reeves-keynote on creativity handouts

Keynote: How To Value, Nurture, and Encourage Creativity by Students, Teachers, and Leaders

Participants: Leaders, governing board members, teacher-‐leaders Pre-‐Seminar Reading and Listening: Ø Please share a “music with a message” that is particularly meaningful to you. It can be a

song you heard in childhood, instrumental music that moves you deeply, or music that you have created. Please e-‐mail an audio file, if possible, or just the name of the song, to [email protected].

Ø Bonus listening: Ø Beethoven, 4th movement from the 9th Symphony Ø Mozart, Ah vous dirai-‐je, Maman (Variations on Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star) Ø The earliest Beatles recording you can find . Handouts: Available electronically from the NESA site. These are published in PDF format and should be readable on any electronic device. However, please be sure that your device can read the handouts and if you have any problems, please e-‐mail [email protected]., and we will send you a version that is readable by your device. If you prefer paper handouts, please print them before the seminar, or e-‐mail before October 18th to [email protected]. . Description: Although there is a great deal of consensus about the need for 21st Century Skills, including creativity and critical thinking, many schools continue to discourage creativity among students and teachers. The principal cause is that, in an environment dominated by evaluation, the risks inherent in critical thinking and creativity are too high for students and teachers. The central thesis of this presentation is that creativity requires risk, risk entails error, and a zero error environment is a zero learning environment. Dr. Reeves will introduce the concept of B3 Leadership, representing the combination of strategies from Bach, Beethoven, and Blues artists. Creativity relies upon the tension between formal structure (exemplified in the music of J.S. Bach), testing the boundaries of meaning and message (Beethoven), and on-‐the-‐spot improvisation of music, message, and form that is the essence of the Blues. Presenter: Dr. Douglas Reeves is the founder of The Center for Successful Leadership. The author of more than thirty books and many articles on leadership and organizational effectiveness, he has twice been named to the Harvard University Distinguished Authors Series. He was named the Brock International Laureate for his research and writing and received the Contribution to the Field Award from the National Staff Development Council. Doug raises money for local educational groups and other charities by running marathons. Among those he has completed are the Boston Marathon (twice) and the Marine Corps Marathon. Doug lives with his family in downtown Boston. He can be reached at [email protected].

Copyright 2013, The Center for Successful Leadership. [email protected] 1

Creativity Quiz Please indicate your level of agreement with each of the following statements. A response of “1” means “certainly untrue” and a response of “10” means “certainly true.” 1. Creativity is a natural gift. Attempts to “teach creativity” are folly. Mozart wrote symphonies when he was six and he didn’t go to Julliard to learn how to compose.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2. The most effective group creativity exercise is brainstorming. The most important rule is “no criticism” and “anything goes.”

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 3. The most successful creative developments come from experts in the field. You don’t ask an engineer to be creative in education and you don’t ask a gardener to be creative in engineering.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 4. Creative thinking is hard work, demanding deliberate practice, feedback, and lots of mistake. It’s not the “burst of inspiration” that many people think.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 5. The contemporary emphasis on creativity for students is overblown. What students actually need more of is discipline and boundaries, not using creativity as an excuse to do their own thing.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6. Creative thinking requires “out of the box” thinking and rejecting previous guidelines and boundaries.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7. The most creative thinkers often have delicate egos, so it is essential to foster an environment that avoids negative feedback and requirements for redoing work. Every creative attempt must be valued and praised.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8. The best way to improve creativity for students is to have a “creativity curriculum” with a “creative thinking class.”

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 9. If students really want to learn more about creativity, they can take an art class. When we’re trying to prepare them for high-‐stakes tests, we don’t have any extra time in the core curriculum.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 10. Creativity is primarily the action of one exceptional individual. The person makes the culture, not the other way around.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10


Creativity Development Matrix Self-‐Assessment Tool

Creativity Essential:

Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4

1. Mistake-‐ Tolerant Culture

The culture requires compliance. Success is equated with avoiding mistakes. “We’ve worked too hard to get to where we are to mess it up with any new ideas.”

Initiatives are more characterized by announcements, labels, and speeches – not substantive changes in professional practice. The culture “declares victory and moves on” rather than expose new ideas to systematic evaluation.

Within the past year you can think of at least two specific ideas that were welcomed as potentially worthy, subjected to rigorous experimentation, and then rejected – all without negative consequences to the bankers of those ideas.

Learning mistakes – errors that test hypotheses and found them to be wrong – are visibly celebrated. We have the bone-‐deep belief that a “zero mistake zone” is a “zero learning zone.”

