Quick

In This Bloutcher
Where Art, Life and Leadership Collide

• Quick
• Lookit!

Quick

Think of a word, phrase or title of a song that you want to characterize 2013 for you.
Now write it down and place it where you can see it every day.

More on this in a future bloutcher.

Lookit!

Thank you to new friend Steve Kloyda for introducing me to the ProCreate art app for the iPad.  I've just begun to play with it per above image.  Caught my wife Karen reading the newspaper in a quick sketch. 

Eavesdropping

In This Bloutcher
Where Art, Life and Leadership Collide

• Eavesdropping at MOMA
• Inspiration or Motivation
• Change

Eavesdropping at MOMA
"I don't get it."
"I can do THAT!"
"How did he DO that?"
"THAT'S art?"
"It reminds me of...garbled."
Henry James was once asked how can you judge a work of art to be successful.
He said there are three criteria:

• What was the artist's aim?
• Did he meet his aim?
• Was it worth the effort? 

Even the great artists had their doubts.
Paul Cezanne lamented he had spent 40 years at his craft before realizing that painting was not sculpture.  This water color was painted in 1906 the year he died.

Henri Matisse bemoaned that he could not paint like others.

Wilhem de Kooning complained, "I work out of doubt."

How often do we focus on what we think we do not do well rather than on cultivating our own voice?

Inspiration or Motivation
Inspiration is the pull, the dream shaper, the imagined, the great recruiter, the internal sustainer.
Motivation is the push, the rah rah orator, the carrot vendor, the warrior, the heavy lifter.
Leaders inspire.

Change
The Arab Spring roils
Mother Nature frets
20 children rip a hole in the universe
The mirror reveals

An Interesting E-Mail

In this Bloutcher
Where Art, Life and Leadership Collide

• An Interesting E-Mail
• An Act of Unabashed Family Promotion

An Interesting E-Mail

I want to share a fascinating e-mail I received this week from a client.  I asked the client permission to share his email and he happily agreed.

Some background:  The client is the head of a successful wealth management firm.  I have worked with him and his team in the areas of strategic planning and leadership development over a number of years.  He has been a willing guinea pig for the tools, concepts and techniques which are at the heart of a program I call The Leaders Studio.  This has led, on numerous occasions, to several remarkable and rewarding breakthroughs for him and his business.  However, this last email takes our work to an entirely different level.  The idea he comes up with at the end of the email is entirely his idea.

So here's his E-Mail:

Fred,

Thanks again for your timely Bloutcher.  I just got back from NYC and had the opportunity and pleasure to make it to the Guggenheim for an exhibition of Picasso in Black and White.  It was an incredible experience.  And the museum's space is such a unique way to view a collection.

I was moved and recharged by his work.  The range of what he painted from just a few lines of black on white paper to intricate abstracts to classical portraits which looked like ancient Greek sculptures...and so much more.  I found myself so open to possibilities and seeing things in the art that I was not sure I would have seen before.

So I made a decision.  I have a day blocked off in my calendar for business planning in a couple of weeks and I am going to do it at the MFA (Museum of Fine Arts.)  I think a fresh and inspiring environment will help me see things in new and bigger ways.

Thanks for helping me see more.  Hope all is well.

From a creativity point of view, this email is interesting for several reason:

• The client sees a parallel between being open to new possibilities in art and new possibilities in business planning
• This insight did not come at work.  It came from doing something entirely different from work, but the insight provides direct benefit to his work.
• The client recognizes that being in an environment that at first seems entirely distracting actually stimulates creative insights that support work.

An additional thought:  research shows that if you want to come up with your best, most creative thinking you should not engage in such thinking at your primary work place.  Why is this?  Because work places have the following characteristics:

• They implicitly and explicitly reward analytical, judgmental thinking
• They reinforce the idea that you must "get it right."
• They are filled with routine and repetition
• They do not allow the time and space for deep reflection and thinking
• And many more

I've held workshops with senior leaders in museums and I can tell you unequivocally that the quality of conversation and the kinds of insights that bubble to the surface in such environments demonstrates the power of environment.

An Act of Unabashed Family Promotion

I'd like to introduce you to a project by one of my daughters and her husband.  They are producing a documentary film that traces the journey of a copy of Mein Kampf from the battle fields of Germany to Brooklyn, New York and Boston, Massachusetts and back to its origins in Lubeck, Germany and the children of its original owner.  It's a journey filled with surprises and the unsuspecting and sometimes disturbing lessons of history that remain with us today.  They plan to enter the film in film festivals in the United States and Europe this summer.

Take a look at the trailer ( 2 and 1/2 minutes) and if you think it is a worthy project, consider sponsoring it.  Click here to link to the trailer and to their Kickstarter.com project.   

