Chapter 8: And they lived happily ever after … or did they?
Putting creativity on trial for the final twist in the plot
Just a few months before the revolutionary events in Egypt our family wandered through Cairo’s Tahrir Square as carefree tourists. We attracted the usual attention and interest with our blond hair and the corresponding expectation of easy foreign money, and were frequently pressed to buy copy watches and fake artefacts, but nothing out of the ordinary for a typical travel experience, and we generally felt pretty safe. Not long after that, a tidal wave of reform swept through the Middle East. Images of Tahrir Square under siege were beamed around the world, and what had so recently been a peaceful open market became a barricaded battleground. After a brief period of euphoria, the same darkness that had dwelt in the country before the revolution crept back in under the new powers.
At the height of the uprising, which had successfully ended Mubarak’s 30-year reign of power, blonde veteran CBS reporter Lara Logan was on location in the thick of the celebrations at Tahrir Square. With history in the making and the world watching, she reported that she felt safe. Shortly afterwards, though, the mood around her turned hostile, and a 200-strong mob turned on Lara and brutally attacked and sexually assaulted her.1
The crowd mentality is dangerous. Social psychologist Sam Keen2 believes that mob killers universally use a language of prejudice and stereotypes to tap into the crowd’s most visceral emotions. And another, more insidious thing happens: the diffusion of responsibility enables the abdication of individual sense of values. Sound like any workplace you have been in? Underneath the mask of the enemy, says Joseph Campbell,3 we ultimately recognise ourselves, but it is when a mob can whip a crowd into such an emotional frenzy that personal contact is lost that the situation can become dangerous.
Before you prepare to attack the creativity killers in your working or living environment, and before you rally around similarly incensed fellow workers or citizens, bear in mind that these potential killers are only suspects (and all of them also live in each one of us to varying degrees). We know from the investigation of the crime scene that the issue is real, but the factors involved can be incredibly complex. Each individual should soberly assess their personal situation to determine creativity’s killer for them, without going on a witch hunt and externalising the blame.
Can the killers be redeemed … and are the rescuers squeaky clean?
As much as we have described the suspect creativity killer profiles in black and white, setting them up as evil serial killers, we admit to employing creative licence to make our points. Inherently ‘good’ people or systems can be capable of doing destructive things, and apparently ‘bad’ people and systems are equally capable of being constructive. This ambiguity is at the core of creativity. If you are now able to accept this level of ambiguity, then well done — you have already learned one essential lesson. The creativity killers cannot be reduced to simple villains, and they will not be reported on the front page of the newspapers with a big ‘wanted’ sign and a reward for any information about their whereabouts or leading to their arrest.
It often comes down to the specific environment and mindset that is created, and the ability of good teaching and leadership to bring out the positive behaviours and traits. Some individuals or systems that display characteristics of control, bureaucracy or fear, for example, incorporate these traits in careful moderation for specific purposes. Often those who suppress creative thinking are unaware of the effect of their actions and will be willing to change. Consider some possible positive flipsides to our ‘most wanted’ list:
• Control. You don’t see an emergency response team leader in the midst of an emergency asking if the team would like to spend some time brainstorming ideas. There are times when you simply need to take action swiftly and expertly, and these are times when control is needed.
• Fear. This is one of the most adaptive responses we have. Fear keeps us alive. It is only when this physiological response is wrongly applied (or manipulated) that it becomes harmful.
• Pressure. Pressure can be positive, when it is experienced as ‘eustress’. It has been shown to enable people to rise to an occasion and even to focus, particularly for short-term events.
• Insulation. All of us have a selective filter that enables us to sort through incoming information so we can focus on what is valuable. If we were to take in every piece of information we are exposed to, we’d go crazy! So this can be an important quality.
• Apathy. People who would like to find ways to be more efficient may be able to channel this drive in a positive way. Working long hours doesn’t necessarily lead to greater success or productivity. We have already seen that the best creative ideas can come when the brain is in a relaxed state (such as sleep or deep relaxation), so be careful not to mistake the need to rest and have some down time with apathy.
• Pessimism. People can harness the power of negative thoughts to increase their self-esteem and make significant progress towards personal goals.4 As described earlier, defensive pessimism recognises the adaptive value of thinking through worst-case scenarios and springboarding from anxiety to motivate and carry out effective actions.
