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Bo Adams

The paradoxes of creative leadership | Innovation Management - 1 views

www.innovationmanagement.se/...radoxes-of-creative-leadership

leadership innovation management creativity #MustRead

shared by Bo Adams on 09 Jul 15 - No Cached
  • Creative leadership is rich with paradoxes. Creative leaders are driven by their internal passion and purpose, yet they also have an externally oriented, explorative mindset. Creative leaders lead from the front by envisioning a better future, pointing the way and setting an aspiration, yet they achieve this by orchestrating a creative team, often leading from behind to bring out the best in others. In this article, we describe the competencies of a creative leader in detail, and invite you to look in the mirror and see how you score on those key competencies. We explore the topic of paradoxes found in creative leadership and leave you with some practical suggestions on how to grow as a creative leader.
  • We discovered that self-awareness is the cornerstone of leadership: great leaders are aware of what we call their ‘leadership gifts’ as well as their ‘learning edges’. And we found out that self-awareness helps leaders to build authenticity, as great leaders think and act from a place of truth within themselves.
  • At THNK, we distinguish between a management team and a creative team. A management team typically comprises seven or more members and is charged with running an existing business. By contrast, a creative team has ideally three members and is focused on seeking new solutions.
  • Bo Adams on 09 Jul 15
     
    Tweet from @akytle: The paradoxes of creative leadership http://t.co/EK2bbsmBkN So Blessed 2 play w/ cre8tve ldrs! #mvpschool @jbrettjacobsen @boadams1 HT @akytle
Meghan Cureton

Mathematics must be creative, else it ain't mathematics - 0 views

medium.com/...-aint-mathematics-6c9a82e25a67

shared by Meghan Cureton on 20 Nov 17 - No Cached
  • There are no topics in mathematics; only artificial barriers that we have erected to help organise the curriculum. At school, we study topics in discrete chunks and come to understand them as separate islands of knowledge. Yet the most powerful and interesting mathematics arises when we cut through these barriers.
  • Knowledge has its place; you cannot connect or create what you don’t know. Tokio Myers is a trained pianist; his thousands of hours of deliberate practice are the foundation of his creativity. But he is more than a pianist (he’s a BGT winner!), and that is because he dared to defy the the conventional norms of music. Wiles is similarly the world class mathematician that he is because his field of vision is not restricted to any one topic.
  • If only students were encouraged to transcend their study of individual topics.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The tyranny of school maths lies in the false promise that stuffing oneself with facts and procedures prepares you for creativity. The act of creativity is deferred to an unspecified time — presumably it is for older, more knowledgeable people.
  • Young age is no barrier — my most impressive students are also the shortest; it only takes a well-crafted maths problem to unleash their innate creativity.
  • There are obvious benefits to going deep in a particular area and I always offer a gracious nod to the fluency and fundamentals of mathematics. But mathematics at its most fundamental is an integrated body of ideas, replete in patterns. The patterns and connections are what makes it mathematics. Let that be your next headline.
Meghan Cureton

How to Raise a Creative Child. Step One: Back Off - NYTimes.com - 0 views

mobile.nytimes.com/...e-child-step-one-back-off.html

creativity curiosity passion purpose pursuit

shared by Meghan Cureton on 08 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • Meghan Cureton on 08 Oct 17
     
    place emphasis on moral values, rather than on specific rules," Evidence shows that creative contributions depend on the breadth, not just depth, of our knowledge and experience. less about being a single-minded genius and more about being interested in many things
Jim Tiffin Jr

Your Team Is Brainstorming All Wrong - 2 views

hbr.org/...eam-is-brainstorming-all-wrong

brainstorming HBR article ideas designthinking 6-3-5 technique research facilitation #LiquidNetworkSpill fromTwitter fromKevinMoore innovation

shared by Jim Tiffin Jr on 28 May 17 - No Cached
  • demonstrate that groups that use Osborn’s rules of brainstorming come up with fewer ideas (and fewer good ideas) than the individuals would have developed alone.
  • There are several reasons for this productivity loss, as academics call it. For one, when people work together, their ideas tend to converge. As soon as one person throws out an idea, it affects the memory of everyone in the group and makes them think a bit more similarly about the problem than they did before. In contrast, when people work alone, they tend to diverge in their thinking, because everyone takes a slightly different path to thinking about the problem.
  • Early in creative acts it’s important to diverge, that is, to think about what you are doing in as many ways as possible. Later, you want to converge on a small number of paths to follow in more detail.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Many techniques use a structure like this. For example, in the 6-3-5 method, six people sit around a table and write down three ideas. They pass their stack of ideas to the person on their right, who builds on them. This passing is done five times, until everyone has had the chance to build on each of the ideas. Afterward, the group can get together to evaluate the ideas generated.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
      Jim Tiffin Jr on 28 May 17
       
