OCB PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Introduction

Hi, my name is Angela Lewis from Org. Culture Bites. Thank you for joining us in this podcast series where we will be talking to a number of Australians who are local thought leaders and experts making a positive impact on Australian workplaces.

Angela: Introduction to Paulina.

Today, I’m going to be speaking with Paulina Larocca, our local Creative Catalyst.

Paulina has over 15 years’ experience training people in the science of creative problem solving and inspiring real-life business innovation. She has held roles internally, such as Global Creativity and Innovation Director for Pernod Ricard Winemakers (PRW), and now she runs her own business. Paulina works with clients from around the world to inspire creativity and innovation through her workshops, tools and also by tapping into her rich expertise to develop critical skills and mindsets around growth.

****************************************************************

So, welcome Paulina and thank you so much for taking time to join us to talk about all things, creativity today. We’re thinking about creativity in particular in the workforce so how would you define that?

Paulina

Creativity is the catalyst innovation, but I think it’s a poorly understood cousin of innovation. The two actually need to go together if you want to have really kind of exciting and enduring innovation. But people kind of feel more comfortable with innovation because I think that design thinking has done a great job of actually codifying it and putting a process behind it and making it rigorous. We have this feeling that creativity is more to even go back to Greek myths, more muse-like. We don’t know how to actually get it to we don’t know how to cause it, and also that it seems to be undefinable and lacking that clear structure and link to outcomes that innovation has.

It’s interesting. So one is kind of the serious good’ and the other one’s kind of almost ‘fluffy bad,’ in within the corporate sense. And it’s really understanding that the two are actually linked in. Sometimes the two are the same sides of the same coin, so to speak. And it’s understanding that creativity as well as the structure around it, and it’s not something that is divined. It actually is something that with rigor and tools, it can actually almost be manufactured. It certainly can be produced in an organised way, and it can drive outcomes that are beyond just business products and services. That’s where innovation has tended to lie within the corporate sector. Whereas creativity actually can touch with you intrinsically and actually get to your personal beliefs and emotions much more effectively than innovation usually does.

Angela

Interesting. So, what I’m hearing there is that, innovation can be directly linked to business performance and there’s that very clear linkage that’s really important to be able to invest in innovation because it gives you results. Creativity seems to sit behind that. So what you’re saying is that creativity itself is an indirect link to business performance, and that when you’re considering introducing greater creativity in the workplace, it’s about linking it to specific problem solving, or, having boundaries around – ‘how does this balance with business performance and the results we’re trying to achieve?

So is it about putting creativity in the context of particular problems to solve, or a linkage to particular goals around innovation that lead to business performance?

Paulina

I think you can do both. And I think that creativity is linked in some way to innovation or to actually looking at problems that the business has in different ways of actually solving it. And sometimes innovation is about performance or products or services, whereas creativity can be used to solve any business issue, cultural and or ‘yes we need a new product or service.’ So it actually has a broader remit usually, than an innovation team or department has.

But I think the fact that by introducing it alone it actually, in and of itself can drive business performance. Because it’s a ‘softer skill’ people don’t really understand that. And I think what I would like to see is recognition that as much as innovation has processes around it creativity as well, has rigor and structure. And it can be used to release people’s potential. And really it’s about saying, ‘do you want your people to be actually asking you to solve things?’ and kind of – seeing things that need to be solved and not doing anything about it, or do you want your people to feel motivated and inspired to work with the organisation to make the organisation, a better place. No matter how small their remit is. They don’t need to be the leader, they can all make positive changes that actually can impact the overall health and culture of an organisation.

Angela

I love the points that you make that link directly to culture because culture is about – your underlying beliefs and assumptions about the world and how things should be or how you’d like them to be.

And, often I think creativity, like you said, is put in that space of being a softer skill. But, as we see our workplace environments, evolve; we’ve come from a very highly structured way of thinking and organising the view of the workplace, to a highly disrupted workplace now. As you know different technologies, different market forces are at play and we need to be more agile.

So, I find that there is a greater focus on – I don’t want to call them softer skills because they’re not soft – they’re actually the hard core because they are difficult and they are hardwired into the DNA of your culture. These human performance skills around creativity and empathy and problem solving, that we’re seeing much more of an emphasis on.

So, when we look at the context of workplace environments and culture now. Where does creativity fit in a work culture, and how have you seen it be a driver of performance?

Paulina

I think creativity sits in the work culture more solidly now, but I think more in the play arena. I think the benefits of the tech companies and also the disservice of the tech companies have done, is they’ve kind of introduced the concept of playing and you know having a ping pong table or a foosball machine and kind of ways to relax and stuff like that. And the Googles of this world are seen as creative workplaces and almost the ‘gold standard. ‘

However, often is a distinction between being ‘playing’ and ‘playful.’ And what I’d like to actually see is more playfulness and less playing, because I understand that businesses might kind of think well if I put a foosball machine and etc. that that’s just going to have my employees, you know slacking off and stuff. It’s not that at all. It’s about having a more playful touch to business and I think that’s but not necessarily taking everything so seriously, but also being able to be more trusting, more joyful more bringing your full self to work and being who you are and being able to contribute at a deeper level than just kind of fitting a suit, so to speak. Even though we have less suits these days were more casual workforce, it’s still the same thing. It’s trying to ‘fit into a box.’

So I think if you want your employees to actually truly bring their full potential. I think that understanding creative behaviours and the creative mindset definitely is an asset. And then I think when it comes down to culture and I’ve seen personal experiences – when you release people and you actually say that we acknowledge that you can think differently, and that you are empowered to actually make change when you actually see opportunities… It’s like people’s lights go on. It’s like lighting up a Christmas tree.