2. Rigorous Decision-‐making Systems

The leader decides and the team implements.

We listen to presentations from competing vendors and come to a consensus about what to decide.

We consider at least two alternatives and use the best available evidence from a variety of sources and methods.

We always consider at least two mutually exclusive hypotheses and test them with data. We know what works and doesn’t work because we test alternatives.


Creativity Essential:

Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4

3. Culture that nurtures creativity

We are a “high-‐reliability” system. We know what works and we deliver that product – student learning – in a consistently effective way based upon decades of experience and research.

When we make changes, we do so around the edges. Our fundamental mission, vision, and values are “untouchables” whatever changes we make must be made without violating our sacred traditions.

We can identify a significant change which was studied, debated, implemented, tested, and that stood the test of time through constant rigorous assessment.

We have many case studies, modeled on well-‐recognized creative successes in music, art, engineering, teaching, learning, and leadership. Our students and staff have the discipline to start with repetition and the courage to experiment creatively with new ideas.

4. Leadership Models and Supports Creativity

We might try some initiatives, such as new technology implementation, but that’s for the Geek Squad, not busy leaders. When it’s all working perfectly, the leaders will take a look – but not until there is no risk of public embarrassment.

Leaders are masters of the rhetoric of change. They have posters on the virtues of innovation and creativity in their offices and return from conferences with lots of futuristic thinking, typically framed in vague phrases and evidence-‐free predictions.

Leaders know that creative ideas will lack credibility without visible leadership support. There are at least a couple of examples in the past year when the leader personally modeled a change before it was implemented throughout the organization.

Leaders are actively engaged in experimentation, including flipping agendas for board meetings and personally engaging in alternative learning and teaching strategies. Leaders openly talk about their biggest mistakes and what they learned from them.


Creativity Tool Kit – Challenging Assumptions EXAMPLE

Identify a specific challenge in leadership, teaching, or learning that you face right now. This should be something that is critically important for you and your colleagues. A significant number of our students appear to be disengaged in class. This observation is corroborated by observations of teachers and administrators and surveys from students and parents. Disengagement is strongly related to lower performance by students and lower satisfaction by parents. Identify the assumptions that now prevail and consider an alternative assumption.

Present Assumptions Alternative Assumptions 1. It’s not our job to entertain students – sometimes they need to just work at it, even if it’s boring – that’s good preparation for life.

1. Students can be engaged by being competent, and that requires practice that is frequently boring. But if the result engages them, they put up with a lot of frustration and repetition – look at them with a new video game or social media application.

2. The curriculum is crammed with content, leaving little time for more engaging interactive activities.

2. Students don’t learn content by “coverage” but by self-‐testing with immediate feedback, and then honing in on the areas they need to learn.

3. The hyper-‐connected lives of students leaves them disengaged unless they have multiple activities going on.

3. Cognitive ability significantly increase when students are absorbed in nature and disconnected from technology. Moreover, focus is a critical success skill.

4. If we tried to add engaging activities, such as self-‐designed assessments, multi-‐media presentations, etc., then we would be criticized for not adequately covering the curriculum.

4. We will only know which engaging activities are linked to student success if we conduct a rigorous experiment – not by avoiding them.

If the alternative assumptions are true, what are two new solutions that you could consider in response to your greatest challenge? 1. Two departments that have identical pre-‐assessments and end of semester finals have agreed to an experiment. By flip of a coin, teachers will either continue the “coverage” model from the previous semester or participate in the “engagement” model. The specific engaging activities will at least double quantity of engaging activities compared to the “coverage” model and, as a result, there may be less coverage of curriculum in the class. At the end of the semester, we will compare the gains from the pre-‐assessment to the semester finals between the two groups, and then reassess the impact – positive or negative – of increasing engagement activities. 2. Two other departments will experiment with a minimum of twenty minutes of “fully focused” time (that is, work directly on the relevant curriculum in whole-‐class, individual work, or small group work, all without technology assistance). Administrators will make at least 20 observations at random intervals during the semester to observe the percentage of students engaged during “fully focused” time compared to traditional “connected” time.


Creativity Tool Kit – Challenging Assumptions Identify a specific challenge in leadership, teaching, or learning that you face right now. This should be something that is critically important for you and your colleagues. Identify the assumptions that now prevail and consider an alternative assumption.

Present Assumptions Alternative Assumptions

If the alternative assumptions are true, what are two new solutions that you could consider in response to your greatest challenge? 1. 2.


