Creative
Confidence: Unleashing the creative confidence within us all.
I happened to read this book and gave it a thought to
spread the message the book put forward . Having read that, I decided to write this
to organize my own thoughts and feelings about the topic discussed in the book.
As part of my job, I have come across more than 15
students who told me they are not the creative type. I asked them to review a
book in the form of pictures portraying the characters since I believe that
pictures can speak well than words. I may be wrong in that, yet I believe it. I
persuaded some others to write, giving them prompts. They easily escaped at
first telling me that they cannot write or draw. Those were students who achieved high grades. I tried to convince them that they have more potential and
creative talents. Most of them who were hesitant came out with quality works, be
it pictures, a poem or a presentation.
Generating creativity from the scratch is a futile
attempt. Along with what is already there, we need to nurture the built-in
capabilities, giving them chance to explore, create and innovate. Creativity is
often an underestimated term even when it comes to people who are very
successful in their professional life. Education and employment systems may
have conditioned them for predictable outcomes that meet specific needs or
goals set up by their organization. People often judge skills in artistic
endeavors like paintings, drawing or sculptures. Abstract paintings are thought
to be difficult to understand most of the times due to the lack of confidence
in oneself, when there are hundreds of possibilities to interpret the same
work. So how do we unleash the potential of an individual and make them
confident to be creators and innovators? This book by David Kelly and Tom Kelly
is all about it.
“Belief in your creative capacity lies at the heart of
innovation”. (Kelly Tom and Kelly David, p.2)
Education thought leader Ken Robinson in his 2006 Ted
Talk “Do School Kill Creativity” says that creativity is as important as
literacy in schools. In his talk he talks about a little girl who was not
paying attention in class. When asked what she was drawing the girl said she
was drawing the picture of God. The teacher was fascinated and told her, nobody
has seen God. The girl said, in a minute they will. Kids are born talented and
creative in some way or the other. The talents should be nurtured to make them more
confident.
If you are not prepared to be wrong, you will not come
up with the original. Most of us are frightened of being wrong. I myself am afraid
most of the times, whether I will go wrong somewhere. I have not escaped from
that fear yet. I conquered this fear to a great extend after my brother was
diagnosed of stage IV Lung Cancer. The survival chance for him was absolutely
zero and we were told that he would not survive for more than 6 months. I do
not believe in miracles. I believe in the power of Science. We decided to fight
it no matter how hard the process was. From a survival chance of 6 months, he
lived for 18 months after the diagnosis. Later when he succumbed to cancer, I was
totally devastated. I did not know what to do. My days started and ended up
with thoughts of him and the time we spent together. To escape from the trauma,
I started working. Later I found out that I can draw and paint. I spent days and
months, drawing and painting along with my work. I never got an opportunity to
explore myself and find my talents or skills. The education system I had gone
through was not equipped for that. Everyone has the capacity for creativity.
But somewhere along the journey to adulthood they lose it in pursuit of a
profession or a goal. From a person who never thought could hold a brush, I am confident of this one thing, if not for many. Below is one of my works.
Dissociation
Coming to the topic of design and design thinking in
the book, a story that the authors share in their book is that of Doug Dietz
who worked in GE Healthcare and how he embraced creativity and design thinking
to improve patient outcome. (Page 13-18).
The word design is used mostly in its literal sense.
It is not considered as an activity but an attribute. Creativity is concrete or palpable and the
effective use of making this is design thinking methodology.
Embrace
your Failures.
Learn from failure. Make sure you learn how to make
things work better in the next attempt or else you are liable to make the same
errors in the future. When a child loses confidence in his or her creativity
the impact is profound. Compared to traditional core subjects like math and
science schools should find ways to fund and foster arts and sports. Education should
be able to sustain the natural abilities and enable students to make their own
way in the world. A single negative remark is enough to bring the creative
talents in a child to a standstill. Those who are resilient to try again are
the fortunate ones. But the truth is that the unfortunate ones are more in
number.
What
is creative confidence?
It is seeking the path to turn your duty into passion.
Forming creative thinking groups to enhance the ability of each person in an
organization to obtain better results and outcome. It is about Innovation and
Leadership. Pushing oneself to think in a divergent and creative way. In a nutshell
the book is a concise explanation of how to succeed without the fear of failure
in an increasingly competitive world.
“The fear of failure leads to the fear of
experimentation. The worry that a new idea might not live up to its promise may
result in the idea never being born”.