As with many things in life, a level of balance is required, as well as a need to view things perceptively, to know where the balance point is, because swinging to either extreme will most likely be counterproductive. Sometimes the ‘murderer’ attributes are everyday qualities that can be used either positively or negatively. But remember that one of the key determinations in this book is that over the long term heightened states of fear, pessimism and pressure will sap brain bandwidth and drain the energy needed for creative thinking.
On the other side, the rescuers may not always be as squeaky clean as we have made them out to be. Consider how, for example, blind positivity can actually be as dangerous as fatalistic pessimism, in that blind optimists are unable to spot dangers easily. Optimists and idealists have wrought havoc over the centuries through ignorance of the truths of human nature and human society, and naive hopes of what can be changed.5 In a similar way, too much freedom can lead to anarchy, too much independence can be counterproductive for collaborative innovation, and too much flexibility can mean there is no structure for disciplined growth. As in many areas in life, we need to set boundaries and clear guidelines for constructive creative development.
The yin and yang of creativity
What about creativity herself? Perhaps she is not the innocent victim we have portrayed her to be. She may have personality challenges of her own …
While we were thinking over this final chapter Kallen needed help with an assignment about famous artists — and we were struck by the flipside of creative genius. Kallen chose to focus on Van Gogh’s self-portrait after he had cut off his own ear, a not-so-positive self-reflection from a tormented creative individual. (There are, of course, a multitude of other examples.) This simple assignment, more than anything else, illustrated for us the struggles that can accompany creative genius. While we might admire what exceptionally creative people have achieved, it is important to recognise that many creative geniuses are in fact tortured souls. Their emotional sensitivity and passion are often so consuming that their lives are deeply dysfunctional and shaped by constant, relentless struggle. For some, indeed, there appears to be a fine line between creative genius and madness.
It is not difficult to see that many creative geniuses carry with them elements of madness and are characterised by qualities or behaviours that strike others as odd. Consider the following examples6:
• Albert Einstein picked up cigarette butts off the street to collect tobacco for his pipe.
• Howard Hughes spent entire days in a self-created germ-free zone in the middle of his Beverly Hills hotel suite.
• The composer Robert Schumann believed that Beethoven directed his musical compositions.
• Salvador Dalí liked to keep exotic pets.
• Michael Jackson showed an unhealthy obsession with plastic surgery.
• Steve Jobs was known to be obsessive in a number of ways, including diet.
Historically, geniuses were often persecuted, although in enlightened times these nonconformists have had the opportunity to make great contributions to science and society.7
Creativity and eccentricity may, in fact, be closely biologically related. Some have argued that there is evidence that both are the result of genetic variations that increase cognitive disinhibition — the brain’s failure to filter out extraneous information.8 When unfiltered information reaches conscious awareness in the brains of people who are highly intelligent, and they can process this information without being overwhelmed, it can lead to exceptional insights. Certain other cognitive traits, such as the ability to make unusual or bizarre associations, are shared by schizophrenics and healthy, highly creative people, who score well on divergent thinking tests just as mentally ill people can. Interestingly, both groups share a lower density of D2 receptors in the thalamus than the average population. However, correlation should not be confused with causation. ‘Thinking outside the box might be facilitated by having a somewhat less intact box,’ suggests Dr Fredrik Ullén of the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, about these new findings.9 The point at which ‘the box’ becomes unable to sustain healthy functioning is a fascinating idea.
Since we have given all the creativity killers personality characteristics in this book, let’s go way out on a limb to contemplate for a minute the idea that creativity herself might also have unique behaviour traits.10 If we were to describe creativity as a personality type, perhaps we could say there are two distinct sides to her personality — a fast-paced, active explorer, and a slower-paced, deeply reflective artist. Bipolar disorder (otherwise known as manic depression) has a similar manic, charged state, in which there can be exciting flashes of perception, and a depressed slower state, in which there can be deep emotional insights. In bipolar disorder the manic state opens up creative thinking by allowing the individual to believe there are no boundaries. Like the active creative state, the manic state is physically alert and able to respond quickly (perhaps sometimes irrationally) through a range of changes (for example, emotional, perceptual, behavioural). The depressed state, conversely, can also induce creative insights through enabling the individual to access his or her deeper emotional side. (Unfortunately, in clinical depression lows can have both artistically impressive and destructive force.) Creativity can express herself in either of these two ways. Perhaps by learning to access our creative thinking ability we are opening ourselves up to both the explorer and artist, accessing deeper skills and emotions than we might otherwise encounter.11
Of course this is not to say that creativity equals crazy, and you certainly don’t need to be crazy to be creative. Remember, 30 per cent of us meet the criteria for a major psychological disorder at some stage in our lives, so many of us cross the boundaries of what is ‘normal’ at some time. Perhaps at times creativity will appear in unusual ways, but creativity in itself is neither a positive nor a negative quality. It is simply what it is. The point is we need to use creativity in a constructive way, making the most of both the reflective and active sides of her personality in balance.