Sources:

Aldridge, R. L. (2009) Parables: A symphonic oratorio. New York, NY: C.F. Peters Corporation.

Buch, E. & Miller, R. (2013) Beethoven’s ninth: A political history. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996) Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention. New York, NY: Harper Collins.

Govindarajan, V., & Trimble, C. (2010) The other side of innovation: Solving the execution challenge. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.

Kandel, E. R. (2012) The age of insight: The quest to understand the unconscious in art, mind, and brain. New York, NY: Random House.

Keeley, L., Pikkel, R., Quinn, B., & Walters, H. (2013) Ten types of innovation: The discipline of building breakthroughs. Hoboken, NJ : John Wiley & Sons.

Kleon, A. (2012) Steal like an artist. New York, NY: Workman Publishing.

Kyung Hee Kim (2011) The creativity crisis: The decrease in creative thinking scores on the torrance tests of creative thinking. Creativity Research Journal, 23:4, 285-‐295.

Hofstadter, D. R. (1985) Variations on a theme as the crux of creativity: Metamagical themas. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Mueller, J.S., Melwani, S., & Goncalo J.A. (2011) The bias against creativity: Why people desire but reject creative ideas. [Electronic version]. Retrieved September 30, 2013, from Cornell Universiy, ILR School site: http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/articles/450/

MacDonald, J. R. (2010) Working beyond borders: Insights from the global chief human resource officer study. Somers, NY: IBM Global Business Services. [Electronic version] Retrieved September 30, 2013 http://public.dhe.ibm.com/common/ssi/ecm/en/gbe03353usen/GBE03353USEN.PDF

Nussbaum, B. (2013) Creative intelligence: Harnessing the power to create, connect, and inspire. New York, NY: Harper Collins.

Ownes, D. A. (2012) Creative people must be stopped: Six ways we kill innovation (without even trying). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-‐Bass.

Sawyer, R. K. (2013) Zig zag: The surprising path to greater creativity. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-‐Bass.


Keynote: How To Value, Nurture, and

Encourage Crea8vity by Students, Teachers, and Leaders

Douglas B. Reeves, Ph.D. The Center for Successful Leadership

www.ChangeLeaders.com [email protected]


Overview

•  Separa+ng myths and facts about crea+vity •  Good and bad news about crea+vity •  What crea+vity is not •  S+mula+ng crea+vity for students, teachers, leaders, and governing boards


Why Crea+vity is Essen+al for Society and the Planet


The Good News: We Know the Value of Crea+vity

•  Crea+vity was the most demanded trait companies were looking for in their workforce, according an IBM survey of 1,500 CEO’s.

•  Crea+ve skills are going to be increasingly in demand as automa+on takes over more of the work force, according to a new study out of Oxford.


The Bad News: Crea+vity is Systema+cally Devalued •  The most crea+ve students were the least popular with students; the least crea+ve were the most popular (Skidmore, 2012)

•  There is a dis+nct bias against crea+vity, finding the pressure to be crea+ve associated with high levels of anxiety (Cornell, 2012)


More Bad News

•  Emula+ng crea+vity (such as Google’s 20% of free +me) is incredibly difficult when people already have full-‐+me jobs.

•  Evalua+on systems punish the errors that are an inherent part of crea+vity and risk-‐taking

•  Prejudices against crea+vity are bolstered by research that associates crea+vity with mental illness


How to Assess Crea+vity?

•  Torrance Tests of Crea+ve Thinking – the most widely used crea+vity test in the world

•  40 languages •  Systema+ze assessment of validity – the rela+onship between student scores and later adult crea+ve produc+on, over four decades

•  Different from IQ tests or assessments of ar+s+c talent


What’s Happening to Crea+vity?

•  Crea+vity assessments must include crea+ve poten+al, not merely ar+s+c expression. The best assessments include art, literature, science, mathema+cs, architecture, engineering, business, leadership, and interpersonal rela+onships.

•  Validity of assessments are based on the rela+onship between assessment results and later independent assessments of crea+ve work.


Crea+vity is Declining for Individuals

•  Crea+vity among students has declined significantly in the past 20 years.

•  Biggest decline is in “crea+ve elabora+on” – the ability to develop and elaborate upon ideas and detailed and reflec+ve thinking and mo+va+on to be crea+ve.

(Source: Kyung Hee Kim, College of William & Mary, aeer analysis of almost 300,000 American adults and children based on the The Torrance Tests of Crea+ng Thinking (TTCT), October 2010.)


