How to Develop Your Creative Identity at Work: Integrating Personal Creativity Within Your Professio
Oana Velcu-Laitinen
339 pages, parution le 06/10/2022
Résumé
Based on a collection of interviews and research, this book translates the latest findings on the creative beliefs, confidence, and mindset into digestible thoughts for experts with an itch for improvement and innovation in domains like technology, entrepreneurship, and education. It brings a new perspective to creativity by focusing on how individuals can understand their creativity and what the implications are on what they want to achieve.
How to Develop Your Creative Identity at Work is based on the most recent creativity research, which analyzes how creativity plays an important part in the individual's sense of identity.
What You'll Learn
- Understand how personal beliefs about the innate creativity are influenced by past experiences
- See how the creator's personality can be shaped through new habits of curiosity, emotional risk-taking and insight
- Establish a creative communication style that enables others to navigate smoothly through the challenging moments in a feedback conversation
- Become an ambitious person with a sense of meaning in the work you do
- Identify all the familiar and less familiar in-house creative experts
The primary reader is a knowledgeable expert, in a creative or less creative role, who is curious to bring a better fit between their inner experiences and the external environment. The secondary audience are the experts in roles like learning and development, people and culture change, and team leads who are interested in facilitating a space where employees feel safe to share their original ideas and express their curiosity.
In this section, readers are introduced to the importance of integrating personal creativity with the professional role. To this view, the readers are invited to explore their own creativity beyond implicit biases. Who is recognized as a creative individual? When creativity is needed? The benefits of the book are promoted so that readers may be encouraged and prepared to engage fully in the four major parts which follow.
Part 1. Exploring the fit between how you see yourself as a creative person and the activities you perform.
The way you understand your creativity defines the kind of projects you get involved in. In the first part, we'll look into what you presently think of your own creativity and how you can gain a higher level of awareness of new aspects of creativity that you can manifest in the environment. What if you showed more curiosity in your current role? What would that look like?
Chapter 1 Four types of creators
Three defining characteristics of creators
You don't have to see yourself as an artist. You are a creator when: 1) work holds a central role in your life; 2) to be creative is important for you and the work you perform; 3) you are willing to take initiative for personal growth and cross-disciplinary learning.
When there's hope, there are opportunities to craft your role as a creator
There are four ways of relating to your work role. They dictate the way you use your personal creativity.
Chapter 2 Definitions of personal creativity
The most common definition of creativity is the ability to make unusual connections in the mind, which result in novel, surprising and useful ideas.
The outside-in view: how researchers study creativity
Creativity as a type of thinkingCreativity as a processCreativity as an outcome
The inside-out view: how established creators talk about their creativity
Ability to hear music or write a poemAbility to change perspective on obstaclesAbility to come up with many ideasAbility to diverge from the habitual way of thinking and experimentingAbility to express yourself in meaningful ways for yourself and others.
In this book, creativity is defined as the intuition that you have an intellectual or life interest to be discovered and the willingness to experiment with different ativities as a creator in work contexts.
Chapter 3 Breaking free from biases
The ways in which you use creativity in your current work shows the level of creative self-awareness. Upon reaching a higher level of awareness, you get motivated to change to a professional role that fits better with the newly discovered sense of creative self.
A story of creative achievement that defied others' gender biases
Here, the reader is introduced to the career story of the astronomer Cecilia Payne, the woman who paved the way in science for other women in the 1920's.
Gender stereotypes that make you confused about the roles that suits your personal creativity
"It wasn't a teacher. It was a man.", a 6 year old boy said. Already in preschool age, we form gender stereotypes on who is more suitable to perform in a professional role. As we grow, unconscious mental processes can influence our career choices and consequently, hinder the development of a unified sense of identity.
Social biases on creativity go back to the elementary school
How others see us influences how we see ourselves. Research shows that some teachers can be confused about who a creative pupil is and who is a favorite pupil. To avoid the risk of limiting the children's chances to use their creative thinking and potential, teachers can learn how to provide honest feedback on the right way to use creativity in school. How many of your teachers inspired you in this way?
Teachers have strong beliefs on what's an appropriate display of creativity in the classroom
How to guide children on how to use creativity in school?
When it comes to teaching and leadership, showing is preferable to telling. To facilitate learning spaces where creativity is encouraged, teachers could integrate their creativity into their teaching style. However, there seems to be a gap between how teachers understand their creativity and the teaching behaviours they are willing to engage in.
