5.2 Creativity

One of the reasons that I was attracted to working on the street with young people in 1990 was that I noticed the phrase creative ways of working with young people in the advertisement for the job.

Even though I was not fully aware why, the word creative attracted me.

Around that time, I probably associated the word creativity with song-writing, art, poetry etc. and not really supporting people in distress.

I assumed that creative ways of working with young people involved outdoor pursuits, physical activities, adventure sports, camping, hill walking – with, perhaps arts, crafts and/or music for those not inclined towards the outdoors.

And indeed they did!

However my eyes were opened very quickly when we were challenged to not only find creative ways of working in respect of activities (diverted, as we were advised the term was) but also building trusting relationships with vulnerable young men and women.

I also learned that 1): usually anything worth doing comes with challenges that need to be addressed with creative solutions, not throwing our hands in the air in surrender, and 2): if we never take a chance we will lose out on the richness of resolution of problems and little crises from which so much more can be learned.

Perhaps you are surprised that such an indefinable subject as creativity is included in a Section on Practical Applications.

The reason it is, is that I believe that creativity, while being wonderful to behold or experience as a once-off burst or flash (like lightning that illuminates everything for a split second) only yields results when it is harnessed and applied in a practical manner to do useful work – like electricity!

I hope that this will be clear as the Chapter is read.

This Chapter, containing eight Sub-Chapters, is about how creativity can be applied to build and sustain relationships – and I am deeply indebted to everyone with whom I came into contact over many decades who taught me and continue to teach me what creativity is. 

5.2.1                CREATIVITY – INTRODUCTION

5.2.2                CREATIVITY – GENERAL

5.2.3                CREATIVITY IN ORGANISATIONS

5.2.4                AUTONOMY

5.2.5                CREATIVITY IN STRATEGIC THINKING 

5.2.6               CREATIVE CHANGE

5.2.7                DISCIPLINE

5.2.8                CREATIVITY – CONCLUSION

When I think of the word (noun) creativity I think of the verb it comes from, i.e. to create.

My first memory of the word create comes from religion.  (God created the world).  We were told that he created it out of nothing.  It was quite difficult for my childish mind to get up to speed as to how something could be made out of nothing, and it certainly raised the status of creating to a fairly high level – not to mention God!   

In later years, when I was thinking what the word meant to me personally, and in the context of my work with people in distress, I stumbled on something that I felt was worth thinking a little bit more about.

The opposite of ‘to create’ is ‘to destroy’. I asked myself what I thought of using the word creativity in the context of destruction, or even doing harm.  For example:

~ There are many creative people working in the arms industry that are inventing devices to inflict pain, terror and death on other humans.

~ A lot of creativity went into inventing the naval vessel that is called a Destroyer, and indeed a captain of a Destroyer could be very creative in winning a naval battle.

~ Sometimes Western World enthusiasts for air-brushing our past sins from history have borrowed (from the world of economics) the term creative destruction to describe colonisation that annihilated aboriginal nations and cultures and replaced them with more (supposedly) productive modern Western culture.

~ There are people working in, say, financial services that are creative in how profits are made for very rich people at the expense of the poorest of the poor – possibly causing poverty, austerity etc. in their own and other countries or even famine in distant lands.

Are such examples (and others like them) depicting creativity? Are such people being creative?

I suppose in some ways they are but when I say that creativity is essential in our work I will also say that creativity, like science itself, cannot be value-free.

That is, the creativity that is needed to engage with and build relationships with people in distress has to be done in the context of an ethical awareness of the consequences of being creative.

I say all the above in full awareness of my own reluctance to put a boundary around something like creativity, a human quality that I hold in very high esteem.

But what I am saying, in effect, is that I am interpreting the word creativity in a certain way, and if someone uses the word in the context of doing harm I find it difficult to consider it to be creativity at all.

Perhaps there is another word that describes creativity that enhances humanity rather than just creativity – but I don’t know it.

Now that I have decided that the creativity we are discussing will be of the life-affirming type I will continue!

Essential in our work, and hot on the heels of cultural matching, is the willingness to focus on creative methods of building relationships often in quite difficult and distressing scenarios.

