Creativity Central [Marty Baker]

"We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.”   T.S. Eliot

Aha. Eureka. Epiphany.

All words that probably have their chemical basis in a dopamine reward pathway.  

But the magic of the aha (or Ah Ha) moment is more alluring than the clinical. I have always had a passion for aha moments. One of joys of being a creative consultant is watching others experiencing these moments of a novel connection or flash of insight.

I often ask people in our seminars to write about their aha moments. Which ones still linger? How do they motivate you today?  What feels universal? What feels uniquely personal? Did you explore the aha moment for other ideas?

This blog is mostly about Scott Peck's aha moment as a young psychiatrist in the military.  But it's also about how to be more creative with your (and others) aha moments.

1.  Write down as many personal "aha"  moments as you can.  Pick one that resonates for you now.

2.  Write about the connections or catalysts that led to that moment or the situation where you had the experience.

3.  What new ideas might come from that aha experience? What other ideas can you evolve from that insight?  Write down as many as you can.

4.  Keep an "aha" notebook -- each page an aha and a list of ideas derived from it.

5.  Check out Mutual of Omaha's Aha Page http://www.ahamoment.com/

My aha moment comes form a story from A World Waiting to be Born, Peck's book on Civility. It's from a long passage entitled "The Hole in the Mind."

What follows is a condensed version of the story.  Peck, the late author of the Road Less Traveled, became the Director of the U.S. Army Medical Center in Okinawa in the late 1960s. The newly-minted psychiatrist had to fulfill his military service and his first assignment was to manage a department of 40  –  mostly enlisted men and women in their late teens and early twenties. 

Until that time, he had no formal training in management. In Peck's words,  “I had no idea how to define consensus, but I was going to strive for it. Certainly my model was a highly consultive one.  Not only did I never make an administrative decision without  consulting everyone involved; I did my very best to see that within the constraints of professional competence, the people under me made their own decisions whenever possible about the matters that affected their own lives.

Everybody spoke glowingly of what a good leader I was and how relieved they were to be free of that stupid old lieutenant colonel, their previous commander.The department morale was superb.

After just about six months, things began to go sour. The euphoria was gone. The staff stopped talking about what a great place it was to work.  By the ninth month mark, it began to get worse.  The bickering had escalated and the work was beginning to suffer. Little things were being left undone. 

A major new outpatient medical complex was in the final stages of construction and the hospital commander told me that the clinic, the largest of our department would move there. Surely, the morale would improve at the prospect of such a pleasant move.

Only it didn’t.  It got worse. As moving day approached the entire staff grew even more irritable.  They began to squabble with each other over who would get what office in the new building.

I announced to the staff that we were going to meet over in the new conference room for the entirety of the next morning.  The two 4-hour meetings we had were two of the stormiest I have ever attended,  Everyone had something to complain about.   It was unrelieved chaos.   But towards the second morning one of the enlisted men said “I feel I don’t know where I stand.”  The young man’s words reverberated through my mind. 

We returned to the old building and I sat in my office staring at the ceiling. Was it possible that the department needed more structure than I had provided it? What did they want me to do – boss them around like a bunch of children?

I called the noncommissioned officer in charge of the department and asked him to bring the plans for the new building. I pointed to the large corner office, “That will be mine,” I announced.  Then intermittently pausing just long enough for him to write each assignment, I proceeded along the blueprint through the smaller offices. We’ll put Captain Ames here, you here, Sergeant Ryan there..etc.

You could practically here the howls of dismay across the island but by evening morale had become to improve. The next day I watched it escalate. By the end of the week it was back to  where it had been at its best.:

You could think of it as a success story. I did eventually acknowledge that there was a problem and it was my responsibility. I was able to readjust my behavior to meet the needs of the organization."

The aha moment was his insight into what is often called contingency theory.

Or simply; a class of behavioral theory that claims that there is no best way to organize acorporation, to lead a company, or to make decisions. An organizational / leadership / decision making style that is effective in some situations, may be not successful in other situations. 

Okay, this is not going to send shivers up everyone's spine. But for me, the idea that a open, collaborative and nurturing managerial style would not be effective or rather would be detremental in an organization was a huge aha.  

It would not be an aha moment for parents who know that stucture and boundries ususally provide a saftey zone of behavior for kids.  It would not be an aha moment for seasoned managers or athletic coaches who have to manage and motivate with the talent they have.

Peck's theis was part of a larger story of civility -- that true civility requires consciousness of the self, conciousness of another person, and consciousness of the larger context of an organization.

Or more directly stated, his aha in Okinawa led to his belief that the challenge of civility is the poverty of our consciousness of larger organizations and systems.

Creativity, to me, is both personal and collective. We often neglect the collective part because it is often seen as the opposite of freedom. It feels Orwellian to consider creativity as a group consideration. But seeing it through multiple filters (personal, interpersonal and larger organizations) is when you up the ante.

My aha moment was that my similiar "democratic" style of management wouldn't work in some organizations.  And that's okay. The paradox of the aha is that I now have the conscious freedom to choose to work with organizations that I believe would thrive with a collaborative mindset. 

So, celebrate your personal aha moments.  But think about the larger possibilities within an organization. That's when the dopamine gives you double the buzz.