Crea+vity is Declining for Organiza+ons

•  Fewer than half of copmanies surveyed said their corporate culture robustly supports their innova+on strategy, even though culture was the strongest single variable +ed to innova+on performance.

•  Culture change requires a “burning plaiorm” the demands change. But most organiza+ons make decisions based on avoiding misstates rather than embracing risk and innova+on.

•  (Source: Booz & Co., Global Innova<on 1,000, 2013, Innocen<ve.)


Crea+vity is Not. . .


Crea+vity is Not mysterious and immune to study and analysis •  The Torrance Test has successfully

been able to predict crea+ve tendencies in longitudinal studies.

•  Using MRI scans neurologists have begun to pinpoint specific areas in the brain which trigger right before crea+ve solu+ons are uncovered.


Crea+vity is not the absence of constraints.

Guidelines enhance the crea+ve process.


Picasso’s Blue Period.


The Book

Uses Only 50 Words. Theodore Geisel made a bet with his

editor it couldn’t be done. It is the 4th best selling children’s book of all +me.


They are:


Crea+vity is Not Mere Originality

“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is

nothing new under the sun.” -‐ Ecclesiastes 1:9


Crea+vity as Theme and Varia+on

•  Careful analysis leads one to see that what we choose to call a new theme is itself always some kind of variation, on a deep level, of earlier themes. - Douglas R. Hofstadter From

Metamagical Themas - Variations on a theme as the essence of imagination, 1985


Just because we keep telling the same story, doesn’t mean it isn’t worth retelling.

-‐  The Odyssey -‐  Star Wars -‐  Lord of the Rings

-‐  Harry Pooer -‐  Beowulf -‐  Charlooe’s Web

-‐  The Fall of Hyperion


"It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected."

~ Mark Twain ~


Crea+vity is Not Something Some People Have and Some People Don’t •  "Each of us is born with two contradictory sets of instruc+ons: a conserva+ve tendency … and an expansive tendency made up of ins+ncts for exploring, for enjoying novelty and risk-‐-‐the curiosity that leads to crea+vity belongs to this set. ... the mo<va<on to engage in crea<ve behavior is easily ex<nguished.“ -‐ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi


Creativity is merely a plus name for regular activity. Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better.

- John Updike -

Creativity is merely a plus name for regular activity. Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better.

- John Updike -


A Working Defini+on of Crea+vity

• The process of experimenta<on,evalua<on, and follow through whichleads to a significant discovery,insight, or contribu<on.


Stop and Consider: If you want more crea+ve thinking by students, teachers,

and leaders then . . .

• We mustencourage . . .

• We mustdiscourage . . .


Crea+v+y is not the result of unfiltered brainstorming Invented by Adver+sing Execu+ve Alex Osborn in his book “Your

Crea+ve Power” published in 1948. The technique was debunked as

decreasing crea+vity in a 1958 Yale study and other subsequent research

through the 21st Century..


Crea+vity Myth: Crea+vity Can’t Be Directed

Pressure forces us to be more creative.


The Crea+ve Process in Five Steps •  Knowledge and Exper+se of theDomainPrepara+on

•  Not ac+vely working on the solu+onIncuba+on • The “Aha” Moment. Arrival atSolu+on.Insight

•  Is this idea any good?Evalua+on •  The enactment of the idea. 99%Perspira+on.Elabora+on


Step 1 – Prepara+on

• Innova+on by defini+on has to be comparedwith what went before. You have to haveknowledge of the expected before you createthe unexpected.

• Prevents people from reinven+ng the wheel.• Novelty without deep knowledge is justrandomness.


Step 2 -‐ Incuba+on

• Seung down the crossword and taking a walk.• The Importance of recess and naps (forstudents and adults)

• According to a 2012 Lancaster study, subjectswere beoer able to crea+vely solve difficultproblems aeer taking a break and undergoingthe REM cycle of sleep.


Step 3 -‐ Insight

• That glorious moment when it all comestogether.

• Archimedes in the bathtub.• A moment of inspira+on that is oeenaccompanied by a state of intense focus, lossof +me, and euphoria.


Step 4 -‐ Evalua+on

• Wherein you take prior knowledge of thedomain to evaluate whether an idea is worthpursuing.

• Does this have value? Has this been donealready? Is this possible?

• It is vital in this process that there is a cleardelinea+on between idea and personorigina+ng the idea.


Step 5 -‐ Elabora+on

• The Implementa+on of idea:–Wri+ng the essay.– Conduc+ng the experiment.– Chiseling the marble.–Wri+ng the code, etc.

