - and into our controlling heads.

The rules are simple – the application can be challenging, requiring conscious effort. One of the paradoxes of improv is that you practice being spontaneous until it comes naturally. By staying present to each moment, getting out of thinking and planning and into being, you have a wellspring options and choices in each moment that you otherwise would miss. With positive intention, active engagement, presence and yes-anding, you can't do anything but be co-generative!

The truth is, in each performance we have some magic moments and some more effortful ones - some that work and others that fall flat. But by adhering to the improv principles we significantly increase the magic and decrease the efforting. A creative - and surprisingly logical - play can then emerge through that fresh and alive energy. We, and the audience, then get to experience the real-time excitement of riding the flow of a creative emergence. 



I first put my Improvisation and Complexity Matrix into action at the Plexus Institute DC Fractal a few years ago. Participants were led through a series of improv activities that we then tied in to complexity science principles and discussed how they played out in organizations and other complex adaptive systems. Everyone agreed that, although framed differently, the small number of laws that can generate complex systems are embedded in the small number of laws that can generate full-length improvised plays.

Improv takes you to the edge of chaos – the inflection point – filled with fertile creative potential. We are natural meaning makers, and left to our own devices, our brains naturally seek to evolve order, coherence and meaning. Once you allow yourself the freedom to explore and play; set the initial conditions; and then get out of the way, creativity can develop and unify all kinds of things that otherwise would seem impossible.

The principles of improvisation serve a much larger purpose than performance - they have the ability to create the life-giving container for cognitive, personal, organizational, social, political, and spiritual transformation. I see them as rules of engagement for a more peaceful, co-generative, co-creative, sustainable world. ~ By Michelle James

Michelle James, CEO of The Center for Creative Emergence, founded Quantum Leap Business Theater 10 years ago where she has lead improv-based programs for organizations such as Microsoft, The World Bank and Kaiser Permanente among others. She also offers public workshops such as Improv for Leaders, Creative Facilitation using Improv and Improvisational Thinking to name a few.

Pictures are from one of our performances - Precipice Improv

 

 

Our Creativity in Business Conference ~ October 4 in DC

http://www.creativity-conference.com

Join applied-creativity thought leaders, pioneering entrepreneurs and business innovators from around the country - in the fields of creativity and innovation, organizational change, social media and transformational leadership - for a full-day event focused on:

* Harnessing and focusing individual, group & organizational creativity
* Organizational structures/business models conducive for creativity & innovation
* The integration of creativity, purpose, business & serving the greater good

New ideas, new innovations, new systems and new structures depend on accessing new levels of creativity. At this event, we will explore different facets of creativity as the key driver in navigating and thriving in the new work paradigm.

Conference: 9:00-5:30 Festival: 5:30-7:30

CONFERENCE:  - Lively, Content-rich, Experiential Break-out Sessions each with a different focus related to the theme of Applied Creativity in Business  - Engaging Thought Leader Panels explore the creativity-centered work paradigm through the lens' of leadership, social media and creative thinking

FESTIVAL:  Comedy, Live Music, Networking, Book Signings, Give-Aways and hors d'oeuvres from award-winning Mie N Yu restaurant

ALSO INCLUDED:  Arts and Business Services Silent Auction - all proceeds from the auction go to ProjectCreateDC. For more info on how to donate a work of art or a business service, email [email protected]

REGISTRATION:  Earlybird discount through August 21: $149 ~ Regular rate after August 21: $197 ~ Sponsorship: $500. Seating is limited - early registration is recommended. http://www.creativity-conference.com

SPONSORS: - The Center for Creative Emergence (Conference Producer) - Capitol Creativity Network - Center for Digital Imaging Arts - Teratech - Timothy Flatt Studios - Mie N Yu - Over The Horizon Consulting, LLC - Associated Producers - Brandwithin - Integral Company - Thoughtlead -Photograhy by Alexander

ALL THE DETAILS:  http://www.creativity-conference.com

Hope you can join us! :-)

Dynamic Tension and the Third Way

There is a dynamic tension between what is, and has been, and what is emerging - what is calling to be created into the world. Businesses are facing that as the old models are no longer working in this new culture. And the new ones have yet to be created. This is a fertile, rich time in the “in-between” because it means we get to be on the edge of conscious creativity. A space has opened up for exploration, experimentation, real-time feedback and modification. We get to create and "play with" what is next.