People think I can make a change, I can make a difference. And it allows them to actually kind of release themselves from their own constraints because sometimes these constraints are not even real. It’s not like the organisation says ‘no, we don’t have this.’ It’s kind of like we just assume that there are rules there that sometimes are not even real rules, and it kind of wakes people up to the fact that there are opportunities within organisations if you take some initiative and actually make things happen for yourself.  

I think that’s probably what I see one of the greatest drivers, is that people feel released from some kind of chains – whether they’ve made them themselves, or whether they were in some ways, hinted that through the organisation  culture – and ability to be more free and more themselves. And when you kind of get that there’s an indescribable energy and power that starts to radiate through the building. And that kind of magic is almost something that you cannot buy.

Angela

We know each other through working at Diageo and I found it to have an extraordinarily effervescent culture. Some of the values were about ‘being your best’ and ‘celebrating life.’ I think yes, it was more of a playful culture than other organisations that I’ve worked at. But where I see that linkage to performance is really the essence of being comfortable with yourself and being encouraged to be yourself and release your potential. Definitely, that drove results because – people were a lot more ambitious, but they were very clearly aligned to a goal, and they were brought into an environment where – they were challenged and challenging to bring out the best. And not so much judge, but have a critical thinking, approach to solving problems together.

Angela

So to summarise the link between Culture, creativity and performance, some of the things that you were talking about were being comfortable in the environment with yourself and also having the encouragement or support to be open and honest. It really requires your business and people to be good with transparency and openness as part of your cultural norm.

Paulina

I think as well, there’s an ability to contribute more than just your KPIs. I think that’s also what creative problem solving does it allows people to actually take initiatives, and then actually have the courage and the confidence to actually carry it through and see a result. Even if it doesn’t necessarily work out as intended.

One of the things that when we did deliberate creative problem solving training within my last organisation, which was Pernod, we certainly saw the confidence that we gave people was because we gave them a structure. And then what ‘yay this has a structure!’ Businesses respond very well to structure and people who are raised in businesses who associate creativity with the arts -suddenly see ‘oh it’s way beyond the arts, it’s a way of thinking.’ And when you outline that there’s a system there’s some tools and there’s some processes they go ‘oh my gosh, thank you, I now feel comfortable.’ That actually put some confidence to it. And then what they did was – we saw across the board that people actually started to take initiatives on how they communicated, on how they connected, on how they actually helped certain sections of the workforce adjust to changes.

In the last business I’ve worked on, we had the full gamut from people who were contract workers in a vineyard who are not very well paid to senior managers earning hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses and how do you actually make sure that everyone in that business feels equally connected? Because the challenges are extremely different, and the work styles extremely different. And you saw that people within a management capability, taking initiative to engage these workers as contract workers to bring them into the business in new ways. Where previously, they have just kind of said, ‘that’s a problem with our business.’

Suddenly they were like, ‘Oh, we need to actually act on that and how can we actually do things that will actually helped bring them into the fold and recognise that their needs are different?’ And ‘how do we actually take responsibility rather than assuming that someone else needs to fix it?’ So some of those -and they’re not necessarily all huge initiatives, but collectively they can add up to actually making the organisation, a better place to work and keeping your employees there for longer as well.

Angela

So, creativity itself is important, but what underlies that to support or enable creativity is an environment, or that cultural foundation of giving people freedom within a within a framework of operating.

Paulina

Yes

Angela

I’m going to turn the conversation to the future of work, very topical at the moment because of so much change going on. What’s the technology that we need to be able to be competitive globally? How do we embrace our resources to be globally competitive now and into the future?  So I get a lot of questions around. What do you see being the future of work and when is this timeframe that I’m thinking of?

So if we focus just on the next 5 to 10 years, and the future of work we get some really good insights from economists from sociologists and industry telling us we need to adapt. One of those the statements you have on your website is from the World Economic Forum, their future of jobs report. And one of the highlights there that you mentioned was that complex problem solving, was sitting underneath many of the job skills, they’re looking at for, for the future. So those including emotional intelligence, cognitive flexibility and critical thinking. Can you tell me a little bit more about where you see the future of work, and the skill set, that’s important to help us get there.

Paulina

I think no one can really predict the future. And I think the fact that we initially need to be flexible going into that because the future is uncertain. I think it highlights the fact that there are going to have increasing ambiguity, and I’m not quite sure that job security is going to increase. I think it will actually go down and that we will have multiple careers and will have multiple companies and will have to be constantly reinventing ourselves in order to stay relevant. And the speed of technology is changing so rapidly, that does impact how we work and for those of us that are no longer young, you do, you notice how quickly that technology changes and how even the jobs that we do and we’re quite skilled at you can see the next generation coming up with new sets of skills.

So I think this ability to not necessarily be bunnies in the headlight but to actually look forward to being able to reinvent ourselves and have skills to reinvent ourselves is really going to be critical. Because I think the thing about the future of work is we’re going to have to take a lot more self-initiative. Whereas before I think we applied for jobs and we expected the company to some degree, to look after us, to take care of us – provided we were loyal. We didn’t expect it completely in our generation, but I think there was still a bit of, I mean, it wasn’t so long ago that if you work for five to seven years, that was considered to be a ‘good’ set of time on a resume. That’s bad set a time on a resume anymore it’s like, ‘oh you got to get out!’ Seriously you haven’t had enough change, that’s what it starts to indicate you’re not dynamic enough.

So with all those things going on I think it is up to people to actually, for their own self-awareness, their own skills to increase their curiosity. And that is a key driver of creativity, and to continue to actually foster learning and interest. And that’s not necessarily “learning,” ”check,“ because yes, that’s an aspect of it that you might need for your job and stuff, but it’s also almost in the Steve Jobs type of way which is pursue interests that are exciting to you as well. Because you never know where those connections are going to be made or what new opportunities might arise.

