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.