Emergence is a creative process of birthing something new into the world. Like with any new any new birth, there is a living, dynamic tension between expansion - the pushing forth - and contraction - maintaining the status quo. In understanding this tension, and working with it - not fighting it or denying it - the emergence process becomes much easier…because it is already how creativity naturally works.

Navigating dynamic tension requires giving up old approaches to emerging new structures - like either/or, compromise, and sometimes even consensus. Either/Or means a choice between one or another - this or that, us or them. Something/one wins and something/one loses. Compromise reduces - each side reduces their original version until a compromise is reached - a "less than" is agreed upon. Consensus is often also a process of reduction - boiling it down to a common denominator upon which all can agree. Something is usually lost for all involved. The alive edge of chaos - the most creatively fertile place - gives way to the comfort of the most people.

Emergence, on the other hand, is a “yes-anding” with each other and with the unexpected. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. It includes that which is most important to each side and space for the unexpected elements - and a Third Way emerges that is greater than both sides. In order for this to happen, all sides must be willing to release their original version (their status quo) to the more inclusive emergent vision (the expansion). Some parts might be let go, but the essence and the relevance remain.

 Improvisers are trained to do this all the time on order to create coherently in real-time in front of an audience. Abandoning the limitations of each person’s original agenda allows something more vital, alive, and coherent to emerge collectively. Just when you think you "see" where it is going, you have to surrender that vision to the larger unfolding of what is really happening in the moment. I believe it is now becoming increasingly important for everyone to do this to create the new business models that give way to more generative business structures.

This is both a scary time and an exciting time in the world. Destruction is all around…and with it, the promise of new creation. I think the more we become comfortable with dynamic tension and the unexpected, the more the fear can transform into pro-creative energy as we all navigate this new frontier together.

By Michelle James 2009

Whole-Brain Facilitation Workshop

Using Whole-Brain Creativity Practices and Principles  for Vibrant and Engaging
Learning Environments  ~ www.creativeemergence.com/id47.html

4-week Program ~ 4 Tuesdays in July: 3 live workshops plus 1 follow-up teleclass
Tuesdays, July 7-28 ~ 6:30pm-9:00pm
Led by Michelle James, CEO of The Center for Creative Emergence
 
NEW 4-WEEK EVENING FORMAT!
 
This workshop is for professional facilitators, trainers, OD practitioners, coaches, consultants, educators and anyone else who wants to facilitate creativity, dynamic learning and positive culture change for their participants.
 
Join the creativity training revolution! In this workshop you will learn and experience a variety of both right and left brain creativity approaches and techniques designed to enliven your workshops and accelerate participant learning.
 
You will learn how to * Quickly and easily engage participants * Modify activities for the particular group and learning objectives * Draw forth the energy, passion, and assets already in the room * Cultivate the attitudes and behaviors for using whole-brain approaches * Create a safe and receptive learning environment
 
Effectively getting groups to open up to experiential creative approaches begins with increasing your own comfort and flexibility with the techniques you facilitate. This workshop will focus on two levels at the same time - you as a professional, authentic facilitator and you as a creative individual. You will have the opportunity for personal expansion as you gather useful tools.
 
You will experience whole-brain training activities based in storytelling, improvisational theater, visual imagery, somatics, accelerated learning, ritual, systems thinking, Socratic and analytical processes...and more!  You will learn key creative facilitation principles, creativity training design guidelines, and whole brain approaches to design and facilitate innovative learning environments.
 
You will explore using whole brain methods to:
    * Get your own creative juices flowing
    * Draw forth your natural gifts as a facilitator
    * Explore the applications of these new tools
    * Have fun. Surprise yourself and each other
    * Let go of controls; think and respond spontaneously
 
You will leave with creative activities for:
    * Icebreakers
    * Energizers
    * Creating group story
    * Innovation & idea generation
    * Team & community building
 
In this pattern-breaking program, you will learn how to let go of controls and mindsets that otherwise inhibit your creative thinking. As you facilitate this for your participants, they will experience a deeper level of meaning and learning.
 
 When: This program meets in person the first 3 weeks, and then has a follow up phone session the fourth week. Live workshops: 3 Tuesdays 7/7, 714 and 7/21 - 6:30 -9:00pm. Group follow-up teleclass: 4th Tuesday 7/28 - 6:30-9:00pm. Where: McLean, VA, one minute off the beltway. Directions will be provided.
 