So it’s really about having a curious mindset and not necessarily being fixed on ‘this is the way the past was so this is the way the future will be.’ It’s like the past is no longer a good predictor of the future. So start to arm yourself, to actually be more curious, be more awake, be more involved in this world, find opportunities as an adult to continue to learn, to feed your brain to go out and have experiences. And I think it’s important for full life as well. And not to necessarily be a victim of the work or the changing workplace and to have a bit more control and direction about where you’re going as well.

Angela

So the future of work being about personal flexibility and adjusting your style. And in order to meet the changing nature of the environment within which you’re working. And that goes for the organisation as well to obviously be agile and looking at where the market forces are where the disruptions occurring and trying to be ahead of the curve.

Angela

So let’s focus on your, your comments around, be more curious, and be more open and if we look at personality styles, there are some styles in us as human beings that are more curious than others. Some people like more structure than others. Some people like to have a methodical approach to doing the day to day work and working through the goals. Others like to be more ambitious, more, exploratory and more risk taking. So we’re dealing with a lot of different personality types and I think creativity, lends itself to some personality types more than others. So to your point, how would somebody who prefers more structure and a more methodical approach. How could they go about taking the initiative to develop and create a greater creativity?

Paulina

Well I think you’ve touched upon what I would consider one in the myths of creativity, which is that people who are more ideational focused and or who are interested in bright shiny things, etc. That they are naturally more creative than those that might actually be more considered more structured more rigorous, seemingly less curious or less investigative. And that for me is not the definition of creativity. I think it’s too linked to ideas and I think the ability to actually ask beautiful questions or the ability to have great knowledge and to go into depth and be deeply curious about something and actually really get rigor and skill there, those are all creative behaviours. But because of the culture of creativity, which is basically really arisen in the 50s, where there were madmen, so to speak.

If you know the Show Madmen, the ‘O’ In that BDO agency was a guy called Alex Osborn and he started brainstorming and very much they were focused on the big idea. And the word creative as far as a skill or a job didn’t actually really start until the 40s and 50s. Otherwise previously you are an architect, you’re a graphic designer, you weren’t a creative. But unfortunately, they encapsulate creativity as a big idea, which is what you need for an advertising campaign. And we’ve lost sight of the fact that learning how to actually inquire or ask beautiful questions, and even to actually go into something deeply, are creative skills.

So if you look at creativity there are kind of two types of creative energies. There’s divergence, which is that going out there exploring to some degree that curiosity element. And it’s where you kind of suspend judgment and you just kind of go out there and see the world for what it is and seek new opportunities. And then there’s a more convergent, energy, and it’s more about coming down and making considered choices and being more rigorous, because even if you’re out in that divergent phase and you kind of get that ‘aha’ moment, it’s likely that it’s not good enough for you to actually do anything much with. And you’re going to need to go through some kind of convergent process to actually ground it down test, to trial it. I think that we only recognise sometimes divergence as being the creative energy and don’t appreciate that the fact that it’s a balance between the two, that is actually really important.

And for those that are more convergent in the personality types, recognising that it is a creative behaviour, but maybe encouraging divergence with in that conversion phase. So instead of getting locked into a particular solution, remember that even when you’re rigorously analysing something and coming through structure, there are still opportunities to question that structure and to see that structure as a guide, not a firm tram line. And I think that those people, who are deeply curious, even about mathematics and stuff which is a beautiful language. See that for them, it’s a language. It’s a world, it’s a universe within themselves and they see more opportunities, versus someone who’s just doing rote problem solving who says, like two minus four, etc. and doesn’t actually necessarily think through what they’re trying to do with that.

Angela

I hear that the key to unlocking creative potential is about embracing all types of cognitive ability and preferences and seeing that you might have a certain style preference, but, combined with different styles. It’s about bringing those different preferences together and creating something out of them. That’s the opportunity.

Paulina

Absolutely. And I think the mindset is whether you’re in divergence, or convergence phase, is actually still being curious within those phases and still being aware or seeking opportunities and sensing where things might actually go and not being coming so fixed that there is one answer, the answer, and we need to get to that answer.

Now if we’re talking an algebra problem, to some degree, there is an answer. So I’m not saying that everything deserves power of creative, problem solving. But it’s looking at the common type of complex issues that are starting to arise within social interactions and within work and we’re talking about systems thinking, even when you’re solving those type of problems, even when you’re in convergence I think you still need to be aware of the diversion energy and keeping open to where that convergence might go, to give yourself the best possible solution, not just the solution,

Angela

And that it’s not about getting the solution to start off with, but perhaps identifying the problem, being really clear about what the problem is that you’re trying to solve. Bringing diverse perspectives into the ideation of how we, might look at solving that problem. And perhaps testing it. You’re not thinking that we automatically, we need to get to the answer right now but I perhaps let’s get 50% or 80% of the way there now and then test it and be open to adjusting that, tweaking that as you go.

The essence is about ‘everyone has something to offer in the creative opportunity.’ Everyone has experiences, everyone has knowledge about the industry, about being human. And, perhaps the problem that we’re tackling is about bringing together all of those unique and diverse experiences, skill sets and preferences that helps you be more robust in your creative problem solving solutions.

Paulina

Absolutely. I saw a brilliant idea the other day. And it was for a bicycle company, and they’re shipping bicycles around the world. And what happens is, is that the couriers etc and the shipping companies are not very kind to these bicycles and so oftentimes they’re arriving damaged into customers houses and stuff. And yeah, so there was this pushback on ‘how do we actually design a better box?’ And so that was the thinking, so how do we actually design this box to be more robust and actually not add more cost.