Remember the inhibitors of creativity from the Chapter on The Family Support Shamrock?  If you have forgotten them I invite you to look them up now.

In my experience what people need is creativity but what they often experience when they go looking for help is distance, aloofness, hastiness, conditional regard, and sometimes even coercion or punishment.

One of the reasons for this is time, as many of us working in this field are overworked. 

But I believe that the lack of creativity in relationship building (which is the area we are interested in) also arises from the fact that it is generally not that highly esteemed in mainstream family support work.

I believe that creativity is fostered by confidence, and an appreciation of uncertainty and (acceptable) risk taking.  Viewing spontaneity as a useful trait is also important.

And ‘why not?’ or ‘just do it!’ attitudes!

It is also enhanced by responsible behaviour, which assists in setting necessary boundaries – without which nothing will ever be achieved.

And one of the most important factors is flexibility.

That is, the willingness to put something aside, (that might seem to be important at the time), to attend to someone in distress.  (A complete paper could be written on time).

I mentioned the link between creativity and time in the last post and it is also one of our root foundations.

Time is a fairly significant factor in anger. We can be angry if we perceive that we have not enough time, or we have run out of time, or other people are putting pressure on us to move too quickly, or someone gets in our way, slowing us down when we are trying to do something.

Even in the case of the mini-crisis in the kitchen in the Chapter on Systems Theory when Dad was getting the children to school, time pressure was one possible cause of his anger.  And think of how irritated we get if the traffic light goes red when we are in a hurry, not to mention the car in front of us not moving off quickly enough.

But there are other aspects worth noting about time!

No other action, in my opinion, is as helpful in building relationships (particularly in their early stages) than displaying flexibility with respect to availability of time [1].

If we perceive that no-one ever had time for us we really appreciate time given to us when we are under pressure.

And given that someone in a family in our Focus Group may be angry at many things – time is a very useful tool in our work reducing anger.

Just as importantly, it also facilitates the education of the worker.  It opens up, in real-time, a path to the individual’s family and all the difficulties that the family (probably) has but maybe have never trusted anyone enough to be open about. 

Outreach work, particularly that which includes street-work, is a very good example of creativity-in-action.  It facilitates/enables the building of relationships with people who have lost or are losing contact with mainstream society.  It is also a statement about how we want to use our time.

It also increases the chances that we and our organisation will have relevance in someone’s life. This is particularly true at between-crisis times when so much good work can be done, as people may be more receptive to new thinking when not under pressure.

And, of course, outreach work enhances the cultural matching described in the previous Chapter. It is a risk, as rejection is always a possibility, but it is a risk well worth taking.

Another enhancer of creativity, and thinking outside the box, is democracy in our organisation, where we feel heard, have a genuine, felt, sense of belonging and where our opinions in respect of our own healing are taken seriously.

Streetwork, or other forms of encounter on someone else’s turf, where people feel safe to express spontaneous views, fosters democracy.

And true democracy, where we really feel heard and get a sense that we have power takes time.

[1]. Alice Leahy the redoubtable campaigner for the homeless wrote/edited a very enjoyable book entitled Wasting Time with People.

Sometimes, statutory agencies and other Pillars influenced entities use words like unreachable to describe families in our Focus Group.

But people – and this includes members of families who have always viewed the system with suspicion and wariness, and choose to make themselves unreachable – are naturally drawn towards creativity.

Creativity excites, invites and usually stimulates a response.  If you are a parent, or if you have ever worked with children, (or if you remember your own childhood) you will know this.

And the same is true for adults.

Creativity is intimately connected with passion and love, and fosters hope, i.e. the possibility that something might be different, that there is an invitation to express myself and perhaps look at the same situation with different eyes.

Research in neuroscience has proven that love and creativity impact on activity in the brain, relieving psychological pain and contributing to the release of certain chemicals that reduce the effects of other chemicals associated with anger and hostility [1].

Risk taking, (not foolhardiness) is a necessary component of creativity.