Think about the importance of being truly open to our innermost feelings and emotions. Reflect on how, by facing these emotions, responding to them and dealing with them, we may in fact be able to connect with the deeper feelings that bring passion and meaning into our lives, possibly even enabling a sense of connection and purpose. Surely that is a form of liberation that is worth pursuing despite the potential challenges?
Playing with fire and other disruptive innovations
When driving in remote areas of Australia it can be a very strange sight to see firefighters with flamethrowers rather than water hoses. Why are these emergency workers setting fire to the bushland instead of putting out fires, as you would expect them to do? The reason is they know a secret they learned from Australian Aboriginals, something the Indigenous people have known for many thousands of years. The Australian bushland needs to be regularly regenerated. Back-burning helps to protect inhabited areas by reducing fuel build-up in a controlled way, but burning the bush also encourages its regeneration over the long term. After the fire the native trees and bushes sprout fresh shoots and buds and grow back even thicker and hardier than they were before. The practice of back-burning has to be evaluated in the context of the full life cycle of the bush. Without this bush burning, the natural habitat would not thrive.
Bringing creativity into your life or into your organisation can be like the preventative actions of Australian firefighters. A deliberately lit bushfire may be an act of arson (causing havoc and leaving a path of destruction) or a proactive rescue process (controlled back-burning, leading to long-term protection and, ultimately, new life). Back-burning is also a preventative measure, as without deliberate, carefully executed controlled burning eventually a wild fire will ravage the environment mercilessly.
Back-burning can be compared to what is known in behavioural economics as ‘disruptive innovation’ — that is, intervening by means of a radical, apparently destructive act in pursuit of a higher purpose. Such a scorched earth process may be needed to get to the heart of an organisational problem and to break down poor foundations before it is possible to rebuild constructively. But some organisations may not be prepared to take this step. Sometimes the transformation required for real innovation is just too much of a challenge.12 And sometimes people are not ready for the fuzzy grey ambiguities of creativity itself. The practice of questioning current beliefs, systems and processes can be painful and harsh, the pursuit of the murder suspects can be relentless, but it may be a necessary evil to reach a positive outcome over the long term.
Even if we agree that new creative ideas will produce better results and are needed to move forward, how many people would willingly trigger such a disruptive process, either in their own lives and or in their organisations? What leader can really afford to introduce a major innovation revolution by moving the company through a ‘back-burning’ stage? Who would be prepared to raze a company to enable it to grow stronger and hardier from the ground up? Who would begin such a massive renovation, knowing that the benefits would not be felt until the next generation, when the CEO’s immediate pressure is to make this year’s budget? Think of most politicians. They are reluctant to do anything likely to be unpopular in the short term, even if it means the country would benefit in the longer term, because they won’t risk losing elections.13
As an interesting reflective exercise, let’s turn the tables on the main premise of this book and think about this whole whodunit scenario in reverse. Let’s imagine for a moment that creativity is the murder suspect and stands accused of threatening or killing other values that can be vital to survival — perhaps stability or continuity or longevity. Then we might be asking the questions, ‘Who killed the system that provides stability?’ or ‘Who challenged the status quo?’
Geoffrey West believes the average company lasts for only 40 years because leaders do not recognise the need to go through this back-burning and regeneration process, or do not want to risk going through it while the business is profitably growing. To survive the inevitable growth and decline cycle, West says, companies have no choice but to ‘die’ in a sense. But if they manage this inevitability cleverly, they will prepare for it by initiating completely new life cycles from the virtual death of the initial enterprise. Although it can be a major jolt to the system, as a defibrillator machine literally shocks the heart back to life, it will reset the clock and enable productive life to begin all over again.14 Just as this needs to happen on the macro and organisational level, it can and should also happen on a micro individual level.