And then someone had the brilliance to notice that hey, when it’s a flat screen TV, this doesn’t happen. So what they did was they actually didn’t change the box at all. Other than put a flat screen TV picture on the outside of that box. And that box has now been delivered very carefully. And that says that’s genius is not necessarily going down and solving for, how do we actually put more padding in the box or whatever, and having a bit more curiosity before you jump to solution about what actually is happening and does this happen to everyone with this kind of box infrastructure. And the answer is no. And that’s what I mean about being curious. And then you’ve got a problem that’s beautifully solved without any more additional waste to the environment.

Angela

Makes a lot of sense.

Paulina

It does but it’s not natural or obvious. Do you know what I mean. And that’s kind of the genius of it is that someone actually was curious about what was happening, and not just solving for what came up immediately, but looking for the bigger picture.

Angela

You’re linking it there to also the customer. I think a core part of this is, we’re working in industry and in organisations that ultimately are looking to drive value for the customer. So some of the key things that you’ve spoken about is being curious, being curious on behalf of the customer before they have a problem, right. Also having the initiative to do something about it.

Obviously you do a lot of workshops and training or development with people who are seeking to build the capability on creative problem solving. What’s some advice you could offer around ‘What could individuals do in an organisational context to look at identifying what problems there are?’ And then filtering those around ‘what are the best problems we could be looking at solving?’

Paulina

One of the things that you can do is learn to be naive again. And if you can’t be naive because you’ve been in your organisation for so long, talk to someone who’s just joined. Because they will tell you ‘why do you do this?’ It’s just like ‘this the way things are done around here.’

Angela

It’s sunk in to today’s norms. You know it’s like we’ve got blinkered glasses on isn’t that when you, when you’ve been in organisation for a long time.

Paulina

Exactly. It’s kind of that accepting of ‘this is the way things are around here.’ And I think to some degree, we all fall into that trap whether in our professional lives or personal lives we all have blinkers to some degree. Yes, where we forget to actually ask why. Learning to ask why? Why do we do things around here this way?, And actually starting to understand some of your own frustrations and seeing whether or not there’s opportunities to actually look at it differently. Whether it’s actually changing your attitude towards it, or actually seeing if there are opportunities for change or improvement etc.

So yeah, – it comes back to being curious, is kind of the first step. It’s waking yourself up out of your habits out of your processes which are perfectly fine. I’m not expecting that if you have a morning routine that works beautifully for you- you don’t have to interrupt that. But maybe you can use that time of automation to use your brain to think about something else, and to stimulate that awakening and see time maybe a little bit differently, and yeah just start to look around wake up a little bit more. And you’ll see some opportunities that you can make a difference.

And the other piece of advice I would give is start small. You know, I think that we get these myths about Tesla and Steve Jobs and we’re just like ‘I will never be these people.” That’s fine. We only need a certain percentage of them on the planet at any one time anyway. It’s not about that. It’s about making a small difference wherever you can because a small difference can really make a huge impact on someone’s life.

Angela

And especially when you’re looking at the customer, and anyone in that value chain, whether your frontline facing or somebody that’s enabling an output to a customer, everyone has the opportunity to see things differently, opportunity to make things better or to question why?  Like you said, question ‘why are we doing this? Could there be a better way?

I think that a real opportunity here for leaders, is to encourage that in their teams. I think we’re so transactional in the day to day and it’s just often about getting the job done. But as a leader, the real opportunity you can create for your team is to bring these things to the surface and a practice or a routine around ‘this week, what sort of issues, did you come up against that were frustrating?’ So setting in systems or practices as a team to bring some of these problems to the surface, rather than just accepting them and getting on with the day to day transactional work.

Paulina

Absolutely. And I think that within teams, it starts with allowing the time for a conversation. Organisations that get very task oriented. Even when our KPIs are set up it’s like ‘do this, you know, grow that!’ And so you become right in that okay how do I achieve this task, and that you forget that the ‘how’ you achieve it is equally as important as what you achieve. And by having that conversation it’s less about what do we need to do, but also having an opportunity to say, ‘how are we as a team going to get there and help each other to make sure that we meet those needs?’

And I think that’s where you get team trust, teamwork and you get interactions and natural team dynamics that help support everyone. And that means that when someone’s actually not able for whatever reason to meet the needs, that more people are aware and it’s more natural to actually give up something that you’re doing to help someone else because you’ve already got the foundations of trust and there’s an understanding and a team work there.

Angela

I’m trying to link it back to things that would be relevant to people in the workplace and really like real problems people are trying to solve. So, you work with a lot of different organisations, but are there any common problems that you find that people or teams or businesses are coming up against. You see it over and over again – what’s a common problem that you see that is, stifling organisations preventing them from really coming up with the solution to overcome obstacles.

Paulina

There  is a common cultural problem that comes up again and again, which is that; ‘how do we balance the tension of wanting our people to be more creative and yet the fact of the matter is we have some hard business goals that we need to reach and we do not need them distracted from that.’ And so it’s this dynamic tension between the two of wanting to be better, and wanting to actually be more expansive but the reality is, No.

Angela

it is a common trade off, isn’t it.  We need to find opportunity and act on the issues, but we also need to execute and achieve the day to day goals and the tasks.

Are there any organisations that you have seen approach this or are there some underlying practices or a mindset that you would recommend helps people manage that trade off better?