      The 6-3-5 technique summarized.
  • allow individual work during divergent phases of creativity and group work during convergent phases.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
      Jim Tiffin Jr on 28 May 17
       
      Here is the key to the most productive brainstorming techniques.
  • First, it’s hard for people to describe spatial relationships, so any solution that requires a spatial layout is better described with pictures than with words. Second, a large amount of the brain is devoted to visual processing, so sketching and interpreting drawings increases the involvement of those brain regions in idea generation. Third, it is often difficult to describe processes purely in words, so diagrams are helpful.
  • It’s important that groups have time to explore enough ideas that they can consider more than just the first few possibilities that people generate.
  • Many brainstorming sessions involve people talking about solutions. That biases people toward solutions that are easy to talk about. It may also lead to solutions that are abstract and may never work in practice.
  • a combination of drawing and writing is ideal for generating creative solutions to problems
  • t is often important to spend time agreeing on the problem to be solved. A whole round of divergence and convergence on the problem statement can be done before giving people a chance to suggest solutions. 
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
      Jim Tiffin Jr on 28 May 17
       
      Wonder if there is a place for this in our HMW work?
  • To develop stronger ideas, you need to manage the conversation so that the team doesn’t converge on a solution before everyone hears what others are thinking.
  • Jim Tiffin Jr on 28 May 17
     
    "Early in creative acts it's important to diverge, that is to think about what you are doing in as many ways as possible. Later, you want to converge on a small number of paths to follow in more detail."
Trey Boden

9 Research-Backed Ways to Spark Your Creativity - Michael Hyatt - 0 views

michaelhyatt.com/spark-creativity.html

#mvifishares

shared by Trey Boden on 27 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • Create distance. Usually, the more we work on a problem, the closer we get to it. But distance gives us an beneficial change in perspective.
  • Stay upbeat. No. 4 relates back to No. 3. It’s impossible to play in a bad mood, and it turns out researchers find people are better at solving problems when they’re upbeat and positive.
  • The right constraints can clear our heads and challenge us to work with our available resources.
Meghan Cureton

Are You Teaching Content Or Teaching Thought? - - 3 views

teachthought.com/...ng-content-or-teaching-thought

shared by Meghan Cureton on 31 Jul 17 - No Cached
  • education has a thinking problem
  • Shouldn’t a school fail to function without urgent and divergent thinking?
  • our curriculum is content.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • If our job is to teach critical thinking, design, and problem-solving–fluid intelligence–then thinking is our collective circumstance, and our curriculum becomes thought.
  • To learn to think, students need powerful and inspiring models that reflect the design, citizenship, creativity, interdependence, affection, and self-awareness we claim to want them to have. To teach careful, creative, and truly innovative thinking, students need creative spaces and tools, and frameworks to develop their own criteria for quality and success. They need dynamic literacy skills that they practice and build upon endlessly. Not projects that have creativity and design thinking added on, but projects that can’t function without them. And they need control of it all.
  • Can we simply “update” things as we go, or is it time for rethinking of our collective practice?
Bo Adams

Inverse Relationship Between GPA and Innovative Orientation - 0 views

medium.com/...vative-orientation-57e604e7112

assessment grading Innovation

shared by Bo Adams on 07 Dec 17 - No Cached
  • “I think academic environments are artificial environments.
  • People who succeed there are sort of finely trained, they’re conditioned to succeed in that environment.
  • You want people who like figuring out stuff where there is no obvious answer.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • the more experience Google has with hiring, the more inclined they are to hire people with no college at all
  • Increasingly, controlled research studies are also showing no correlation, or even an inverse correlation, between college GPA and innovative orientation or ability.
  • Ironically and tragically, rather than adapt our educational system to the needs of our modern times we have doubled down on the old system, so it is harder today than ever before for young people to retain and build upon their natural curiosity and creativity
Meghan Cureton