In order to make any progress in any field we need to take a risk.  It is attractive to people who are in distress because many people who are in distress and/or have had tragedies or very difficult experiences in their lives are angry with what they perceive as bureaucratic obstacles that are placed in their way for – from their point of view – no apparent reason.

When we take a risk we put ourselves out on a bit of a limb, and in this context our organisation needs to accept that not all risks turn out well.  One good way to foster appropriate risk taking is to encourage/enable external supervision for staff, either individual or in small group.

Risk-taking is also good modelling in our goal of encouraging good enough parenting. 

Every time we discipline our child we take a risk of sorts.  We weigh up the consequences of the disciplinary action – whether or not it is appropriate and helpful in firstly building a loving relationship and secondly the overall project of rearing a child who has an appreciation of boundaries.

If we are under pressure or are in distress ourselves our parenting skills are always enhanced by having our minds opened to creative methods of disciplining children.

We can learn many skills on formal parenting courses but a far more effective way of mind-opening is that creativity is modelled, not only in parenting, but in all aspects of our lives.

[1]. I recommend Why Love Matters by Sue Gerhardt (2004) if you are interested in recent scientific/medical research that posits how love and creativity enables healthy brain development in babies and children.

In the Chapter on The Family Support Shamrock I described many factors in organisations (and individuals) that would inhibit creativity.

Let us recap here and expand a little.

Creativity is inhibited by fear, and inward looking, conservative attitudes.

Generally speaking, knee jerk reactions will not be creative when trying to find solutions to seemingly impossible situations, and indeed may feed into harmful prejudices that people may already have.

I believe that organisations can often find a reason why not to do something quicker than they find a reason to do it, particularly if it is something new, that is not tried and tested, or that comes from an idea put forward by the person who comes looking for help rather than the higher echelons of the organisation.

This is partly due to a lack of understanding of the role of creativity in the process of growth, as well as a reluctance in the organisation to encourage spontaneity (perhaps, in case, something goes wrong).

It can also, of course, be due to the higher ranking person feeling threatened by a bottom up idea because they fear that it will, in some way, undermine them.

Largeness (size) which I discuss in the Chapter on Organisational Matters also seems to have a negative impact on creativity.

There is a Chapter following on Organisational Matters – but here I will kind of, borrow a Sub-Chapter from it as I believe that the subject matter of creativity in organisations fits better under Creativity than under Organisational Matters.

The reason for this is firstly the ease of reading and flow of the website in general, but also the reality that individuals in organisations can be very creative even if the organisation itself is not creative at all – is top down, or has a lot of characteristics and traits that inhibit creativity.

I’m pretty sure that artists [1] and technologists developed together.

That is, thousands of years ago some of us were inventing tools (almost always, to make our lives easier) and more of us were drawing in caves (to create beauty, express our inner spirit, or communicate matters of importance in code). In a way, our evolution kind of parallels the left-brain – right-brain development in the growing human that I mentioned already.

And, let us not forget, parents were probably discovering that doing the unexpected when raising children – that is, being creative – yielded more positive results when their children weren’t behaving themselves than shouting at them or punishing them severely.

I have often wondered, apart from providing us with entertainment and excitement, and nurturing our spiritual selves, what artists contribute to the world in a practical sense.

I have a hunch that the existence of art and music (and all forms of what we term creative endeavour) provides some sort of catalyst for technologists, or, more specifically, indirectly supplies technologists with ideas. (Actually I sometimes wonder does all art eventually become technological – and is that a good thing)?

And I have no doubt that the more exposure that technologically minded people have in the world of art the more innovative and creative they will be.  I believe the same is true for artists.  That is, I believe that knowledge of and interest in matters of a technological nature will enhance their skill level in their chosen field. 

Nowadays a mixture of art and technology is generally accepted in the world of mainstream education – where what we call a broad education is provided before a student specialises in her particular area of interest.

When I was discussing systems theory and critical mass I wrote at some length about patterns. In both art and technology, patterns are very important.

I believe that creative organisations encourage their staff members to see patterns and trends in people’s lives and circumstances.