Paulina

I think it’s about being more honest about the fact that these trade-offs do exist. That when you set up an innovation team or even if you don’t have an innovation team but you set up an area that is going to be more future forward or maybe more risk taking, you have to understand that you are adding a virus into the body, so to speak. And that there’ll be parts of the organisation that will actually be threatened by it because you are taking away resources from one part of the organisation to feed another part that is yet unproven and uncertain, and that you don’t know whether or not it’s going to deliver the results. Organisations tend to try this and not be honest about the fact that we will be taking resources away from another area to try this, and then wanting results too soon. And these other parts of the organisation are kind of like, ‘Ha! I knew it, give us back our money!’

It’s the attitude of ‘I told you so!’ And I think it’s more about having more, I think, honest conversations within workplaces that innovation and trying new things, is a risk, it’s a cost. But the future of us is not around next quarter or next month next year. It’s around the 5 to 10 year mark and if we don’t try to start to test and try these things now, we will be screwed within 5 to 10 years.

I know it’s particularly hard to think about the future because one of the ways that we’re set up in business, is we’re constantly talking about this month. This quarter, this year, or bonused against this year. So why should I change my behaviour? You know I’m only here for a short period of time, doesn’t matter to me whether or not you do achieve your goals within three to five years’ time. So I also think that the way that the corporate life and corporate measurements setup is fundamentally not supportive of taking risk or thinking differently. And that’s hence why a lot of people have to go into a smaller business or start-up, to actually be more dynamic and more lean.

But the reality is corporates don’t necessarily need to act like start-ups. But they need to actually understand that their future is not predicated on their past. It’s going to be more uncertain and that they’re going to have to at least think about a scenario and consider a scenario where what they do today is no longer relevant and what plans in place, do they have to address that and how high of a risk do they think that is?

Angela

That’s a great point and some of the research that I was involved in with Aon Hewitt was around looking at what are the hallmarks or the characteristics of high performing organisations. So those organisations that were sustainable, consistently outperforming the market over a lengthy period of time, so 10, 20 years. Quite often you find that the companies that were successful 10 years ago are no longer successful. And those ones that have been successful over time have had certain elements with within the culture, characteristics that has enabled them to be sustainably successful. And one of those elements is having a longer term view, more of a longer term view than the average organisation.

And another conversation that I’ve had with Steve Tighe in a previous podcast he was also emphasising the importance of scenario planning and taking that longer term view. And whilst we can’t predict what’s going to happen, we can have ideas about what could happen. And then road test them with what’s going on, day to day or month to month quarter by quarter, to see how accurate we are on the different pathways that could be taken.

With what you’re saying, linking it to what we see in the research around high performing organisations having a more longer term view, it would be important to underpin creative problem solving, linking it to some of the insights you might have about where we think the future might be going.

Paulina

Absolutely. The Suncorp organisation did a great job with a team within their organisation. They were talking about driverless cars probably 15 years ago. So I know that sounds very common today, but back then it was kind of sci-fi and would or wouldn’t it happen? But it has had a huge impact on how they actually think about insurance and who’s responsible shouldn’t accident occur. What they actually did was they get emerging pictures of the future. And I love the idea that they use pictures to get people engaged because instead of a 10,000 word report, they’ve created a room where people could kind of see scenarios of where the future might actually go and start to have conversations and start to actually put themselves in that picture, what would it mean for us, how would our policies change, how would we engage people? How does it actually change fundamentally what services that we’re offering?

And as you said it’s not about deciding that one picture was better than the others but it’s more about understanding: these are potential scenarios and continuing to revisit them shape them as we get closer to that future, and we get new information. And I think that’s a gorgeous way of actually getting people engaged in the process – that the future is unknown, yet we do have some solid guesses around what it could be. And if we go there, what does it mean for us as a business about what things we’ll need to do differently, or what products and services we might have to offer in a different way to meet those needs.

Angela

So if you’re a business leader in organisation that is looking for a unique way to remain competitive into the future, a great recommendation, that’s linked to business results could be allow or create time, build time in your strategic planning process to consider scenarios. And create the time with your teams to look at the problems you’re finding now, but having a longer term view around. What could it look like in the future? And then how can we get ourselves there sooner.

Paulina

Exactly. It’s almost like having early warning systems in place to actually say ‘if these if these market dynamics occur than these – one of these early warning systems are more likely to occur than the others. But having a watch on the things that would ultimately disrupt your business and seeing whether or not that they’re coming, whether you’re seeing new technology arising, you’re seeing new entrants you’re seeing an interest in start-ups, but having those early warning systems in place.

And I think first and foremost as part of the strategic planning process it’s not just having a strategic planning process that delivers one year out or two years out, but a part of it that actually looks at what is the future horizon for us in maybe five years. And then what are the things that are going to keep us up late at night or could disrupt our business and the way that we do it, and putting those systems in place and putting someone who enjoys that kind of future forecasting in place to actually start watching for those and letting you know the landscape is changing. And it will be constantly changing up, constantly refining and getting new alerts, but having someone who has an eye on that, so that the business is not caught completely unawares.

Angela

So that’s about being proactive and having a proactive framework in place, to see what the future could hold and try and work backwards. When looking at proactivity, you’re having a structured framework in place, which seems counterintuitive to creativity. But when you look at it, that’s the framework we’re talking about isn’t it? So having that framework that underpins where you want your business to go, and then having the opportunity then to identify what are the problems that we could be facing along the way. And how do we use our critical thinking and problem solving skills to come up with different ideas to solve those problems before we get there. So is that the opportunity for leaders – to be more proactive with the way they conduct their business and their teams?

Paulina

I think it is an aspect of leadership, but I don’t know whether it’s actually an innate leadership skill. I think there are those that are more interested in the future and are more, it’s a sensing skill, because you can’t go into Google and kind of go what will the future hold?