Yellow Crayon & Q-Tips

In This Bloutcher
Where Art, Life and Leadership Collide

• Yellow Crayon & Q-Tips
• Live Smart After 50!

Yellow Crayon & Q-Tips

I had the sheet of drawing paper laid out on the table.  My two year old grandson Baylor stood in front of the table as I suggested we do some drawing.  I lifted a yellow crayon from the box and handed it to Baylor, greatly anticipating the kind of markings he would make on the paper.  Circles? Squiggles? Zigzags?

That's when Baylor taught me something about leadership.  He grabbed the yellow crayon and, hopping from the table, he began swirling it in his ear.  Squeals of delight filled the air.  He thought that yellow crayon was the coolest q-tip the world had never imagined!

Assumptions!

I had assumptions.  Drawing paper, yellow crayon, circles, squiggles or zigzags!

How about none of the above.  Baylor's uncorrupted and unbiased mind carried no such assumptions.  For him, it was yellow crayon, anything is possible--and it has to bring delight!

Assumptions are often necessary.  They represent a short hand that does not require we explain everything from the beginning over and over again.  Assumptions can also throw a cold press over our adult minds.  They often freeze us out of seeing new and more intriguing possibilities.

Henri Matisse tells us the true creator "has to look at life as he did when he was a child and if he loses that faculty, he cannot express himself in an original ...way."

And so with leadership.  How many times have you heard:

Mary Cassatt Children Playing on the Beach

That won't work around here.
That's not been our experience.
You need more resources to pull that off.
That's just not the way people work.
We've tried that before and it didn't work.
It'll take too long.
Etc.
All are assumptions.  All are wet rags.

Instead, think:  
Yellow crayons make great q-tips.

And bring a child's mind to your organization's creative dilemma.  Try to consider what would bring delight and don't fear looking foolish!


LIVE SMART AFTER 50!  The Experts' Guide to Life Planning for Uncertain Times
 


I am excited to announce the publication of LIVE SMART AFTER 50!  It is a wonderful collaboration of experts across the country and across vital areas of interest and concern for those in the second half of live.  It is a rich, informative, and inspiring read and it makes a fabulous gift this time of year.  Here's a blurb:

LIVE SMART AFTER 50! offers friendly, focused, forward thinking and action oriented help to the challenges of aging in the 21st century.  Rich in practical experience and wisdom, self exploration exercises, and diverse resources, it's a companionable guide for planning and preparing for the second half of life.

In a unique collaboration, thirty-three of the nation's experts in life planning and positive aging distill the most critical issues.  From finding work, community, creativity, purpose and legacy to financing your dreams, making sure your voice is heard, anticipating challenges of aging, and living with purpose and vitality, LIVE SMART AFTER 50! will help you get the big picture, identify and reduce risks, expand choices, and prepare to take advantage of--rather than fear--the future.

To order either a paperback or e-book version go to this link:  http://www.livesmartafter50.com/

From My Sketchbook

In This Bloutcher
Where Art, Life and Leadership Collide

From My Sketchbook
I take my sketchbook wherever I go.  I sketch and jot notes.  Here are few random pages from my sketchbook.

Lost

Wondering

Huh?

Wilhem de Kooning, the great Abstract Expressionist painter, claimed:" I was never interested in how to make a good painting--but to see how far one could go."

A while back I interviewed the CEO of a Fortune 100 company in preparation for a talk on leadership.  He attributed his success to "always pushing the envelope."

Isn't this what de Kooning is also talking about?

In his famous Harvard Business Review article several years ago Abraham Zaleznik claimed leaders are more like artist than they are like managers.  Leaders and artists must step into the unknown.  They must be comfortable with and embrace uncertainty.  This is where the difference is made.  Great Art, Great Leadership.

Blue

Bloutcher
Where Art, Life and Leadership Collide

Blue

I was in NYC for a business meeting last Friday.  Before the meeting I slipped into the Museum of Modern Art. Here are some of my notes.
Orozco, "Barricade":
 HANDS!!  My hands!  Over sized--reaching for more than able to hold

 Matisse, "Still Life after Jan Davidsz de Heem's 'La Desserte'" (1640)
      He began working on the canvas again, 22 YEARS LATER, "adding everything I've seen      since." He uses the word "seen," not "learned."  22 YEARS LATER!!
Matisse, "Woman on a High Stool"
   There's heaven in the levitational space between woman and stool.

 Matisse, The Red Studio
     All over red--sense of spacelessness
     No hand on grandfather clock--timelessness
     Defining the nature of being in the creative state--beyond space and time

 Van Gogh, The Starry Night
   Tree/foreground darkest blue
   Town and hills medium dark blue
   Starry night sky appears almost light blue
   Blues upon blues, vastness in a small painting, firmament within structure.