> Registration: $325 Early bird discounts: $250 if registered by June 25. Space is limited - early registration recommended.
> Details: Includes the Creative Facilitation Workbook with handouts, light snacks and spring water.
> To Sign Up: To register, please send a confirmation email to [email protected] and go to www.creativeemergence.com/id47.html
 
Contact information:
email: [email protected]
phone: 703-760-9009
web: http://www.creativeemergence.com

Accepting vs. Agreeing

One of the core principles of improvisational theater is "Yes And" - which means accepting (the YES) whatever is given (called "offers") and adding a new piece of information (the AND). It is the cornerstone of improv, and that which help improvisers keep the creativity going in the face of the unknown - with no plans, scripts or strategies.

When I bring Applied Improv principles and practices to organizations, inevitably someone says, "But what if you really DON'T agree with the idea that is offered? Some ideas are simply not good ideas." A valid case.

There are points I would like to address to that regard: first, the practice of "Yes-Anding" as a creativity technique is used more in the divergence (expanding and generating) part of the creative process. Among a host of other things, yes-anding helps open up the "playing field" for more possibilities and novel connections that otherwise would never have been engaged by the conventional approach of finding out all the reasons an idea will not work. Once you get into the convergence (discerning and focusing) part of the creative process, then you begin to use the "no's" as appropriate to discern what will and will not work based upon the objectives and the parameters of your focus.

The second point is more subtle. It is the difference between accepting the "offer" and agreeing with it. In improv, it does not matter what you personally think about the offer - or the person offering it - you accept it. You may disagree, but you still accept it and add to it. By doing so, you are not saying, "I love your idea!" Instead, you are engaging in the experiment of taking a seed idea and creating forth something new with it. In doing so, more often than not, an entirely unexpected direction will emerge that is better than anyone could have imagined. With clear intention of purpose, a "bad idea" that is accepted and "anded" can transform into a spot-on relevant innovation just a few "ands" later. To an improviser, all offers are gifts.
 
Perhaps more significantly, the art of acceptance is profound when practiced with groups and work teams. Accepting what someone is saying creates a feeling of safety. Once the ground of safety is established, members of the group will allow themselves to take more creative risks, to experiment more, to think more expansively...which leads to more novel and workable ideas. You don't have to agree with someone's point of view to honor that it is theirs. The payoff: you get more flow from the creative well. In a time when innovation is the big buzzword, the practice of accepting - regardless of agreeing - is one more tool for the creative toolbox.

My Improv Article at Innovation Tools

Innovation Tools is featuring an article I wrote, Creative Collaboration: Lessons from Improv Theater, on Applied Improv, based on my experience performing with Precipice Improv and applying improv principles and practices in organizations.

Click here for the article.

Improv for Leaders at the Capitol Creativity Network

I will be leading this month's program at the Capitol Creativity Network. If you will be around the Washington, DC area on August 13th, feel free to join us. Here is the write-up:

Improv for Leaders
Applying the Principles & Practices of Improvisational Theater in Work

Presented by Michelle James, CEO of The Center for Creative Emergence & Performer with Precipice Improv

Today's world requires leaders and entrepreneurs to work within ambiguity and uncertainty and still confidently move forward - just like improvisers. Effective leaders and improvisers both have to make spur of the moment decisions, synthesize information, incorporate new information, make others look good, innovate, make relevant connections and serve the good of the whole...often on the spot!

Improv-based learning helps people break patterns in order to respond in new ways. Improv takes us into the present moment where new possibilities open up. In this light-hearted, fun and energizing workshop, you will experience the principles and practices of improvisational theater to enhance your leadership performance by getting past the inner critic, risking in a safe space, and going from either/or to yes and thinking. No improv experience is necessary.  Improvisational skills help enhance core leadership competencies such as:

> Thinking on Your feet while under pressure
> Adapting as new information and situations emerge
> Resourcefulness - using the unexpected as opportunity
> Resilience - bouncing back quickly after "failures" or dead ends
> Ours thinking - team thinking in terms of WE

When: Wednesday, August 13 ~ 7:00-9:30pm
Where: Cleveland Park Club House ~ Washington, DC
Registration: $20 at the door

For directions and more details, go to www.capitolcreativitynetwork.com

What's Mine to Do - No More, No Less?

In improv theater, there is a concept called "Serve the good of the scene." I have expanded it in my work to what I call, "Serve the good of the whole." In order to do that, you neither impose your own agenda on a scene, nor do you shy away from being a collaborative contributor to the scene. You seek to serve what is best to keep the scene supported, creative and moving forward. Sometimes that means standing back in a support role. Sometime that means taking the lead. It is about what is yours to do - no more (by not taking over) and no less (by adding something new) - that will help contribute to the good of the scene.