But I do think that recognising that there are certain people that are more naturally geared towards that. And actually, enjoy that kind of sensing skill of what the future could offer could go this way could it go that way, and are very good at reading patterns. In my book it is strategic thinking.

But I think -that’s not going to be the skill that everyone in this leadership position is going to be naturally geared towards, nor necessarily needs to have. But I think for the rest of the leaders. It’s also about actually encouraging a workplace where you are actually recognising that all of your staff have a way to contribute and making sure that you’re no longer seen as ‘the leader.‘

I wish there was a better name for leaders because leaders implies followers. And it also implies that you are setting the direction or that you have the most knowledge. I do think there is a default to hierarchies and if they’re above me they must know more, the CEO must know the most etc. And the reality is this no longer existing businesses where, you know, who’s sitting on the front line, maybe equally as important as what you’re actually seeing in the boardroom.

So I think for the key skill for leaders today is recognising that good ideas and. And I shouldn’t just say ideas but good thoughts and good questions can come from any area of the business and creating a structure regardless the fact of where you sit in the hierarchy, that we can actually access and actually let people offer up solutions, no matter where you sit and seeing that as a valid business capability.

I think it was the IBM report in 2010 and it talked to, 1200 CEOs across 60 countries. And the key creative capability that they identified was creative problem solving because they realise that they’re not going to be able to predict the future anymore and that their leaders no longer are in positions where they can say yes, no, black, white, right, wrong. This is the answer. And that they’re really going to actually have to rely on their people in a new way, because answers are going to be coming from anywhere. And there’s going to be lots of patterns out there and what they need to be able to do is sense and connect the pattern styles and gets the most out of people in order to solve complex problems.

Angela

If we look at a different definition of ‘leader for the future,’ could it be somebody that is demonstrates the capability of connecting with people and identifying ways to bring collective thoughts and opinions together… Filtering those out and coming up with solutions to problems so it’s a problem solver.

Paulina

I would agree and that’s why I think creative leadership is a next generation of leadership, where it’s not about necessarily having the answers and feeling very comfortable – that is no longer your role – to have the answers. It’s about actually creating the environment that actually enables the most problem solving capability to come out.

Angela

And that’s everyone, that’s every individual and organisation has a part to play in creating that environment for themselves, but also for the people around them. And quite often, we look to leaders because people follow leaders naturally that’s where we’ve come that’s part of our organisational modus operandi. But in order to really create that fluid environment, it comes down to every single individual and their willingness to challenge the status quo and feel comfortable taking a risk to put themselves on the line.

Fear of Failure

If I look at that that concept of being fearless, fearless to really create and live the culture that you want to have to stimulate the best ideas and stimulate the most productive and efficient ways of solving problems. Often it’s easier for people in that entry level in an organisation, they’re into a new role they’re trying to prove themselves, and they’re willing to take a few more risks to kind of stand out. And then you get the, the top, or the higher levels of the organisation where they have established themselves they’re credible. They’re, making the decisions for the business – they kind of untouchable in a way, protected.

But then you’ve got this big, middle, and I’m thinking about, senior professionals or middle management, even senior management to some extent where it seems they have a lot more to lose by challenging the status quo. Because if they get it wrong, there’s a lot more at stake. I do see in organisations, and I’ve heard it be framed in different ways – the immobilised middle managers or the ‘frozen group’ or that middle management tends to bear the brunt of a lot of problems. I also think that a lot of this comes down to the culture that is creating that. Because if there’s so much risk at that level of course people are going to be fearful of the outcome.

So in order for there to be true creativity and calculated risk taking in every level of the organisation, we need a culture that embraces failure, and sees that as a heroic thing, or as a good thing too.  

It’s up to also the senior leaders the untouchable people to try and create an environment where people can come from any place in the organisation to raise an issue and to escalate something.

We’re talking about failure and that fear of failure that really holds us back. Where is the opportunity in this for us?

Paulina

We talk a lot about celebrating failure and granted, to have an innovative culture, or to have more creative problem solving, you’re going to have things that are not successful. In reality its whether or not even have those two, not everything is going to work as planned, things will go wrong. But I think it’s being careful not to label it as failure. So I’m always kind of, I’ll be honest, suspicious of organisations that say, ‘we celebrate failure.’ Failure is such a loaded word of the English language that I don’t think anyone really actually celebrates failure is seen, for the most part as a negative.

However, if you talk in terms of experiments, people go “ah yeah!’  Because experiments are automatically expected that some will work. So when you put it into the sense of experiments, you take away the loaded charge or the emotional, something went wrong or there’s going to be a risk to you, and its seen for what it is. Which is just trying new things that some will work some won’t. You will learn, and you will actually get a greater bank of learnings. But I think to actually actively say we celebrate failure that’s kind of harsh. I think it’s a big thing for people to sign up to because I don’t think anyone really in their heart wants to believe that they’ve failed or they are a failure. And no matter how much you put the celebrate bit on it, you still hear a very emotionally charged word called failure. So, I prefer to take it out of that arena and talk about a culture of experimentation. Because I just think that’s neutral or even optimistic, and that’s what these things are they’re experiments.

Angela

So, a simple change in language can change the mindset and the relationship to that outcome.

Paulina

Absolutely. I think it’s very powerful. I think we need to be careful about the power of words and how they actually can change our perceptions or change the way that we look at a problem, and how we actually can see possibilities.

Angela

One of the great lessons that I learned in Diageo in that management level was a comment: to ‘care enough that you don’t care.’ And that was something that kind of defrosted me in that sense. Where you could like…I could say this, but I’m a little bit worried about the consequences because not everyone will agree with me. Or what if it goes wrong? To have that view of ‘I care so much about the potential that it could create for solving a problem or taking us down a different pathway, that I care less about my own security or sense of self. I care more about the possibility that I’m going to express myself and do something about it. And that for me was really, really important to unleash some of the concerns I had around failure.