 Cezanne, Well Mill Stone-Cisterne
   Dancing network of innumerable brushstrokes

 Monet, Water Lily
   Meditation, not painting
   On the surface brush strokes revealing depth upon depth
   Layer upon layer--serenity evoked one gesture at a time

 Some observations:

• Each time I look at a familiar painting I discover something new
• "Mistakes" made, evidenced and built upon
• Arriving at unity through disruption
• I sometimes think I want to paint like Whitman writes poetry--everything in

At my business meeting an executive wore a soft cerulean blue shirt and yellowish tie.  At the end of the meeting he caught me smiling.  I told him he reminded me of Van Gogh.  He smiled back and said "I see." 

IQ Is So 2011

In This Bloutcher
Where Art, Life and Leadership Collide

• Thank you.  Keep them coming
• IQ Is So 2011
• Announcements

Thank you.  Keep them coming.

Thank you for the strong response to my request for examples of paradox that show up in your life and the lives of others.  Here are just a few of the examples I received.

• A beautiful death
• I keep doing those things it's too late to do and that's how I get to do them 
• I am sometimes most productive when I am doing nothing
• Joyful sorrow
• I begin to create by destroying 
• My most powerful dreams come while I am awake
• The essential paradox of love is that connection requires separateness--absence makes the heart grow fonder 
• In order to sell stop selling

It's not too late to send more.  Please keep them coming.

IQ Is So 2011

So the entire field of creativity research is exploding.  One of the most interesting areas has to do with the role of intelligence.  But even here we are going through a major evolution of how we define intelligence.  As you know we have long worshipped at the altar of IQ--mental acuity. Johnny comes home with straight A's.  We start kvelling over the possibility that he may have some Einsteinian IQ potential.  A real Brain that one has, Yoda might say.

But we forget that Einstein himself was tuned into something else.  As quoted in Joseph Jaworski's Source, Einstein tried to remind us:

             The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.  We have      created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.

So traditional mental intelligence, it turns out, is not the most important contributor to creativity.  Traditional intelligence, to carry Einstein's analogy a bit further, is the mule of creativity.  In fact, like a mule, our brains can get down right stubborn.  Please understand I am NOT making the case that mind intelligence is not important.  I am simply making the case that if we want to understand creativity and more importantly BECOME more creative we have to understand how heretofore neglected kinds of intelligence contributes mightily to it.

For instance--Gut Intelligence & Heart Intelligence.


According to Jaworski, work has been done over the past decade which suggests that "complex neuronal structures exist throughout the body, particularly in the heart and the gut." He quotes one scientist as saying "the heart's intelligence is a core operating system in the human being, capable of the coherent organization of mental, emotional and cellular intelligence.  Mental intelligence is to analysis as the heart intelligence is to intuition."

So Johnny might punch the numbers in his SAT scores, but it's not until he learns to listen to his gut and heart that he will unleash that true Einsteinian potential.

This suggests we need to broaden our understanding of the sources of creativity.  And goes to the notion I have  been suggesting for some time.  That creativity is an orientation.  It requires time and space.  And openness.  In order to ALLOW creativity.  Which is all around us if we learn to access and listen to all our forms of intelligence.

The implications of this are significant.  It suggests that we cannot build creativity in oursevles, our children or our leaders with traditional brain based approaches or curriculum.  We need to create the conditions and environments that ALLOW creativity to flourish.  This is probably hardest in the world of business and other large organizations which are by nature conservative and rationalize themselves through brain based processes.  This is especially ironic given the results of a recent IBM Global CEO study which I have cited in the past.  The study, based upon interviews with over 1500 CEO's around the world, identifies creativity as the number one need for organizational leaders.

Now that Johnny is a senior executive how do we create the conditions that enable him to move to where the Creative Force will be with him?

Announcements

• The Coach's Studio; Where Outrageously Creative Coaching Happens.  September 7th is the cut off date for the early bird rate.  Save $250 and earn 7.5 CCE credits in core competencies.  As one participant said in our last session:  "The Coach's Studio program is personally and professionally one of the most powerful programs I have ever attended."  To register for The Coach's Studio click here.

• NACCE and AARP are joining other sponsors of a one day meeting at Babson College in Wellesley, MA "Spotlight on Entrepreneurship Opportunities for Baby Boomers."  Len Schlesinger, President of Babson, and Ralph Sorenson, former President of  Babson and founder of its Center for Entrepreneurship are the opening speakers.  I will be facilitating several sessions through The Center for Productive Longevity (CPL), a non profit with the mission of stimulating more new business creation among people 50 and older. Come join us!
  To register for this event, go to ctrpl.org. The goal is 125 participants, and registrations will be accepted on a first-come basis.

I Am No Longer Here

In This Bloutcher
Where Art, Life and Leadership Collide

• I Am No Longer Here
• A Request
• Announcements

I am no longer here

Now that's a strange statement.  How can I say "I am no longer here" if I am not here?