In the 1800s, when New York’s streets were crammed with horse-drawn carriages, the city was threatened with an overwhelming horse manure problem. The city almost didn’t survive the ecological disaster, but out of the mire there was a positive result. The crisis led to the need to reset the clock through a massive new technological innovation — through the mass production of the new machine known as the ‘automobile’. The innovation was introduced just in the nick of time, but as a result anyone involved in the horse-and-buggy industry would have lost their income, if they hadn’t kept abreast of these changes.15
Innovate or die — the commercial and social consequences of regeneration
If you weren’t around to see the transition of New York from the age of horse-drawn carriages to automobiles, or if you missed the shift to relatively clean electric power in the home after the burning of depleted fossil fuels such as coal had poisoned the lungs of generations, you may still be lucky enough to witness a new regeneration phase for human civilisation. Our insatiable appetite for more things ‘quicker, better and cheaper’ is demanding ever more innovative thinking.
So what form will the next creative reset take? The current critical issue of global warming provides a big ‘creative reset’ opportunity. It now appears to be a clear case of ‘do or die’, lest we end up in an apocalyptic ‘Mad Max’ type world. In other areas, we are now witnessing the emergence of smaller, more nimble organisations that can compete with the larger, more established companies on a number of fronts. Think of how the creative kid with a laptop working out of his garage is currently simultaneously respected and feared by the once dominant corporate executive.
Consider another area of rapid change: book publishing. If you are reading this book in printed form you should cherish it — it may be the last of a dying breed. But it is more likely that you will be reading it in ebook format. As we were in the process of writing this book, bookshops and publishers were experiencing the collapse of the industry on which they relied, one that has been in the process of being reborn online (although, as often happens when facing the possibility of physical death, denial has been a prevalent emotional response). A turning point in this regeneration revolution was Amazon’s announcement in 2011 that sales of ebooks had overtaken sales of print books and that they were taking on authors themselves, writing publishers out of the deal.16 The same year saw the big bookshop chains disappear from the local malls across the country.
Why have these organisations missed the innovative shift and therefore died from uncontrolled burning? According to Tim Harford:
Disruptive innovations are disruptive precisely because the new technology doesn’t appeal to the traditional customers: The problem for a market leader in the old technology is not necessarily that it lacks the capacity to innovate, but that it lacks the will. When a disruptive technology appears, it may confound an existing player because the technology itself is so radically different. A sufficiently disruptive innovation bypasses almost everybody who matters at a company: In short, everyone who counts in a company will lose status if the disruptive innovation catches on inside that company — and whether consciously or unconsciously, they will often make sure that it doesn’t. As a result, the company may find itself in serious trouble. It may even die.17
Lonely Planet is an example of a publisher that adapted to the digital age and the changing needs of travellers; it did so through new digital audio tours and a ‘pick and mix’ function that allows customers to download and print chapters of books.18 Indigo, Canada’s largest bookseller, promotes books as a ‘lifestyle’, not a product, selling giftware, children’s toys, video games, music, gourmet food and even flowers along with their books. It is an example of a contemporary independent bookseller leveraging on people’s affection for books and desire to give beautiful gifts. The Apple Newton crashed and burned, but out of the ashes rose the iPad, along with the Kindle and other, similar portable electronic reading devices.
Many organisations in the entertainment industry, struggling to survive following the rapid technological changes, are using creative thinking to generate clever solutions. Before the pirating of music and TV shows became a major issue, for example, successful clothing brands were often copied. In the markets of Bali, for a number of years surf wear companies struggled to compete against the fake knock-offs being sold on every street corner. At only a few dollars per item, these copies were hugely attractive to tourists wanting to snap up a quick bargain at a fraction of the regular cost. Then the owner of one of the largest surf brands came up with an ingenious way to deal with the problem. He found out who the biggest culprits were in the knock-off market, and he offered them the chance to own the licence and represent the real brand in Bali. In return, they were to ensure the fake brands were no longer an issue. While the big brand owners had not been able to control what was happening in the local markets and on the streets of Kuta, the locals did have this power. The immediate success of this arrangement was astonishing.
What we are witnessing today is not just an interesting natural growth-and-death cycle, but a regeneration model in which the stakes are higher than they have ever been before. Creative thinking will need to be applied to solve the world’s problems. Not just to sell more products, feather more nests, build more insanely wealthy personal incomes and support the limited capitalist cycle. Driven by people power, those who have learned they can take the future into their own hands will do so. With open accessibility, this innovation revolution will be wider reaching and more pervasive than anything previously experienced. And it will be a test of how willing we are to recognise the needs identified through this new empowering process and respond to them creatively.