That’s something I think could help with that immobilised middle. If we took the view of something greater in this than myself alone that could lead to possibility. And if we had that way of thinking in cultures that that could unleash, a lot of potential in around that middle part.

Paulina

Agreed. I think there’s also something else about this immobilised middle. Now when I used to do creative problem solving training program we did it across the full organisation and mostly across senior leadership but oftentimes in that immobilised middle they would come into it. And they would spend and all of the program took about seven days and then spent all this time and coming up with new ideas and they got very expansive about what problems they could solve within the organisation, and how they could make the organisation better. And as you close down this beautiful seven days, what you get is, ‘so what is the organisation going to do differently as a result?’

It’s one of my favourite moments because I’m like, you are the organisation. It’s not about actually giving it to HR or giving it to your boss or giving it to the CEO and saying, ’Mate, you need to fix this!’ I’m like, you are empowered, you have to realise that some of these constraints that you’ve created if you can’t fix this, are your own ideas about the way things work around here. I don’t see anyone saying ‘no you cannot proactively start to solve these things.’

The CEO puts you on this course for a reason. They’re not trying to block you, but they are not asking for a new job deliverable. Which is true, they’re not asking for you to bring this back to them to fix. So what are you going to do about it because you felt so passionately about this that you’ve worked so long and especially come up with solutions. Your solutions right now maybe too grandiose or too budget heavy for the organisation to impact, but what steps can you take tomorrow to help make this a reality if you passionately believe in your ideas.

Really putting the onus back to them – and not in a bad way but ‘say you are empowered to make changes.’ If you would just see that no one is actively holding you back. It’s a real wake up call for people because we are very used to, well, what is anyone going to do about it? You know what are they going to do about it, this place is broken. And it’s like, no, it starts with you!

Angela

So many barriers and, similar frustrations where you achieve so much it’s like we make all these commitments, but the biggest challenge is executing that and staying true to yourself and saying well actually it’s easier to do this way, but I know the difference is going to be the harder way and that is to change my behaviour. Or to change the way that we do this and to challenge the norms, and it’s so hard to do but that is where the breakthrough occurs.

Angela

Ok, changing tack a little here. I’d like to ask you about something or someone that you reflect upon to help boost your creative juices or stimulate your creative thinking. For example, if you were a great fan of Spiderman, and thought he was pretty classy in solving problems, or being creative, you’d ask yourself in this situation, how would Spiderman do this?

Paulina

For me, I guess, if I look for creative inspiration, it would be Martin Luther King, Jr. And one of the reasons why is because I think that when you look back at the time that he was actually talking about equality for people of all colours, etc. I think it was a really stupid idea.

We now see it a bit more in hindsight and kind of actually say wow that was amazing, but the concept of. ‘I have a dream, and that I was dreaming for the fact that black and whites would actually be treated equal.’ It was a crazy thought in that period of time and in America. And I do like someone who is a dreamer, and who actually challenges what we think is acceptable or achievable and believes in it almost to his own peril. And at the end of the day, it was to some degree his own peril. So for me, as far as inspiration goes the sense that the people that are almost the craziest, to some degree, have to be the bravest and they do change the world.

Because a lot of times when we talk about those kind of dreaming capabilities, there’s another part of us that wants to pull it apart and say well, it can’t possibly be done. And it’s just like, yeah, but it’s those people that dream of think about the things that can’t possibly get done that make an impact and change the world.

Angela

They move everything forward that little bit further.

Paulina

Exactly. And I’m not saying that you need to be Martin Luther King Jr. But as far as actual things that inspire me because I passionately believe in the ability to dream is a power that we actively curtail. I mean anything that we talk about dreaming we say they have their head in the clouds, they’re just a dreamer, you know, ‘get real.’ You need to get realistic well that’s never going to work. And in a sense it kind of kills our creative spirit and dreaming is an important part of our creative spirit. So nourishing that and keeping that alive. So as far as personal inspiration goes, that’s what’s really important for me.

As far as professionally, what I’ve learned to come to terms with is understanding and being comfortable with the fact of how my creativity makes its mark in this world. Because, to some degree, I teach about creativity, I train in the area of creativity, and I do have a class of creative people who actually draw or do advertising etcetera, who can look at me and say, but you’re not a creative. And yeah they’re holding the tension of actually saying -well to facilitate a group of people and to take them through a change curve of not believing in themselves to actually releasing their creative confidence, I’m sorry, is a creative behaviour. It’s just not one that’s manifesting in a way that you actually judge creativity.

So over time it’s also learning to be comfortable with the fact that I am a creative but not necessarily in the way that people might point to a creative and understanding that it is so much broader than actually just what we call creative people or a creative career or a creative profession.

Angela

Like beauty in the eye of the beholder. Creativity is what we define it to be and what we’re confident in and what our creativity is.

Paulina

Exactly. And for me to some degree, it’s about facilitation and bringing out the best in people. And for me what I like to say is your creative self is your best self and learning to bring your best self-more often to more occasions and unleashing that and getting you back in touch with it, is a really powerful skill. That’s what I would say is kind of my, my secret sauce and my skill. It’s less about most cases, looking to someone else to honour that but making sure that I honour that within myself, and that I don’t denigrate it, and I don’t compare it. That I realise that yes, it is a creative gift that may not be relevant or may not be appreciated or may not even be seen by everyone to be that, but that I know that the work that I have and the impact that has and to honour that.

Angela

And that’s a great segway into, actually, your book that I’ve read, ‘Connecting – Harnessing your emotions to enhance your creativity.’  I love this book because it made me stop and think.