"I am no longer here" cannot be a true statement.  The only way I can make the statement is if I am here in which case the statement is false because, in truth, I am here.

This is a paradox.

But rather than see paradox as contradiction, why not see it as an opportunity for creativity, as an opportunity to challenge ourselves to find new insights.

I would like to propose that awareness of the paradoxes in our lives has the potential to expand our creativity in several ways:

• Paradox forces us to examine our assumptions thereby freeing us from becoming prisoners of our own mind.
• Paradox invites us to address the apparent tension in the paradox.  How can two things that contradict each other both be true?
• Paradox requires us to hold two contradictory ideas in our thoughts at the same time thereby extending our consciousness into levels of nuance that lead to new information, new food for thought and new insights.
• Paradox may very well be our prevalent state of being rather than harmony and balance--in other words, we spend more time living in contradiction and tension than we do in harmony.  This means we need to develop awareness of where paradox exists in our lives as a stepping stone into greater coherence and creativity.
• Paradox is by its very nature disruptive.  Disruption is a critical element of creativity.

A Request

I am beginning to explore a project that centers on the relationship between paradox and creativity.  I am interested in collecting paradoxes people experience in their lives.  Here are a few examples:

• Seeing beauty in ugliness
• Finding hope through despair
• Solving a problem by giving up on it
• A place that is both ending and beginning
•  Succeeding by failing

I would like to ask you dear readers for your help.  Can you think of paradoxes that have shown up in your life or the lives of others you know and would you kindly send them to me.

Your paradox can be as simple or complex as you like, many words or a few.  Where have you experienced contradictions in your life?  Do you currently see contradictions in your life?

A quick sketch of myself as paradox

Announcement

Good news about 

The Coach's Studio; Where Outrageously Creative Coaching Happens!

  

The ICF just increased the CCE credits to 7.5 in core competencies. 

If you are interested in the program you can now earn more credits.

Also don't forget to take advantage of the early bird discount of $250 which expires on September 7th. 

"This is my all time favorite class!  This is "THE" class for developing your inner creative muse as well as your client's, to address all those life challenges."  Eileen Caroscio, Life Coach

 

To register directly go to www.lcacoach.com
Or contact me directly with questions.

Bald Faced Promotion

In This Bloutcher
Where Art, Life and Leadership Intersect

• Bald Faced Promotion
• Additional Thoughts

Bald Faced Promotions

I usually don't use the main topic of my bloutcher to promote stuff but as my wife is fond of reminding me:  consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

Actually, she acknowledges that Emerson said it first.  But, hey, there's that consistency thing again.

So here's the deal.

I am extremely excited by what my partners Kathy Jordan and Donna Krone and I have created:

        The Coach's Studio; Where Outrageously Creative           Coaching Happens.

As one participant put it:

"Imagine learning a cornucopia of creative approaches to life's challenges and applying new tools, techniques and having heaps of fun too.   That is what the master creative geniuses, Fred, Kathy and Donna direct you to do in class via a variety of platforms using large group, small group, videos, community chat and much, much more.  This is my all time favorite class!  I have integrated what I learned into my personal life as well as professionally with my clients.  This "THE" class for developing your inner creative muse as well as your client's, to address all those life challenges."

So if you are a coach please consider joining us.  The program is approved for 6 CEU credits in the core competencies.  Our Fall Session begins October 3rd.  We have arranged a substantial early bird discount if you register before September 7th.

Please forward this bloutcher entry to others you think might have interest.

To register directly, go to: www.lcacoach.com

Of course, I would be happy to talk to you directly if you have any questions.  Just contact me at:  famandell@verizon.net

And if you would like to view the video we use to introduce the program please click on the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_iHESaZMD4

 And one more thing.  Click on this link to view one of my all time favorite paintings.  It's by Rembrandt and it is entitled The Artist in His Studio.  This has been called the littlest large painting ever painting because it gives such a sense of space yet it is only 10 by 12 inches in size.  I like to think of it as a metaphor for how we think of ourselves.  Sometimes we think of ourselves as smaller than we really are, especially when you think of the great expanses contained within us!


Additional Thoughts

• I'm writing from Quebec and half way through Joseph Jaworski's new book Source; The Inner Path of Knowledge Creation.  Jaworski continues his intellectual and spiritual journey in an effort to understand how to create profound change in the world.  As part of this journey he applies the ideas of David Bohm (he of quantum physics and the implicate order) to bring us to a "place of deeper knowing."  This is heady stuff and hard not to be swept up in the scope of its ambitions.
• I have also just begun a fabulous new biography of Vincent Van Gogh by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith.  Reads like a novel.  I am trying to find Van Gogh's "place of deeper knowing."  Wouldn't it be a marvel and perhaps NOT surprising to discover there are parallel access points between the science of "deeper knowing" and the art of "deeper knowing."

http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/32665

Leadership Bromides

In This Bloutcher
Where Art, Life and Leadership Intersect

In This Bloutcher

• Leadership Bromides
• Announcements

Leadership Bromides

Few topics get as much attention as leadership.  If you look up Amazon the number of titles associated with leadership shows 82,642.  That compares with 13,590 for creativity, 70,885 for parenting and 25,084 for golfing.  Of course that is not as high as religion at 856,019 or spirituality at 165,971.  But it is up there.