For example – in Ireland anyway- in some areas affected by crime and imprisonment, it is often observed that everyone knows everyone else, and/or has close relatives nearby. This, on the surface, could be seen as a problem – as many practices which are harmful to people and in particular children propagate from extended family to extended family and/or people who are involved in crime in families have undue influence because of close familial relationships.

However, everyone knowing everyone can be viewed, by an organisation that is committed to creativity, to bring benefits too.

(These benefits were mentioned when I wrote about the Focus Group in Section Two and specifically here. While it will not be obvious to everyone, it will be obvious – or at least evident – to the keen observer who is creative).

Is helping people in distress an artistic project or a technological one? Perhaps it is a bit of both – more like a kind of craft, where, as I stated above, our right-brain artistic tendency is complemented by our left-brain logic – and the two grow in parallel.

[1]. I am going to use the general term artists to denote artists, musicians, playwrights, sculptors, storytellers, actors, etc. etc.

I believe that if our organisation is creative it will allow us to be, and focus on relationships. Valuing processing is important, so that we aren’t always rushed from place to place, task to task, doing things. The creative organisation will not crowd us out with busy-ness. We are, after all, human be-ings, not human do-ings.

Allowing time to share stories is also important. Sharing stories can give us space to nourish our spirits.

Solitude and reflection are most beneficial as they give us time to fashion ideas, to offer new perspectives on old problems, to daydream about what might be possible, to explore the unfamiliar, step outside the well-worn comfort zone, and imagine the future. Translating the imagining into reality is another day’s work – but imagining is the first step – and remember, dreams won’t cost us anything.

Many scientific inventions and developments have come to people when they were engaged in something else – almost by accident.

Formal planning or development days, SCOT (Strengths, Constraints, Opportunities, Threats) exercises, strategy days and the like are great but just as many ideas come from non-formal encounters.

We will often see possibilities in what our colleagues are doing, grafting our own idea onto others and then (if it works out well) embedding it in practice.  Good communication offers constant possibilities for cross-fertilisation of ideas and growth of our organisation in general. Equality and democracy, and getting rid of as much comparison and competition as possible are important too, of course.

Do you ever wonder why, as we get older, we tend to gradually lose idealism, zeal, perceptiveness, and the enthusiasm of youth?  Sometimes we lose our sense of injustice at the world, or our sense of fair play as we succumb to what we perceive to be inevitable not only in our working life but in the world in general.

(I attempted to track how this happens in the Chapter on Energy, Sub-Chapter on Myth vs. Reality).

In order to counter this tendency, it is most important that we maintain a sense of wonder, mystery, and adventure in our day-to-day work.  Often a child can spot the obvious, and reality is staring us adults in the face but we don’t want to see it.

But the abilities to spot the obvious or maintain a sense of wonder are in all of us – they may be dormant – but they are there.

A positive by-product of maintaining a sense of wonder (like I said above about creativity) is that it is very attractive to people.

I believe that there is a danger that the wrinkles of inspiration and innovation are ironed out of us in formal academic education because they cannot readily be regurgitated in an exam.

But we can restore the freshness and vitality of youth by allowing time and space where such elements can flourish.

The reason that allowing time and space works is that thinking hard does not really enable creativity – in fact it might often work against it.

Rather, creativity resides in ever-changing patterns in our brain/mind generated by our perceptions, experiences, intuitions, emotions and connections that are ongoing in our unconscious all the time. 

This is why we might wake up after a night’s sleep with a great idea about something that has been bothering us for a long time, or remember the name of a film star or a long-forgotten song title that we couldn’t remember the night before.

Now – allowing people space and time can be very challenging for management.

I believe that asking us to explain ourselves too quickly if we come up with an idea or a new innovative work practice can work against creativity.  This is because creativity is a messy process – and ideas take a while to cohere into something that is practicable, feasible, and then doable.

A brainstorm is a process where everyone taking part offers suggestions to solve a problem or learn more about a topic under discussion. We do it together to come up with new ideas.  There is no right or wrong, good or bad, all ideas are valued.  When the brainstorming is over coherence takes place. (Once again, this parallels the right and left brain balanced development. The brainstorm – spontaneity and free association – stimulates the right, and the later discussion – coherence and decision making – the left).