• The process is recursive. There are manycrea+ve decisions throughout elabora+on,and the process repeats in many stages.


Failure as part of the process

• EXCELLENT graphic – perhaps differen+ate bycolor and by dashes for one, line for the other,and insert text bars for “This has greatpoten+al!” and “I sure didn’t expect that” andAeer learning from failure . ..”Make it comealive. The success aeer failure bar shoulddrama+cally break through the even bar.


Failure is an Expected Part of the Process

-‐60

-‐40

-‐20

0

20

40

60

80

Wunderkind Actual Crea+ve Process

Flunk him! Fire her!

The Crea+ve Assump+on

• For every ten ideas you come up with, one ofthem will actually be any good.

• But in order to come up with the one, youhave to come up with the ten.

• If you want to have five good ideas then youhave to come up with fiey.

• It’s a con+nual process of genera+on andedi+ng. That’s the key consistent innova+on.

How to Foster Prepara+on

Good Cases

The Results of other experiments, or art projects, or math problems

Look for Paoerns

Teach them to be cri+cal of other works so they can learn to be cri+cal of their own process

Trick the Incurious

Don’t spoon feed. Prick their interests and then give them the tools to become autodidacts.

How Schools Discourage Incuba+on

• Punishing students if they try to crossdisciplines.

• Doodling is not a crime.• Connec+ng the dots FOR students instead ofleung them connect ideas for themselves.

Fostering Incuba+on – An Interdisciplinary Approach

• Using Math to Teach Art– Elementary School Level – Using ra+os to scaleboth two dimensional and three dimensionalartwork up and down

–Middle School Level – Finding Illustra+ons andDesign in Geometric Proofs

– High School – Using Trigonometry and Physics todesign and construct three dimensional sculpture


• Using Humani+es to teach History– Elementary School Level – Collabora+ng on agraphic novel to illustrate the founding of a state.

–Middle School Level – Wri+ng short fic+on set inthe +me period of study.

– High School – Analyzing literature through thepoli+cal lens of the +me.


• Using Music to teach Science and Math– Elementary School Level – Using the experimentalmethod, allowing students to construct their owninstruments, learning how different paoernsconstruct different tones

–Middle School Level – Learning basic harmonictheory trough the ra+os of Pythagoras

– High School – Looking at the science of tone,+mbre and harmony

The Process of Crea+ve Evalua+on Review • Review the providedpossibili+es.

Valua+on • Evaluate them. Look atPros and Cons.

Edi+ng • Remove Ideas orsec+ons that don’t work.

Genera+on • Generate Solu+ons toMissing Parts.

Crea+ve Evalua+on -‐ Review

• What ideas were generated?• Review Thoroughly• Example: Problem – Low Use of TechnologyPoten+al– Solu+on 1 – Increase Remedial Tutoring– Solu+on 2 – Increase Extra-‐Curricular Support forLiteracy Enhancing Programs

– Solu+on 3 – Give Each Student a Free Laptop

How Do Students Really Use Technology?

Crea+ve Evalua+on – Cri+cal Thinking

• Are these ideas feasible? Have they beendone before? What are the pros and cons?

• Con+nuing our example:– Ques+on 1– Is that just geung a larger bucketinstead of plugging up the leak in the boat?

– Ques+on 2 – Is there evidence to suggest that thissolu+on works? How can we conduct anexperiment?

– Ques+on 3 – How can we provide real-‐+mefeedback on effec+ve use of technology?

Crea+ve Evalua+on -‐ Edi+ng

• Saying “No” to bad ideas.• Trimming the Fat• Con+nuing our example:– Laptops are nothing but “the ballpoint pen of the21st Century” – it’s the thinking, not the machines, that maoer

– Students – people of any age – drie to thecomfortable, not the challenging – unless there isguidance and support

Crea+ve Evalua+on -‐ Genera+on

• Back to step one of the Crea+ve Process – It’sa loop.

• Some+mes Ideas Need More Fleshing Out• Con+nuing Example:–Which ac+vi+es should we promote?– How should we promote them?– How do we measure the tangible effects of thisexperiment?

How We Discourage Crea+vity Among Students

Judging and ra+ng their first aoempts. Focusing on “facts” over nuance.

Spoon feeding tested trivia and expec+ng regurgita+on.

How We Encourage Crea+vity Among Students

• The “no eraser rule” – VALUE mistakes andthe thinking process behind those mistakes

• Encourage students to find problems not justfind solu+ons.