Presumably, each of these leadership titles found a publisher under the premise that it offers a unique take on leadership--each has something to say that other books have not yet said.  My goodness, do we really have 82,642 new, unique takes on leadership?  Unlikely.  Perhaps we need a book of books about leadership?  Also unlikely.

And this bridges into leadership bromides.  Perhaps what we need is to re-examine what is already out there.

As an example, take the very popular notion that leadership of others begins with management of oneself.  This is certainly an appealing idea and a lot of good stuff can come out of it.  Since we can reasonably define leadership as the capacity to influence others I suspect that the others in this definition take into account how well someone models behavior as an important factor in whether s/he will follow a particular person.  So, self management becomes the starting point in becoming an effective leader.

Or does it?  Personally I don't think so.  I believe that leadership and self management have an important antecedent--and that is self narrative.  I have had the opportunity to interview many folks over the years.  Both organizational leaders and individuals navigating change in their personal lives.  One of the things I have learned is when personal narrative is based on a strong sense of personal agency self management can follow.  In the absence of this kind of narrative, self management crumbles in the face of stress and challenge.  When one weaves together the warp and woof of one's personal experience into a story about oneself that embodies resilience, hope and belief in the ability to make a difference then one has created a powerful foundation for self management and leadership..

What is the story you tell yourself about yourself?
Does your personal narrative hold empowering or limiting attributes?

Here are elements of a powerful agency based personal narrative I have picked up over the years:
I  am resilient
I am resourceful
I am a learner
I am self reflective
I land on my feet
I can self correct
I've known fear and acted despite it
I know how to ask for help
I am honest with myself
I am accountable
I have the capacity to give and receive love
I have the capacity to forgive

Click here to see an example of a story we tell ourselves about ourselves:



Announcements:

• The Coach's Studio.  We are excited to announce the Fall Session of The Coach's Studio will begin October 3rd.  We have received outstanding feedback and we continue to add elements to the program.  Let me know if you might have interest. Or if you know someone who might.  For a full description of the program click here.
• I will be speaking at the American Creativity Association National Conference in Lewiston, Maine this weekend.  Creative folks from all over the globe will be driving their broomsticks to the University of Southern Maine for the two day conference, beginning Friday and ending Saturday.  Check it out here.
• Bill Zinke is a visionary with a long and successful career in the human resources field.  In 2007 he created the Center for Productive Longevity--dedicated to "stimulating the substantially increased engagement of people 55 + in productive activities, paid and volunteer, where they are qualified and ready to continue adding value." CPL held its first conference in Washington DC that year.  This year he will be holding a series of conferences at Babson College in Waltham, MA, The Kellogg School at Northwestern in Chicago, and the University of Denver in Denver, CO. As part of these programs CPL is sponsoring an essay contest for those 50+.  I will be one of three judges for the "Later Life Essay Contest."  If you are interested in entering the contest with the possibility of winning $1000 click on this link:  To learn more, click here.

Quantum Physics Parable

In This Bloutcher
Where Art, Life and Leadership Collide

• Quantum Physics Parable
• Announcements

1. Clicking
2. Awakened Leadership; Beyond Self Mastery

Quantum Physics Parable
I've been reading about quantum physics.  Please note I said "about" not "in."  I have only the most rudimentary introduction to this fascinating and discombobulating science.

I first got interested in quantum physics through Joseph Jaworski's wonderful book Synchronicity; The Inner Path of Leadership in which he introduced the thinking of physicist David Bohm (1917-1992.) I subsequently--back in 2001/2002--read Bohm's The Undivided Universe (1995) and more recently On Creativity (2004.)

Bohm makes me realize how great science and great art are truly kindred enterprises.

Here are five important ideas of quantum physics.  You can find these on Wikepedia.  They also echo the writings of Bohm.  I believe that each one of these ideas is also true of creativity and the imagination.  I have placed creativity/imagination in parenthesis as a stand-in for the word/idea that comes before it to illustrate the point.

1. Energy (creativity) is not continuous, but comes in small but discreet units.
2. The elementary particles (of creativity) behave both like particles and like waves.
3. The movement of these particles (of creativity) is inherently random.
4. It is impossible to know both the position and the momentum of a particle (of creativity) at the same time.
5. The atomic (creative/imagining) world is nothing like the world we live in.

So what can we take away from David Bohm and these ideas?