Whenever you get excited about a new idea but think you should not develop it, try to do the opposite
Pedagogues are not an exception. The rest of us, in leadership and expert roles, may not be willing to show at work any of the creative qualities we think we have. Some may have given up on exercising their creative side at work, leaving it for exploration in their free time. While others may be intimidated by an ideal creative person, living in their heads. These kinds of beliefs restrain us from experimenting with new ideas and behaviours in work contexts.
Chapter 4 Four impulses to create
In the disinhibited pathways of memory, speech production and social awareness, there can be four types of creative urges: self-expression, helping others' self-expression, fixing social problems, and solving conceptual problems. What are the ones that define you most?
Towards creative self-realization with the right creative habitsThere can be three psychological statuses that determine the extent to which you develop your potential as a creative person. 1) creative mortification. 2) creative suppression.3) creative self-realization.
Three pathways to exploring new creative drives1) Prioritise your emotions. 2) Spend time looking for new curiosities. 3) Take the risk to engage in new roles as a creator. Chapter 5: The Physical Space
There can be six types of work environments based on the compatibility between individual preferences for work activities and the activities of other people with whom you work: 1. artistic; 2. realistic; 3. investigative; 4. social; 5. entreprising; 6. spiritual.
When you discover a new creative curiosity, you have the chance to experiment new skills in a new environment.
Summary Part 1
Part 2. Priming your mind for creative insight.
Another way to think of creativity is the ability to see and the desire to do something about what you see. The second part of the book discusses how to pay attention in the right way to stimuli in the environment, which will steer your focus towards opportunities to create.
Chapter 6 Cultivate habits of inner observation
In between the discovery of a word, sound, or idea that captivates your mind and the moment when you find your niche, there are many episodes of experimental creations when you refine your creative focus.
Take the creator in you for a date to observe new sensitivities
To manage the uncertainty of developing new skills, you'll build trust in your creative competence in bits and pieces as you learn to look at the world through the eyes of the creator.
Commit to your attraction towards a particular domain
How does the newbie creator prepare their mind for the first act of creation? Getting to know your sensitivities is the new habit of the mind that enables you to notice opportunities to create.
Chapter 7 In search of creative insight
Habit 1: Follow your sense of beauty
High levels of sensitivity are correlated with creativity. Especially in the first stages of the creative process, - problem identification, problem definition and incubation-, your creative sensitivities shed light on the information that really matters.
Habit 2: Heed your interpretations
Interpretation is a core function of the human brain and the seedbed of possible creative ideas. Through a series of thought experiments, the reader is shown the importance of paying attention to the questions stemming from interpretations. Habit 3: Cultivate your intuition about what questions to focus on
The reader is guided on how to differentiate between two types of intuition - instinctive intuition and creative intuition - and moreover, how not to confuse creative intuition with hope or fear.
Chapter 8 Emotional wellbeing as a creator Habit 1: Manage your mood for creative intuition
We are not always in the mood to follow our intuition. Emotions management is a habit that can create more space around the intuitive voice guiding the creator's path.
Habit 2: Let your body sink in gratitude
Grateful thinking is needed to broaden the creative thinking and the next courses of action.
Habit 3: When the self-criticism is loud, bring in some self-compassion to keep company
Self-criticism is a constituent theme of the creator's self-talk and it should be handled with integrity, sincerity and patience. A dose of questioning what you do is beneficial to ensure quality work. The challenge is to stay in the space of constructive debate of your limitations as a creator.
Chapter 9 Reassess the creative sensitivities
The reader is taken through an experimental thought which shows how the top-down attentional system, represented by creative tendencies, will match the bottom-up attentional system, represented by the creative sensitivities as you approach the zone of best fit as a creator.
Summary Part 2
Part 3. Live like a creator.
In this part, we mapp out the three psychological milestones in the development of the identity as a professional creator. Two moments of trial are worthy of being under scrutiny: what you choose to do before and after the awakening of an unexplained interest.
First is the moment of encountering the idea or object that arouses your curiosity, 'Oh, this is a captivating topic! I want to know everything about it.'
And second is the moment when the crippling self-doubt gets loud, 'Why do I want to create?'
To make it to the third developmental stage, it's important to connect with the psychological needs that ground you in acts of creation.
Chapter 10 Making Your Own Luck
Is luck the result of divine intervention that brings the success you want to enjoy in your life? Or can luck be nudged through personal initiative, exploration and careful observation?
Chapter 11 New curiosities
What happens to your identity when you become interested in learning a new domain of knowledge or expertise? The actual self, the ought self and the desirable self negotiate their priority in directing your actions and decisions.
Who is going to win the inner conflict between the one you used to be and the one you could be?