Learning and the Brain Stories, #2 - Learning and the Brain blogLearning and the Brain ... - 1 views

www.learningandthebrain.com/...arning-and-the-brain-stories-2

learning brain curiosity neuroscience growthmindset #mvifishares

shared by Meghan Cureton on 07 Apr 17 - No Cached
  • the role of education is to help our children become who they are meant to be instead of  working towards an average which testing promotes.
  • We take this narrowed, biased model of success and try to replicate it in schools; yet these models further reduce diversity of thought, experience and creativity among our students.
  • If we are to support our children to become creative problem-solvers, then we need to move away from pursuing averages that are based on a single prescribed profile for all learners.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • By creating norms and averages we are drawn to comparison and rank–rather than to our children’s curiosities about what they want to learn, become or aspire to be.
  • If praise is tied to the child’s perception of success, and success is tied to narrow definitions of achievement, then children work towards that common standard against which Zhao cautioned us. If they are less likely to take risks then they will seek a single right answer rather than embrace both creativity and curiosity. The standardized test will always be the measure of success.
  • Meghan Cureton on 07 Apr 17
     
    HT @kkelly
T.J. Edwards

Here's Why Coding Is Much More Creative Than You Think - 0 views

mic.com/...h-more-creative-than-you-think

shared by T.J. Edwards on 15 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • The directions for learning Processing are all written in a way that people who've never coded before can still understand, and there are simple examples to guide beginners through the process
  • Processing's flexibility makes it more appealing to students just starting to code, and computer science programs across the country are combining art and programming to meet this creative coding niche need.
  • "Taking it broadly, you could see Processing as a gateway into learning programming proper,"
Jim Tiffin Jr

Design Thinking Mindsets from IDEO via their Design Kit - 0 views

www.designkit.org/mindsets

design thinking mindset ideo Design Kit

shared by Jim Tiffin Jr on 11 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • Jim Tiffin Jr on 11 Apr 16
     
    A listing of the design thinking mindsets put forth by IDEO, including links to videos of various individuals explaining what they are: - Learn from Failure - Make It - Creative Confidence - Empathy - Embrace Ambiguity - Optimism - Iterate, Iterate, Iterate
  • Jim Tiffin Jr on 11 Apr 16
     
    A listing of the design thinking mindsets put forth by IDEO, including links to videos of various individuals explaining what they are: - Learn from Failure - Make It - Creative Confidence - Empathy - Embrace Ambiguity - Optimism - Iterate, Iterate, Iterate
Nicole Martin