• We think we know but we don't.
• Our world of perceptions and "knowing" is less than half the story.
• There are great, untapped possibilities beyond our current awareness. 
• We are each part of a whole rather than a discreet and separate entity.
• Creativity and imagination are about connecting to this wholeness.
• We can experience the experience of wholeness but we cannot know it.
• Therefore, our journey of seeking will never end.

Implications:

• For Leadership:  Embedded in quantum physics is the dynamic reality that just when you think you've got it, you don't.  How does a leader respond to such moments in their organizations and their strategy?  How does a leader lead in such moments?
• For Creativity:  Science will never be able to fully understand creativity. As Paul Cezanne put it:  "Painting is damned difficult--you always think you've got it, but you haven't."  How do you continue to create knowing what you create will never be enough?
• For Life:  There is no such thing as stasis.  As Estragon laments in Waiting for Godot:  "I can't go on like this" to which his companion Vladimir responds:  "That's what you think."  There is no rest for the weary.  We are all endless seekers.

Here is a short parable:
There was once a very sad frog.  So sad he could not stop croaking at the moon.
A hungry fox heard the frog's lament and suggested,
"Listen frog, you sound so distressed you should allow me to eat you for dinner so I can mercifully end your misery."
The frog agreed and closed his eyes for one final croak.
Then the fox walked away.
Moral of the story:  Sometimes nature isn't what it appears to be.
Quantum physics wrote this parable.
And that's the key to creativity.

Here's a photo of quantum physics at work:

Announcements:

• How do you describe the wonderful stories in Karen Mandell's book Clicking?  The characters are familiar (as in your neighbor) yet quirky (just like your neighbor.)  The stories are uplifting but not sappy.  The writing is wonderfully textured.  But perhaps the best way to describe the book is, as one reviewer put it:  "These are not love stories.  They're soon-to-be love stories."  Now that's an original concept.  A soon-to-be love story book!  To order click here.
• Alan Shelton has written an intriguing book Awakened Leadership; Beyond Self Mastery about his personal journey from successful business-first senior executive (CEO, entrepreneur) to spiritual seeker for greater truths and ultimately to an "awakened leader."  Alan was referred to me by a mutual friend and we had a chance to chat the other week.  I came away impressed by his down to earth wisdom, hearty laughter and story telling acumen.  In the book, Alan chronicles his journey and along the way shares valuable and poignant lessons for life and leadership.  If you are on a journey for greater meaning or are an organizational leader who thinks there is more to it all, then Alan's book may be just the right cup of tea at the right time.  To order a copy of Alan's book click here.

70

In This Bloutcher: Where Art, Life and Leadership Intersect

• 70
• Soul Mates
• Congratulations!
• Correction

70
This is going to be a bit personal.
I turned 70 last week.
I never thought I would make it.
My Mom died at 53:  Cancer.
My Dad died at 55:  Cancer.
I expected to take leave of this world the day after my 55th birthday.
I didn't exactly wait, but something was there.
Everything since has been a gift.
I received many birthday greetings last week.
Through U.S. Postal, emails, e-cards, Facebook.
Even voices singing Happy Birthday in my message box.
Land line and mobile.
Friends and family asked me what wisdom I had to share.
I don't know wisdom.
I know gratitude.
I did two things on my birthday.
I went to the gym and shot baskets until I was in a meditative state.
That's when this bloutcher entry came to me.
I also painted a timed 3 minute flash self portrait without looking at myself.
I wanted to leave an evidence.
And, yes, there was a third thing.
I gave gratitude.
I am still seeking this wisdom thing. 


Here's my flash self portrait:


 









Soul Mates
If you want to see why I believe artists and scientists are soul mates just look at these two quotes:

Nobel Laureate in science Szent Gyorgyi:  "Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody thought."

Artist Paul Klee:  "Art does not reproduce the visible, rather it makes visible."

Soul Mates 

Congratulations
Congratulations to the first graduating class of The Coach's Studio.  We had a group of exceptional coaches, consultants and trainers participating in this unique program designed to "outrageously" enhance personal creative skills and turbocharge professional practices.  We are excited to continue to support these graduates in taking this work out into the world.  Here is a sampling of what they had to say:

• "I thought I knew so much about myself and my coaching and I kept getting surprised.  This program has allowed my spirit to lead the way."  Dr. Kerry Bennett, M.D., surgeon and life coach.
• "The design is outstanding:  independent work, group interaction, options for a 'buddy,' the website community.  The impact for myself personally and professionally is a deeper and quicker path to change."  Judy Skoglund, Executive Coach and Chief Learning Officer 

The Coach's Studio will begin another session in early October.  Keep your eyes peeled for further information and let me know if you may have interest.