I have found this concept universal and applicalbe in most, if not all, situations. One of the questions that has guided my life's work over the years since first emerging my Creative Emergence focus is, "What's mine to do - no more, no less?" in any situation - from working with a client, to designing a program to navigating my personal life. 

That question - if seriously asked and truthfully answered - narrows the fertile field of all things possible into to that which is most relevant and resonant at the given time for the particular circumstance. It simultaneously prevents one from over-controlling a situation or not taking enough initiative. I use this question with my Emergence coaching clients and my role in supporting them, as well as in my own life to help guide me to creating/unfolding what's next. I find it ignites and focuses creativity, and it keeps us in a co-creative – not controlling – role with those we serve.

Two of the (seemingly opposed) prevailing thought camps are (1) the Just-Do-It thinking - set a goal and go for it and (2) the What’s-Meant-to-Be-Will-Be thinking - let go of control, get out of the way and let it happen. I see both as true and neither as complete. By asking, "What is mine to do - no more, no less" we can discover know what is ours to actively create, and what is ours to release and let unfold - an any situation, and with any person or group. The both/and (or in improv terms - the Yes And) is the interdependent dance of the emergent creative process – the "yin/yang" of both stepping up and letting go based on what is calling to emerge in the situation.

Michelle James©2008

Interviewed on Improv by Da Innovise Guys

I had the great pleasure to be interviewed by da Innovise guys, Gregg Fraley author of the business creativity fable, Jack's Notebook, and his partner in "Innovisation," Doug Stevenson on improvisation in business. We had a good time waxing philosophic on improv and our passion to bring improv-based principles and practices into the work place...and ultimately the world!

Click here to hear the interview.

Emergent Processes

The term Creative Emergence unfolded in my consciousness 10 years ago when observing what was happening an "emergent" co-creative process in which I was immersed with a business partner. I had not heard it before, but something amazing was happening in our process where there was no compromise - where the whole of what we were creating was greater than the sum of both of our contributions.

As I started working with clients using creative emergence processes - by discovery in real time - I observed some reoccurring patterns and compiled "44 Principles of Creative Emergence" (to go in my book some day). Shortly after, I discovered that Emergence was one of the more well known principles talked about in the complexity sciences. That opened a whole new level of understanding - what I had been learning about emergent creativity fit in perfectly with what I started learning about complex adaptive systems and emergence in the natural world - and could be applied in human organizational systems. Then, I started studying improv theater and found the improv principles fit in with both the principles of creative emergence as well as the ones in complexity sciences. Suddenly, things fit more into place in my mind - we live in a creatively emergent universe and these patterns can be found everywhere.

Today I found this article entitled Emergence Processes by Tom Wiscombe at http://www.emergentarchitecture.com/pdfs/OZJournal.pdf. Here are some excerpts:

Emergence isn’t interested in parts; it is the science of wholes...

There has been a lot of talk about emergence since it was ‘discovered’ as a subset of complexity theory in the 1980s, that discovery linking back to the emergence of systems theory in the 1920s. Beyond the journalistic definition, ie. ‘to arise’ or ‘come to being’, as in ‘emerging artists’, emergence refers in fact to a very particular scientific phenomenon: the indivisibility and irreversibility of wholes-- be they structures, organizations, behaviors, or properties. In particular, emergence refers to the universal way in which small parts of systems, driven by very simple behaviors, will tend toward coherent organizations with their own distinctly different behaviors.

The natural world gives us the most vivid, real-time examples - the hive, swarming, flocking - where independent parts snap into formation and take on complex emergent behavior, behavior which is not traceable back to the behavior of the parts. Nevertheless, emergent phenomena are natural in a broader sense, and have been proven to be equally useful in describing the complex behavior of cultural, political, economic, and urban organizations.

Even the organization of conciousness into what is often loosely referred to as ‘intelligence’ turns out to be best modelled from the bottom-up as a swarm of neurons exhibiting emergent behavior. More interesting still, paradigm shifts, or changes of collective mind, appear to also be best understood as sudden coherences emerging from multitudes of independent feelings about the world. Growth and evolution, and the drive toward more complex forms of organization, therefore, are never additive and linear, but rather consistently based on the dynamics and transformative potential of emergence...

This means setting multiple processes and techniques in motion...rather than focusing on a singular formal solutions.