Unlock Your Creative Genius:
4 Steps To Being Provocative With A Purpose
It's time to abandon your fear of
provocation. You can take risks, be bold, and be creative without sinking the
ship--or your career. In fact, it's what employers value most.
“Why?” is the question I never take
for granted.
So when my 4-year-old daughter
bombards me with the never-ending barrage of “but why?”s, I try to always rise
to the challenge and find a somewhat intelligent answer to every question that
comes my way. My philosophy is simple: The day we stop asking “why?”, as
children and as adults, is the day our sense of wonder ceases to exist.
As adults, when did we lose our
imagination? When did we stop trusting our intuition and allow just knowledge
and statistics to rule our lives? When did we stop asking 'why?'
And with the sense of wonder and
exploration disappears one of the most precious qualities one could
possess--creativity. But the deeper my child digs, the more surely I come to
the point of realization that I don’t have all the answers. And the moment my
daughter sees confusion on my face, she starts chiming in with some of the most
fascinating answers she can come up with. That’s when it hits you. As adults,
when did we lose our imagination? When did we let go of the insatiable
curiosity that shaped our journey? When did we stop trusting our intuition and
allow just knowledge and statistics to rule our lives? When did we stop asking
“why?” followed by the persistent “but why?” and “why not?”?
Last
night I finished the book by Erik Wahl. The title is simple, but powerful--Unthink: Rediscover Your Creative Genius. It isn’t the second part
that drew my attention. After all, there is a plethora of books that promised ways to discover and rediscover your inner genius. It is a
simple call-to-action: unthink!
A former corporate employee, and now
internationally recognized as a thought-provoking graffiti artist, Wahl
radically changed his life when he lost his job in the dotcom bubble and a
safety blanket of steady income with it. He was lost… for a while. And then he
picked up the blank canvas and a set of the paintbrushes, knowing nothing about
painting, mind you, and he never looked back. Ever since, he works with artists
and corporations to help them rekindle their creative fire.
To revive passion in our working
lives and open ourselves up to new opportunities, one of the things Wahl
invites us to do is be provocative. The prevailing systems in which we live and
work, he says, are largely unquestioned. We are given a job, a list of
responsibilities, and a playbook on how to do them, and we go around executing
on what is essentially a “we’ve always done it this way” approach. We embrace
the system, get bored, and after a while we learn to accept the unsatisfactory
existence as a necessary evil. It is part of “growing up” and “facing the
reality,” we tell ourselves.
“By becoming provocative--by
constantly looking for obstacles to growth and opportunities for progress
regardless of your daily duties--you can provide your company with a measure of
critical preparation it doesn’t currently have,” Wahl preaches. “In doing so,
not only will you bolster your value to the organization, but you will open your
job up to new frontiers.”
More than rigor, management
discipline, integrity, and vision, in a survey CEOs named creativity as a key
attribute their companies require to be successful.
The truth is, Wahl explains, most
companies need creativity more than they need clarity or stability. In 2010,
IBM published the findings of a survey that asked 1,500 CEOs from 60 countries
and 33 industries to name the most critical factor for future success of their
companies. The answer? More than rigor, management discipline, integrity, and
vision, CEOs named creativity as one of the key attributes their companies
require to be successful. In his book, Wahl invites us to rock the boat, to
become true artists in our craft.
“Some people wait until they are
provoked by [external] forces to change, until their cages are rattled for them
and their hand is forced,” says Wahl. “Artists don’t wait to be rattled only
from the outside. They provoke themselves first, and then the people around
them, in order to constantly imagine new possibilities. They instigate change
even when it doesn’t seem necessary.”
Wahl says that “purposeful
provocation” should be a part of our personal and professional lives, every
single day. Here are the four steps he suggests we need to take to inject a healthy
disorder to remain progressive:
1. Step outside your bubble.
When we don’t prod or question the
way things are, our existence ends up being based on outdated assumptions and
erroneous conclusions. Look at the everyday issues from a different perspective,
gently invite others to step outside their comfort zone by asking the questions
no one wants to ask, challenge status quo in little ways. It will all spark a
bigger change in the long run.
2.
Live with some discomfort.
We all want comfort and safety. It’s
in our nature. But progress comes from doing what is right and best and
necessary. The choices to move forward, innovate, and confront the issues we
may not be comfortable with confronting are not always easy, but they are
necessary for innovation.
3.
Ask forgiveness instead of permission.
Often the only time a boss or a
company will see the need for change is when the change has been made without
permission.
4.
Start small.
Sometimes all that is needed is a
small adjustment to make a major, much-needed impact. Often our fear of being
provocative is based on the notion that if we speak of or make a change in a
process it will be like pulling the office fire alarm, says Wahl. That’s almost
never the case, especially when you start small.
The big secret about being
provocative, recaps Wahl, is that “not only do you become a change artist in a
sea of sameness, you amplify the element of adventure in your own journey.”
I cannot agree more. Looking back at
my career and the amazing innovation I’ve seen at the companies such as
Accenture and Intel, I can absolutely attest to the insight Wahl provides. The
fact that sometimes true change comes in a series of small innovations is
absolutely true. If you ask yourself every single day “what can I do to improve
what we are currently executing on?”, if you provide consistent initiative by
finding gaps and bridging them (instead of waiting for someone else to notice
and act on them), you will establish your reputation as an innovator and
trendsetter.
After a while you will notice that
it gets addictive, too. Once you start innovating, open your eyes to the
profound wisdom of letting yourself be naïve, asking non-conventional
questions, and, eventually, impacting the bottom line, it is hard to stop. Nothing
is more fulfilling than painting the blank canvas! Sure, you will hit some
bumps along the way and encounter a lot of naysayers. And you will have to take
some risks. But that is why, to borrow the words of Walt Disney, it is so much
fun to do the impossible.
So I encourage you to follow Wahl’s
advice: “Surrender your cozy indifference and jump-start the change that needs
to happen. Then do it again and again. There are always things worth fighting
for.” In other words, let go of the fear and doubt and become a provocateur
extraordinaire.
http://www.fastcompany.com/3014314/how-to-be-a-success-at-everything/unlock-your-creative-genius-4-steps-to-being-provocative-w?partner=newsletter
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