• Assign mul+ple draes of work leading toexpecta+on that the first effort is not the bestor last one

How We Discourage Crea+vy Among Teachers

• Shut out teacher feedback in the curriculumprocess.

• Discourage taking risks and failure.• Punish feedback and dissent.• Use the “average” in mul+ple teacherobserva+ons.

How We Encourage Crea+vity Among Teachers

• Clearly dis+nguish evalua+on fromobserva+on and feedback

• Highlight, recognize, and reward “learningmistakes”

• Model appropriate risk taking by sharingleadership “learning mistakes”

How We Discourage Crea+vity Among Leaders

• Annual (or end of contract) performancereviews

• Strategic plans that elevate execu+on overcrea+vity

• Micromanagement• Unclear job descrip+ons

How We Encourage Crea+vity Among Leaders

•  Results-‐oriented goals, with great flexibility on how to achieve those goals over +me

•  “Beyond test score” accountability, including evidence of teacher and student crea+ve thinking

•  A culture of “learning leaders” in which administrators and governing board members do not have all the answers but engage in collec+ve learning

How We Discourage Crea+vity Among Policy Makers and Board Members

• Standardized agendas• One administra+ve recommenda+onsubmioed for up-‐or-‐down votes

• A culture of congeniality over discussion anddebate

How We Encourage Crea+vity Among Policy Makers and Board Members

• Construc+ve conten+on• Decision disciplines, including a minimum oftwo alterna+ves, each with advantages anddisadvantages, for every major decision

The Double-‐Edged Sword of Sociability and Mistrust

• The norm for a sociable and “get along” board isthe absence of conten+on or considera+ons ofalterna+ve points of view. This devalues cri+calthinking and examina+on of assump+ons.

• Toxic boards, which district every presenta+on,challenge the personal integrity of theadministra+on rather than the intellectualcontent of the recommended decisions.

You cannot expect cri<cal thinking in the classroom or faculty room if there is not cri<cal thinking in the

board room.

Hypothesis: Boards Address Cri+cal Issues in order of their Priority and

Impact Reality check: What is the most important le4er of the alphabet?

Why?

Invert the Agenda

•  The first edi+on of the Encyclopedia Britannica contained three volumes. Volume 1 was A-‐B; Volume 2 was C-‐M, and volume 3 covered the rest of the alphabet. A was given 511 pages and M-‐Z were given 753 pages.

•  Star+ng with A is as silly as star+ng with the minutes, treasurers report, and other informa+on-‐delivery wastes of +me.

•  What’s the risk if you literally turn the agenda upside down, focusing on the last items first?

More on Board Crea+vity

• Invert the agenda – start with the last item – the onethat normally has the least opportunity for discussion.

• Flip the boardroom – that is, “informa+on”presenta+ons, including reports, PowerPoint, and anyother one-‐way communica+on are posted on-‐linebefore the board mee+ng. Reserve precious board+me exclusively for delibera<on, not for presenta<ons.

• Welcome distance technology par+cipa+on – changethe bylaws if necessary to legi+mize votes by Skype,text, GoToMee+ng, or other technology-‐assistedcommunica+on.

Crea+ve Success Requires Deliberate Inclusion of Outsiders

Ø  Innocen8ve – global leader in crowd-‐sourced innova8ons

Ø  Intractable innova8on challenges that had been stuck for years, despite billion-‐dollar research budgets

Ø  40% of problems solved within 6 months Ø  Not a lack of exper8se, but different

exper8se, bridging fields of inquiry

Applica+ons of “Deliberate Inclusion of Outsiders” in Educa+on

• Iden+fy a specific challenge – on that hasimportant implica+ons for your school andthat has been vexing you for severalmonths . . . perhaps years.

• Who are two or three “outsiders” you couldinvite to a discussion of this challenge?

Art is Thee

Pablo Picasso

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something beoer, or at least

something different. The good poet welds his thee into a whole of feeling which is unique, uoerly different from that from which it

was torn. T.S. Elliot

It is beoer to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie

around neglected. Mark Twain

I emulated Buddy Holly, Liole Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis. We all did. We only started wri+ng own own songs as a way to avoid other bands being able to play our set.

Paul McCartney

Discussion and Ques+ons

www.ChangeLeaders.com For a complete copy of the presenta+on, please e-‐mail

[email protected]

reeves-keynote on creativity handouts

Documents

creativity quiz

music of

successful leadership

message beethoven

instrumental music

error environment

spot improvisation of

leaders participants