Chapter 12 Create for different audiences
Why do you want to create what you create? OK, it seems to be important to you but why would it be important to others? As you persevere in new acts of creation, the creative self can be distracted by the social self or the collective self.
Four personal needs to create
At stage 2 of creative identity development, some creators may uncover a new interest, which brings the dilemma of what curiosity to follow and delays the moment of committing to your creative focus.
In accordance with the self-determination theory, there can be four kinds of awakened needs that can ground creators in their acts: the love of autonomy, the desire for fairness, the need for relatedness and the intention to leave a leagacy of life values.
Chapter 13 Committing to your creative focus
The third stage is about proving to others why your creations are important to them and maintaining your status. To this view, creators can benefit from a creative growth mindset. Despite the popularity, there's a need for reinvention, to explore your radical creativity, now and then.
Summary Part 3
Part 4. Develop a creative communication style when collecting feedback on your work.
Becoming a creator is a matter of social interactions with suitable people as much as it is a matter of pushing inner boundaries. Describing your original ideas in a compelling way is a test of your budding creative identity. The fourth part of the book is about integrating your creative personality in the way you communicate your ideas.
Direct communication is composed of listening and speaking. We'll discuss a certain type of listening, listening for inspiration and imagination. In addition, we'll elaborate on what kind of humour can increase other people's motivation to offer help with your work-in-progress.
Chapter 14: The importance of constructive conversations during the creative process
In between the moment when you get a new idea and the moment when your audience interacts with it, you'll benefit from choosing with whom and when to talk about the progress. To this view, you'll have to learn how to speak and listen so that you raise the interest in your ideas.
Creative integrity
Preconceived ideas as a key barrier to learning. Creative integrity is about the intention to learn something we didn't expect to learn at the outset of the conversation. It's about your willingness to accept the uncomfortable moments of a conversation and initiate a change in perspective, starting with your perspective.
Taking with humour
Humour is a form of creativity. In addition, in educational and organizational settings, the use of humour by teachers and leaders appears to be significantly correlated with increased creative thinking skills among listeners: imagination, flexibility, originality, and open-mindedness.
Chapter 15: Spontaneous Humour
You don't have to feel the most comic person so you can talk about your original work in a funny way. It's enough that now and then you see the humorous side of a conversational situation and are willing to express it. You'll create an atmosphere of psychological safety, engaged creativity and intellectual honesty.
Three stages in the development of conversational humour
Get a playful mind by reframing your thoughts.Keep making up witty comments during dialogue.Find the appropriate style of humour for every situation.
How to manage the situations when an interlocutor is not amused
Does the listener feel uncomfortable about not getting the joke? Or are they judgemental about the joke? Whatever the reason, reestablish the interlocutor's sense of psychological status.
Chapter 16: Listen for inspiration
Train your brain to be more receptive to inspiration by learning to hold your judgement as you listen. Speaking in analogies
Use analogies to sort out more difficult concepts and ideas. But what are the criteria for making a good analogy?
Chapter 17: Listen for imagination
Listening for imagination is about transforming what you hear into a possibility which is not yet materialized in the world. And it may never be materialized as such, but it can be conducive to an insight, which will become reality.
Three imagination activities that can lead to new ideas
DaydreamingMindwanderingPerspective-taking
Four tactics to boost the imagination during dialogue
The time perspectiveEngage in role playContrasting beliefsFalsifying constraints
Summary Part 4
Oana Velcu-Laitinen is a NeuroLeadership coach and speaker with a focus on the importance of creative thinking abilities to improve work performance. Her clients include researchers, change leaders, entrepreneurs, and individuals seeking career growth.
Oana holds a PhD in Economics from Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki, Finland. During her doctoral research on the implementation of ERP systems in mid-sized Finnish companies, she repeatedly noticed an underestimation of change management. As a result, she got interested in supporting individuals and organisations to create cultures of creativity and change. So, in 2016, she disrupted her academic career to become a knowledge solopreneur.
The book How to Develop Your Creative Identity at Work reflects Oana's curiosity to keep abreast of the latest research on creative identity, mindsets and beliefs and turn it into actionable principles for ambitious knowledge workers. Her motto is, "To know fulfillment, follow your creativity." Originally from Romania, Oana lives with her family in Helsinki.
Caractéristiques techniques
| PAPIER | |
| Éditeur(s) | Apress |
| Auteur(s) | Oana Velcu-Laitinen |
| Parution | 06/10/2022 |
| Nb. de pages | 339 |
| EAN13 | 9781484286791 |
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