Change is inevitable, so scale the slopes constructively
Change is inevitable. There will always be new mountains to climb. We will always need to innovate to conquer these mountains as they continue to loom larger and larger. Innovation is neither good nor evil — it just is. It will happen whether we are actively involved in the process or not, so it’s up to us to decide if we are going to be a positive part of the process, or if we are going to become its hapless victims.
Organisations will need to recognise the impact this innovation will have on their future. If creativity doesn’t come from the organisation it will come from the people, and if the organisation can’t change it will become obsolete. ‘Disruptive innovation’ will emerge with or without an organisation’s assistance or approval. The customer will innovate with or without help. People started downloading TV shows not necessarily because they enjoyed doing things illegally, but simply because they didn’t want to be dictated to on what to watch and when to watch it. After all, a teenage kid illegally downloading the latest TV show from The Pirate Bay through uTorrent would probably rather download it from ABC TV virus free and in HD quality. Even if they have to put up with legitimate advertisements, it would be better than having to put up with the banner ads for porn sites that accompany uTorrent pages. Heaven forbid if they accidently click on the wrong ‘upload’ button!
As Patricia B. Seybold sees it, ‘Customers have taken control. Their rampant comparison shopping is eroding your margins. Their renegade behaviour is challenging your business models and endangering your intellectual property. Their demanding expectations for customized products, wonderful experiences and high service levels are draining your resources. Customers’ insistence on open access is exposing your industry’s policies and challenging your inflexible business processes.’19
Because innovation emerges out of the structural tension between the way things are and the way we imagine they could be, the gap between what people can do today and what they want to be able to do is driving change beyond what anyone may have anticipated. Rather than waiting for Mother Nature’s inevitable environmental reset, proactive steps will need to be taken to deal with global climate change. Rather than creating the products or services for the customer, organisations will have to learn to allow the customer to identify and drive innovation.
Even simple changes are now being found to make a significant difference. Consider the ‘trayless cafeteria’, as implemented in some universities in the US. By simply ceasing to use trays, less food is wasted, less water and energy is used in cleaning, less trash and waste water is produced, and less food is consumed — all positive benefits. Before the introduction of the scheme in the University of Nebraska’s dining halls it was observed that students threw away 1300 pounds of solid food, 800 pounds of liquid and 90 pounds of paper in just five hours. Studies have shown that trayless dining programs reduce food waste by 25 to 30 per cent per person.20
In the now struggling retail clothes industry, retailers must now contend with unscrupulous shoppers who try on their clothes to check the fit and then verify the best prices online on their smart phones. Some stores deal with this by charging a fitting fee — as much $50 for ski boots, or $300 for a wedding dress! While many companies might find themselves burned by this reactive charging, stores like Myer have started a proactive ‘back-burning’ process, responding to the ‘disruptive innovations’ by setting up their own online stores offshore (in Hong Kong) to get their foot in the door of the exponentially growing online market.
Rather than assuming that the organisation has ‘experts’ who are smarter than its customers, which is no longer always the case, argues Seybold, smart organisations will be open to and value the customer’s or client’s input. Traditionally, the organisation was set up as the specialist, and products were designed to anticipate what the customer might want. The marketing team would then work to sell that product by creating an active need. Today, however, by starting with the customer’s input, products are more user friendly and relevant and largely sell themselves. Some see this as one of the major differences between Microsoft and Apple: Microsoft innovated around their products, while Apple innovated around their customers.
For example, Apple beat the usual imposed limitations of the dimensionality curve by making it possible for anyone to design a new application for their iPhone or iPad. This effectively increased their workforce by more than 100 000 people, without any of the associated costs or commitments! It represented a complete turnaround from how Apple and Microsoft had once been differentiated. Microsoft had first built an open system in which their product could be used with any hardware, while Apple had remained restricted, but now Apple has turned the tables with this opportunity for open access. What this may be demonstrating is that the organisations that are able to open up their offerings become freer to be more creative, and these are the organisations that will ultimately win out.