Why Curiosity Matters - 1 views

hbr.org/curiosity

shared by Nicole Martin on 14 Sep 18 - No Cached
  • And socially curious employees are better than others at resolving conflicts with colleagues, more likely to receive social support, and more effective at building connections, trust, and commitment on their teams. People or groups high in both dimensions are more innovative and creative.
  • joyous exploration, deprivation sensitivity, stress tolerance, and social curiosity—improve work outcomes.
  • joyous exploration has the strongest link with the experience of intense positive emotions. Stress tolerance has the strongest link with satisfying the need to feel competent, autonomous, and that one belongs. Social curiosity has the strongest link with being a kind, generous, modest person.
  • ...40 more annotations...
  • deprivation sensitivity—recognizing a gap in knowledge the filling of which offers relief. This type of curiosity doesn’t necessarily feel good, but people who experience it work relentlessly to solve problems.
  • joyous exploration—being consumed with wonder about the fascinating features of the world. This is a pleasurable state; people in it seem to possess a joie de vivre.
  • social curiosity—talking, listening, and observing others to learn what they are thinking and doing. Human beings are inherently social animals, and the most effective and efficient way to determine whether someone is friend or foe is to gain information. Some may even snoop, eavesdrop, or gossip to do so.
  • stress tolerance—a willingness to accept and even harness the anxiety associated with novelty. People lacking this ability see information gaps, experience wonder, and are interested in others but are unlikely to step forward and explore.
  • thrill seeking—being willing to take physical, social, and financial risks to acquire varied, complex, and intense experiences. For people with this capacity, the anxiety of confronting novelty is something to be amplified, not reduced.
  • we all seek the sweet spot between two deeply uncomfortable states: understimulation (coping with tasks, people, or situations that lack sufficient novelty, complexity, uncertainty, or conflict) and overstimulation.
  • people become curious upon realizing that they lack desired knowledge; this creates an aversive feeling of uncertainty, which compels them to uncover the missing information.
  • nstead of asking, “How curious are you?” we can ask, “How are you curious?”
  • But maintaining a sense of wonder is crucial to creativity and innovation. The most effective leaders look for ways to nurture their employees’ curiosity to fuel learning and discovery.
  • How can organizations help people make the leap from curious to competent?
  • by providing the right types of stretch assignments and job rotations.
  • complexity and breadth of the opportunities they’d been given,
  • It enhances intelligence
  • It increases perseverance, or grit
  • And curiosity propels us toward deeper engagement, superior performance, and more-meaningful goals
  • The ProblemLeaders say they value employees who question or explore things, but research shows that they largely suppress curiosity, out of fear that it will increase risk and undermine efficiency.Why This MattersCuriosity improves engagement and collaboration. Curious people make better choices, improve their company’s performance, and help their company adapt to uncertain market conditions and external pressures.The RemedyLeaders should encourage curiosity in themselves and others by making small changes to the design of their organization and the ways they manage their employees. Five strategies can guide them.
  • leaders can encourage curiosity
  • when our curiosity is triggered, we are less likely to fall prey to confirmation bias (looking for information that supports our beliefs rather than for evidence suggesting we are wrong) and to stereotyping people (making broad judgments, such as that women or minorities don’t make good leaders). Curiosity has these positive effects because it leads us to generate alternatives.
  • My own research confirms that encouraging people to be curious generates workplace improvements.
  • What is one topic or activity you are curious about today? What is one thing you usually take for granted that you want to ask about? Please make sure you ask a few ‘Why questions’ as you engage in your work throughout the day. Please set aside a few minutes to identify how you’ll approach your work today with these questions in mind.”
  • “What is one topic or activity you’ll engage in today? What is one thing you usually work on or do that you’ll also complete today? Please make sure you think about this as you engage in your work throughout the day. Please set aside a few minutes to identify how you’ll approach your work today with these questions in mind.”
  • When we are curious, we view tough situations more creatively. Studies have found that curiosity is associated with less defensive reactions to stress and less aggressive reactions to provocation.
  • curiosity encourages members of a group to put themselves in one another’s shoes and take an interest in one another’s ideas rather than focus only on their own perspective. That causes them to work together more effectively and smoothly: Conflicts are less heated, and groups achieve better results.
  • he groups whose curiosity had been heightened performed better than the control groups because they shared information more openly and listened more carefully.
  • Hire for curiosity.
  • “Have you ever found yourself unable to stop learning something you’ve never encountered before? Why? What kept you persistent?”
  • most people perform at their best not because they’re specialists but because their deep skill is accompanied by an intellectual curiosity that leads them to ask questions, explore, and collaborate.
  • “What is the one thing I should do to make things better for you?”
  • hen we demonstrate curiosity about others by asking questions, people like us more and view us as more competent, and the heightened trust makes our relationships more interesting and intimate.
  • But focusing on learning is generally more beneficial to us and our organizations,
  • A body of research demonstrates that framing work around learning goals (developing competence, acquiring skills, mastering new situations, and so on) rather than performance goals (hitting targets, proving our competence, impressing others) boosts motivation. And when motivated by learning goals, we acquire more-diverse skills, do better at work, get higher grades in college, do better on problem-solving tasks, and receive higher ratings after training. Unfortunately, organizations often prioritize performance goals.
  • rewarding people not only for their performance but for the learning needed to get there.
  • Leaders can also stress the value of learning by reacting positively to ideas that may be mediocre in themselves but could be springboards to better ones.
  • Organizations can foster curiosity by giving employees time and resources to explore their interests.
  • Employees can also broaden their interests by broadening their networks. Curious people often end up being star performers thanks to their diverse networks,
  • Leaders can also boost employees’ curiosity by carefully designing their teams.
  • What if…?” and “How might we…?”
  • To encourage curiosity, leaders should also teach employees how to ask good questions.
  • Organizing “Why?” days, when employees are encouraged to ask that question if facing a challenge, can go a long way toward fostering curiosity.
  • 5 Whys
  • Bo Adams on 14 Sep 18
     