The equivalent of the formal brainstorm in day-to-day discussion or normal interaction is the thinking out loud and generating (and then maintaining) an atmosphere of safety, acceptance and non-judgment for all.

Dissent is an interesting phenomenon to look at in an organisation.

Does it foster creativity?  Is it a destructive force?  Should dissent be forbidden, ignored, or treated in a dishonest manner and deflected?

My own opinion is that dissent is the true test of creativity in an organisation, both on the leadership side but also for the dissenter!

Careful reflection is needed by all concerned to determine the reason for the dissent.  Does it have destructive tendencies, i.e. born of unresolved issues on the part of the dissenter, or is it motivated by a genuine effort to enable us to fulfill our mission more effectively?

If you have read this far I am sure that you will have twigged that I’m big into autonomy and that I also believe that a causative factor in fostering dependency is Pillars lack of recognition (often, in fairness, without realising it) of the strengths – sometimes hidden – within our Focus Group, assuming that families who seek our support will always be dependent. 

All our life contains opportunities for self-expression, and autonomy hugely fosters self-expression and thereafter self-efficacy – i.e. the belief that we can do this for ourselves.

In creative self-expression, we honour our uniqueness and specialness, identity, individual strengths and ultimately our autonomy – that is, our ability and willingness to create our own world.

I have strong views on how very hurt, abandoned, dependent and marginalised people help each other, and thereby help themselves. I say that because I believe that when I help someone else I also help myself.  (I have felt this many times in my life).

The reason that I have strong views is that I have been in the privileged position to see it happening first-hand.  And I also believe that the first thing that we community workers who are committed to creativity need to do is be courageous and reflective at the same time in our criticism of what is happening that isn’t working – and then believe in a vision or model that honours autonomy, self-efficacy and  the innate resourcefulness of ordinary people.

Speaking for myself, I know that if I believe in something I find it very difficult to let it go – critics would say that I just don’t know when to stop!

But I have so much evidence in the value of autonomy in respect of our Focus Group that I find it easy to believe in it and argue strongly for it.

Also, like many fellow practitioners, I know loads of examples of practice which are not helpful because they are developed within the paradigm of the deliverer rather than the intended recipient.   (One-way knowledge flow again).

In considering creativity in autonomy, I believe that it is wrong to assume that all problems can be eradicated.  Our big test, autonomy-wise, is, as the songwriter Si Kahn said, ‘It’s not what you are born with; it’s what you do with what you’ve got’ [1].

In doing this we trust emergence and other root foundations mentioned in our Chapter on the Universal Theory of Change – and the great uncertainty-paradox is that while we don’t know exactly where we are headed, we trust that the collective decision making will result in life-affirming outcomes.

Many individuals who have suffered a lot and who are struggling with addiction can be a little hard to pin down so to speak. I discussed already how this could be avoidance of responsibility for setting well-defined goals, and/or clearly describing courses of action that they have undertaken etc. because of lack of confidence.

But instead of, or in addition to lack of confidence it could also be because people who are creative may need some assistance in translating their ideas into practical work.

Yet their ideas are often far better than ideas that come from the Pillars in a top down way, mostly developed in academia or the public service.

I am generally lukewarm in my enthusiasm for top-down ideas (that lead to programmes) because I experience them being of limited use to families and individuals in our Focus Group [2]. My lukewarm-ness is not because they cost a lot of money, it’s because they do very little to foster autonomy.

While, in general, I strongly disagree with the commercialisation of alleviation of human suffering, I actually am very well-disposed towards paying for programmes that work. 

The principal issue that I have is placing the power to enable change for the better in a community in an academic institution rather than among people most affected.

It is always good in circumstances like this to check who is gaining most!

[1], Also recorded by one of my favourite singers, Dick Gaughan, on his lovely album Outlaws and Dreamers

[2]. I need to say here that there are many programmes that originate in academia that do have the best interests of very hurt families at heart, and are very practical, useful, user-friendly and helpful.  It is up to community workers to be very discerning in respect of what to pick and choose, and speak up if a programme that is pushed on them by an external, more influential or powerful source doesn’t work.