In the book you have a great way of challenging us about – ‘where do we go for creativity, where do we go to find that place where we can truly be quiet in our own space and see the power that we have, or the opportunity in doing things differently. And I think this book is a really good way to, like you say you dive in at any point. It can be very spontaneous in the way that you approach the book. Thinking about some of the comments that you make and the conflicts that you draw in those images makes you think differently.

Part of your message here seems to be about owning the fact that everyone has a source of creativity within them. It’s about exploring it and finding ways to embrace it, apply it to your work environment, the problems that you come against from day to day. Feeling comfortable that you might not have the answer now, but keep exploring and at some stage sooner or later a solution may come to you. It’s about being open to the different things that come from different places that you may not necessarily plan for.

Paulina

It’s also about having an emotional awareness. I think because we associate creativity with ideational type behaviours. And ideation is can be very joyful, and it’s seen as happy clappy it’s bright colours and it’s fun and generates a million ideas. But oftentimes the creative problem solving process is actually a lot more complex than just that one phase of ideational behaviour. Oftentimes it starts from well of despair, or grief or frustration or anger, because those are the things that motivate you to act in life.

Angela

Yeah, so true. Sometimes the greatest challenges become our greatest achievements.

Paulina

Exactly. And so, recognising that instead of trying to shy away from these moments because I think they’re kind of treated as bad, or you need to get over it or you hide them from other people. And, however you choose to explore it – but recognising that a lot of your creative power is residing in places you may not feel comfortable going, or you may have been told are not creative sources, but they absolutely are. Actually recognising that the despairs the sadness, the frustration and stuff like that, are where your creative connections are starting to occur and where the power for you to actually continue to act is starting to be born.

It’s interesting on the car ride over because it’s been a year to almost around this month that my mother actually got sick and was kind of the onus for this book and I was going through a period of grief again. And I think I mentioned to you, we’re working on the third book and we got a review from the publisher on Monday, which is basically like ‘nah, I don’t like it.’

Yeah, and it is,  this week has been a week of creative despair. Not knowing how to solve it there’s been some tension there’s been some anxiety, etc. As I was coming over in the car, where I started to actually go back into myself and I’m like yeah actually look at this whole thing differently.

Even this book has been born out of anger and frustration with the way that we think. That the world is turning and that we’re not reflecting that honestly enough and having that conversation, and starting to think about bringing those things up and showing, not just the end result but showing how we got there. It’s probably going to -help the publisher to connect the dots more easily. And I think strengthen the work. So it’s a half thought still, but actually once again getting in touch with the fact that when personal creativity-It’s just not necessarily born out of unicorns and rainbows. I wish it was. But yeah, it’s often driven by something much deeper and sometimes a little bit uncomfortable but very powerful.

Angela

That comment itself is very powerful. You made the point that creativity comes from emotion, and sometimes those emotions are in places that we don’t want to go.

Paulina

Yes.

Angela

But actually by going to those places, we can acknowledge what it is -not necessarily judge it, and criticise ourselves will be yourself, beat ourselves up for what is what isn’t, but acknowledging the way we feel, but then having the stimulation to do something about it. That’s the source of creativity,

Paulina

Exactly. And it actually drives us to act because – not in the sense of I want to escape this moment, but in the sense that I want to actually move on from it successfully, is to almost integrate it. But that’s an incredible source of creative thinking because you start to need to reframe it. You start to actually say, why am I going through this? Instead of blaming or looking for, why should this stop, actually saying ‘what lessons can I glean from this?’ How can I actually work this into my story in a way that serves me? And this is really talking now, we kind of got away from the organisational, and we’re talking very deeply to how creativity impacts us.

But the thing about creativity versus innovation, innovation is something that we do usually to drive some kind of monetary result, for the most part. This is why creativity touches so much more deeply because it talks to who we are, what we want to be and who we are becoming.

Angela

A very strong point that you made is about being human. And by being human we have an untapped resource of emotion and understanding of who we are. And by going to that place, we then create opportunity to do something about it. By having the initiative creating that personal story and how that sits in the organisational context is where we can unleash our potential and create something better, with other people in the in the work environment, to solve problems.

Paulina

Absolutely. And if I could talk about one key creative behaviour that I think that is the most powerful. If you said Paulina I’m gonna take away all your other tools I’m gonna leave you with one creative problem solving tool, what would it be? I would snatch reframing off the table.  Really, creative problem solving at the end of the day is not about new ideas, per se, but it’s our ability to actually question parameters or question our narrative, and actually learn to actually reframe it in a way that works better for us, or reframe it in a way that we can see opportunities.

So, earlier we were talking about the middle managers being stuck. If you believe that that’s true, you will be stuck, and you will accept that as reality and you will actually struggle to come out of it. Instead, if you can see yourself if you are a middle manager, ask ’where can I actually go with that?’ Are these constraints, real or have I just agreed to a whole bunch of prison cells so to speak, that may or may not be there? And it’s that ability to reframe the question, and to actually see the world slightly differently, that’s the greatest creative problem solving skill that we have. It’s innate in all of us but sometimes we forget to do it. We accept what’s in front of us is, what is instead of actually questioning what is.

Angela

Paulina, thank you so much for the time that you have spent with us, discussing all manner of things from being human to the biggest problems we see in the workforce and, preparing ourselves for the future. So thank you very much, and I look forward to ongoing conversations.

Paulina

Fantastic, thank you.

END

For more information about Paulina and her work, please visit her website https://www.paulinalarocca.com/.

For more information on building Innovative work cultures, please contact Angela Lewis at Org. Culture Bites via email: NewCustomerEnquiry@OrgCultureBites.com.