    HT Nicole Martin
T.J. Edwards

How Engineering Class in 9th Grade Can Excite Diverse Learners | MindShift | KQED News - 0 views

ww2.kqed.org/...de-can-excite-diverse-learners

shared by T.J. Edwards on 09 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • Engineering has been getting a lot of attention because of its real-world applications and clear job prospects, but learning to think like an engineer could be useful no matter what students decide to pursue for work
    • T.J. Edwards
      T.J. Edwards on 09 Sep 16
       
      Not making engineers....learning to think like
  • all ninth-graders
    • T.J. Edwards
      T.J. Edwards on 09 Sep 16
       
      What if Ted was required for all?
  • I felt like I didn’t know how to make enough stuff,”
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Pilla worked as a mechanical engineer at Lockheed Martin before switching to teaching. “I didn’t have enough experience working on and planning out a really big project,”
  • That’s what he tries to give his students in high school.
  • When students newer to making come in excited to take on a project, the old hands help them get up to speed on the skills. And a lot of those projects are about improving the school itself.
  • Tiarra Bell, a senior at SLA Center City. Design drew her into engineering. She experimented with architecture and industrial design, but has really become passionate about furniture design. She now makes and sells her own furniture.
  • Kamal and Pilla meet with an advisory group of engineering industry professionals periodically to make sure their program is truly equipping students with the skills they’ll need to go into these fields later
  • The experts say students need to be able to write, to find problems, to communicate, to Google, to understand constraints. They need to be creative, take thoughtful risks and have a “fearlessness to leap.
  • robotics, senior engineering, astronomy and space sciences, MakerSpace, electronics and programming)
    • T.J. Edwards
      T.J. Edwards on 09 Sep 16
       
      Seems like a lot. Too many choices?
  • To me it’s not about becoming an engineer in college or after. It’s about the critical thinking and the challenges and the creativity that comes with it,”
Meghan Cureton

What Babies Know About Physics and Foreign Languages - NYTimes.com - 0 views

mobile.nytimes.com/...ics-and-foreign-languages.html

Learning nytimes #mvifishares

shared by Meghan Cureton on 28 Aug 16 - No Cached
  • Meghan Cureton on 28 Aug 16
     
    New research tells us scientifically what most preschool teachers have always known intuitively. If we want to encourage learning, innovation and creativity we should love our young children, take care of them, talk to them, let them play and let them watch what we do as we go about our everyday lives. We don't have to make children learn, we just have to let them learn.
Meghan Cureton

Decrease Classroom Clutter to Increase Creativity | Edutopia - 1 views

www.edutopia.org/...increase-creativity-erin-klein

learning environment spaces MVx

shared by Meghan Cureton on 31 Mar 17 - No Cached
  • ablumencranz on 11 Apr 17
     
    I love the picture from a Montessori classroom! Such a great article and totally agree. Here's some research to go along with that idea... https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/rethinking-the-colorful-kindergarten-classroom/comment-page-1/
Trey Boden

The 4 Phases Of Developing Your Creative Voice - 99u - 0 views

99u.com/...developing-your-creative-voice

shared by Trey Boden on 21 Aug 15 - No Cached
  • Your voice is how you’re recognized by others.
  • Your voice is the confluence of inspiration, dedicated practice, and strategic risk.
  • 1. Discovery Phase
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • In this phase, it’s important to identify the small, obtainable skills that could become the building blocks of growth.
  • 2. Emulation Phase
  • Which “mentor works” of my heroes should I immerse myself in, and emulate, in order to build my skills?
  • 3. Divergence Phase
  • when you begin to take everything you’ve learned, and bend and break the rules you learned during emulation.
  • 4. Crisis Phase
  • Perhaps everyone around you is perfectly fine with your performance, but deep down you know that you’re no longer striving to sharpen your craft, and you’ve grown stagnant.
  • We will cycle through these general phases many times over the course of our lives and careers, but for the greatest artists the process of growth never ends.
Meghan Cureton

Teaching As a Dynamic, Participatory and Creative Act - The Teachers Guild - Medium - 0 views

medium.com/...-and-creative-act-399e4668ec61

fuse cohort pd School Change

shared by Meghan Cureton on 07 Sep 15 - No Cached
  • Meghan Cureton on 07 Sep 15
     
    As we think about fuse16 and the potential of certain "packages" for individuals or schools to choose...here is a piece that might give us ideas for the cohort model.
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