Correction
In my last bloutcher I mistakenly listed Adolphe Menjou as the actor in Casablanca who said to Humphrey Bogart "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."  Thank you to Kathleen Bergeron for catching my gaffe!  The actor was, in her words, "the incomparable Claude Raines."
 
 
  

The Virtuous Illusion

In This Bloutcher; Where Art, Life and Leadership Collide

• The Virtuous Illusion
• Announcements
• Caine's Arcade

The Virtuous Illusion

In the not too distant past, while still working for a Fortune 100 company, I received a message from The Boss.  He had set aside three precious hours to bring in an outside facilitator to challenge "the team" in a brainstorming session to come up with as many ideas as possible to solve one of the company's intractable challenges.  With this raw material in hand we would prioritize "the best" ideas and put together a work plan to implement them.  He was confident that the "natural creativity" of team members would yield "a cornucopia of innovative options."  Our Boss was a good boss.  He was smart, ethical and well intentioned.

So I, along with other executives, met at the designated time and place.  In order to get from my office to the brainstorming location in our finely designed, comfortable corporate headquarters, I, along with other executives, walked past rows of other offices and cubicles that were populated with similarly styled mahogany furniture, the floors coated with the same handsome earth toned carpeting, the walls punctuated with corporate purchased art.  We entered the same elevator we rode every day to our underground parking garage and landed in a large conference room, not surprisingly furnished in the same styled mahogany furniture and coated with the same earth toned carpeting.  On the conference room table sat platters of fresh fruit, cookies, bottled water and lots of little toys that could be manipulated by our restless, mostly type A fingers.  And so began our well facilitated brainstorming meeting seeking "a cornucopia of innovative options."

Everything about this experience was professionally done, well intended and resulted in "options" that were as uniform and bland as the furniture and carpeting.  The ideas we came up with, and there were many of them, were an extension of ideas which in one form or another already lived in the airspace of our corporate offices.  "A cornucopia" of ideas we had collected.  "Innovative options?"  Not so much.

This is why I call traditional brainstorming "The Virtuous Illusion."  Because we feel like we are doing something important but we are not.  We simply get more of the same.  Even among well intentioned, capable executives.

The question is:  What is the purpose of brainstorming in the first place?  And have leaders been barking up the wrong tree to get it?

As I understand it the purpose of brainstorming is to generate "a cornucopia of innovative options" which can be used to breakthrough organizational challenges.  Brainstorming is thought to get at that by generating lots of ideas, mining those ideas for creative gems and then burnishing them through our efforts to implement them.

The irony is that traditional brainstorming is:

• done under the very conditions which lead to the extension of ideas rather than their breakthroughs
• is a lazy way of fostering creativity because it allows us off the hook the rest of the time which is almost all the time
• leads to an atrophy of the very creative skills we need to promote organic and sustained creativity in ourselves and our organizations

A different perspective:

•  Creativity is not an event.  Not even a facilitated event.  It's an investment.  It is an investment in the development of the creative skills of people.  True, this might take longer than a two or three hour brainstorming session, but the results are more long lasting and lead to an organic creativity that keeps giving back to the organization.
• Creative engagement is NOT, not working.  It is working in a different way.  Many leaders think that spending time on "creativity" is frivolous and diverts focus from productivity and the tasks at hand.  The evidence is quite different.  
• It is time to do what the great masters of art have done for centuries.  Look at the subject from a different perspective.  The great artists became masters because they mastered the creative skill of seeing in new ways.  They truly came up with "a cornucopia of innovative options" with this fresh perspective. 
• Organizational leaders now have the opportunity to do the same by investing in the development of their peoples' creative skills. If leaders wish to generate innovative options they can bring in the masters of art and be open to what they can teach us.  That would be virtuous.  
• As Adolphe Menjou said to Humphrey Bogart at the end of Casablanca:  "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."  And that was no illusion.

Announcements:

• Reminder to check out Clicking by Karen Mandell.  It's getting a lot of buzz.  One of the best parts about the stories is that the quirky characters are so recognizable and endearing!  To order from Amazon click here.
• This week we are finishing the Winter Session of The Coach's Studio; Where Outrageously Creative Coaching Happens.  We have had a remarkable group of participants go through the program and join our community.  It has been uplifting to watch everyone take wing!  We are grateful to all who participated in our first program. We continue to work with participants in our Spring Session as they begin to spread their wings.  We are planning to begin our Fall Session the first week in October.  We are learning that participants seek and thrive in community.  Personal growth and positive change accelerate when the journey is made with like minded spirits.  And creativity is the energy which grows life in its many forms.

Caine's Arcade
My business partner Kathy Jordan brought this short video to my attention.  It is a truly remarkable, inspiring story of a 9 year old with imagination who had a dream he would not let go of.  It brought tears to my eyes!  It is definitely worth the time to view:  Caine's Arcade

Why Words Deceive

In This Bloutcher (Where Art, Life and Leadership Collide)

• Why Words Deceive
• Announcement From Marcel Proust

Why Words Deceive

Let me cut right to it. Words may breathe life into poems, songs, stories and novels which lift the soul and weave wisdom into our lives. But when it comes to conveying experiences words are noble failures. Frustrated warriors. Beguiling deceivers.

