We are living in an increasingly challenging world – division and wars, mental illness and social isolation, climate change, economic stress, fear and uncertainty about the future … and so much more. There appears to be a complete breakdown of our social fabric; that glue which always bound us together has vanished in a sea of technology which threatens to wipe us off the planet.
We urgently need to increase our collective intelligence, raise our consciousness and build our resilience to heal individuals, families, workplaces and entire communities. It is critical to come to terms with the level of trauma in our world and ground ourselves, so that we can start to build bridges of understanding.
I work with a lot of companies and top teams globally to help build and unleash creative potential and develop a true culture of innovation and wellbeing. Recently, some futurists said that creativity has become the most endangered species of the 21st Century. We have a broadband culture but not the creative, original and critical thought to fill it.
A global cross-sector study of 1,500 CEOs by IBM showed that in an increasingly complex and uncertain global environment the most important leadership attribute is creativity. So how do we develop our own creativity, courage, compassion and commit to changing ourselves and the structures that are no longer serving us?
Steve Jobs said: “Creativity is just about connecting things”. I’d like to suggest that those things might be all the experiences in your life up to this moment. So, the broader and richer your experience is, the more tools you’ll have in your creative toolbox for when you want or need to be creative. I believe that the best thing to unleash your creativity is what I like to call ‘positive human collisions’. That is, connecting with people on a regular basis who are different from you.
We spend most of our lives talking with, dressing like, and endorsing those who are just like us. They have similar education and backgrounds – around them we feel safe and good about ourselves.
However, I believe that our greatest gains as human beings are when we connect to people who are different, who challenge us and the way we think, who take us outside of our comfort zone. And boy, can it feel uncomfortable!
When we connect with ‘others’ outside our usual circles we may experience ‘creative abrasion’. It’s in that moment when we disagree with someone, that creativity and innovation can truly spark.
I find that taking leaders and teams out of their comfort zone increases creative thinking, trust and psychological safety, shared understanding and a stronger community. It also helps us to step into the right side of our brain.
The right hemisphere of our brain is responsible for our intuition, imagination, and all our creative functions. It connects us to a world of possibilities and all that is. The brain is like a battery; the right-side charges it and the left side uses energy and empties it. So, our goal is always to keep our mental battery charged up.
It has been estimated that we spend more than 85% of our time using the left side of our brains, being overwhelmed by facts and figures. We are literally draining our batteries and burning out. It is no wonder that loneliness and social isolation are considered the global epidemic of our era.
We talk more to boxes and screens than we do to one another. We are forgetting how to communicate with clarity and empathy, and machines are learning more quickly than we are. Many jobs are under threat.
In this environment, it becomes fundamentally important to nurture the attributes of human beings that set us apart from machines: love, compassion, empathy, kindness, caring, creativity and determination.
Democracy and capitalism are under stress … our institutions are no longer trusted and cannot keep up with the pace of change. In this rapidly changing world, we urgently need to transform our leadership, develop right-brained skills, resilience, compassion and courage. We need to align business metrics with creativity and wellbeing, find bridges between our worlds and reconnect to the unity and love which underpins all of life.