Maybe the time has come to reset the clock and let creativity find new and better ways to grow. Just as there are a few ways to get down a mountain safely, ensuring you don’t free-fall off the precipices or slide out of control down the steep slopes, we have provided you with a few approaches to get through the changes the future will bring. Like the skilled off-piste snowboarder, you can exercise your brain and practise your personal skills to learn to react quickly and expertly to any hidden obstacles. And like the abseiler who descends the cliff by a series of manageable planned pitches, you can take the time to address specific challenges slowly and carefully, one step at a time, remaining open to new creative possibilities, as you introduce practical innovations to your team and your organisation.
Why the Mexico rubbish dump dwellers might just save the planet
If ever there was a place to abandon hope for civilisation, it would be found on the outskirts of one of the largest and most polluted cities in the world, in one of the poorest areas on earth. We still have a clear image in our heads of two nine-year-old children flying homemade kites, running as fast as they can. Their kites soar four metres above our heads before suddenly plummeting onto a stinking pile of garbage. But this was not just an isolated rubbish pile. This mound was a small part of a huge mountain of rubbish that stretched as far as the eye could see, at least a mile or two in each direction. The constantly smouldering rubbish mountain is home to a whole community of people who fossick for scraps of food and collect recyclable materials to sell. Hundreds of people live here in houses knocked together out of discarded bits of tin and wood — people who have moved from the country looking for work, people who have fallen on hard times. And this is just one of four such rubbish mountain communities that ring Mexico City, between them housing literally thousands of impoverished people. (To see a video interview with the children go to www.whokilledcreativity.com.)
For the first time in history more people now live in cities than in rural areas. As we race into the future the pace of urbanisation will continue to increase. Billions more people will move into cities over this century, and as they do these fringe communities will continue to grow and evolve. The changes are too large and too fast to allow planners and policymakers to respond adequately.21 The down side of urbanisation is not inescapable, and it’s going to be a race between sigmoidal growth that could lead to an unavoidable reset and possible death and new growth from creative intervention and deliberate regeneration (back-burning).
As much as the Mexico City rubbish dump might sound like an exceptionally depressing place, we found a vibrant community of purposeful people with winning smiles and positive attitudes. The houses were positioned along tidy streets carved through the piles of garbage and swept meticulously daily to give some semblance of order in chaos. Small ‘gardens’ (struggling plant cuttings in rusty old tins, old painted salsa jars and tyres) epitomised the spirit of hope and creative playfulness of the community. Although the children worked hard each day collecting the recyclables to contribute to the family income, they also had time to play — and to create. They made their kites out of discarded plastic and sticks, they constructed original playthings from toys wealthy children had discarded, putting together bits and pieces that other children would have found useless. Having nothing, and possibly because they had nothing, they were original and inventive. Rather than watching ready-made stories on TV and playing with ready-made toys, they worked from a clean slate, using their imagination to create what they did not have.
We reflected on the irony of the situation. We couldn’t have found ourselves further from the affluent Sydney Northern Beaches community we had come from, where children complained of being bored and having nothing to do and yet had access to any number of pre-packaged gadgets, toys and amusements. It was a long way too from our paradise in Bali, where powerful external forces had led to the death of a pristine beach, the loss of creative innocence and the demise of the creative spirit in the village community. We had found the epitome of original creative thinking in the most unlikely of places. And we realised that day how important it was to discover and learn from the mindset that enabled those with no means to build something from nothing and to keep hoping for a better future.
Our cities and civilisations don’t need to die, and we need not let creativity expire. As we race towards the future we need to stimulate a cross-pollination of ideas from the top floor of the CEO’s office down to the rubbish dump and back again. It might seem crazy, but the smart application of creativity can ensure it will continue to be reborn into more inspiring places with better connections for positive ongoing growth.
Like the mythical phoenix firebird rising from the ashes, as often as creativity is destroyed, it rises again in the most unlikely of places, even in the smouldering wreckage of our civilisation. Each of us has the ability to make something better out of what we have been given. Whether it’s the kids who made the kites to fly over the rubbish dump that is their home, the school teacher who inspires his or her students to explore new ideas, office workers creating their own pockets of creativity in an otherwise uninspiring workplace, or a leader who can transform the whole company, we each have our own unique skills to bring and something special to give.
By opening ourselves up in this way, we diminish the power of the creativity killers and revitalise the creative process, helping to make the world a better place. We hope you are inspired to open yourself up to this process and find a way to make your own positive contribution.