Think about it. We have an experience. An experience is multi-sensory by nature and specific to a moment. An experience is non duplicative. In other words, we experience the experience. Then we try to describe it, convey it through words. Yet, words can never fully capture the nature of the experience the way the experience was fully experienced. Try as they may words fall short of the fully variegated, multi-sensory richness and nuance of the experience. This is frustrating and why words and experience are not happy together. They frustrate each other even though they are fated companions as long as we humans have the need to communicate our experiences to each other.

And, as with words, so with art. Both deceive.

That is why Cezanne declared "Art is harmony that runs parallel with Nature." He threw up his arms. No mas. Art cannot be the same as nature, as art cannot be the same as experience.

What are we to do?

Words are words.

Art is art.

Experience is experience.

Each is nothing more, nothing less.

The tension between them is where creativity lives.

The truth is that words and art are lies which create a new truth.

Announcement from Marcel Proust:

"Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were."

Memory especially deceives.

Why I Fear Creativity

In This Bloutcher --Where Art, Life Change and Leadership Intersect (And Sometimes Collide)

• Why I Fear Creativity


• In Process
  


• Announcements
  

Why I Fear Creativity

Most people assume I love creativity. I paint. I sculpt. I teach/coach creativity. I've written about it in Becoming a Life Change Artist. People have called me a creative catalyst. I have created a unique online resource, along with partners Kathy Jordan and Donna Krone, called The Coach's Studio; Where Outrageously Creative Coaching Happens. So ipso facto I must love creativity.

The truth is painfully different.

I believe we often tip toe around creativity. We try to be creative about ideas, about things. We play with them and come up with inventive solutions and we feel quite uplifted by the nimbleness we have exercised.

But we rarely apply the creative imperative to ourselves, our lives. In order to do so we need to take inventory, to self assess, to dig underneath and face ourselves stripped naked of artifice, self illusion--see ourselves in the raw, vulnerable buff.

I wrestle with this all the time in my painting. In certain moments when I am painting I have the illusion that I am painting something, anything other than myself. I am painting a bowl or a flower or a portrait of someone else. I relieve myself of self examination. I take refuge within my painting.

But it only lasts for a moment.

Ultimately I must come to terms with the fact that whatever I am painting I must stand in relationship to it. I must reintroduce myself to it. I cannot take cover. It is like a cross examination. Once something is introduced into evidence it is subject to all manner of questions. If I am painting the smallest of things I must assume a point of view toward this smallest of things. I introduce evidence of myself. And then the self/cross examination begins. And goes deeper and deeper. Ultimately, if I am going to paint this smallest of things, I must reveal myself in Full Monty. There is a terror in this. There are things I do not like. Things that cause pain. Myths I've sold to myself about myself. It's like going to the dentist for a cleaning. Everyday.

According to an old, old friend (Hi Hank!) who now lives in Bali, the Balinese celebrate their Nyepi (New Year) in a very unique way. "On this day," according to my friend, "the island goes dark in order to fool the evil spirits who fly over head into thinking there is no island below." When we do not respond to the requirements of creativity, it is like going dark to ourselves and others. But we are only trying to fool ourselves because creativity means standing in full light all the days of the year.

Of course, I could engage in transactional creativity. That is, determine what sells and paint that. There are lots of very competent transactional artists in this manner. They make a living. They stay on the surface. Like their paintings.

I wonder about this in our lives. How many of our relationships are transactional. How much of our lives are transactional. Good enough to get by. Good enough to make a living. Where we allow ourselves to go dark at some level.

What if we faced our fear and stood in deep relationship to ourselves and others. What would that look like? How might that change ourselves and others?

So this is a paradox. I fear creativity and yet cannot imagine my life without. Even if I cannot resist going dark more often than I would like.

In Process

Here are two charcoal drafts and two early stage oils of a multi-panel project I am working on. The two men are my grandfathers. The two women are my grandmothers. The challenge: Images alone fail to convey their full story.




























Announcements:

Sneak Peek Opportunity




Since words often fall short of the actual experience we have decided to provide you with a sneak peek of The Coach's Studio; Where Outrageously Creative Coaching Happens between April 3rd and April 11th at any time that is convenient to you. Simply click on the link below, key in the user name and password below and voila! You're into several section for your learning pleasure.

http://www.blogger.com/www.lifechangeartists.com
User name: trial
Password: creative

If the sneak peek whets your appetite, you can sign up by clicking here.
If you'd like more info, just let me know and we can chat.
The Spring session begins on April 18!