Creativity's Flipside

It took me the whole 8-hour day to write this little speech and it will take me several more hours to practice its presentation before it is ready. So here it is as my Blog entry today. I think it should count as my 1000 word per day exercise.

CREATIVITY'S FLIPSIDE

There is a part of me I do not master. A part of me that does not answer to me but I answer to it. It is a guilty pleasure. It is the weak link in my self-discipline. It is my greatest shortcoming. It is the flipside of creativity. Creativity is my weakness.


The flipside of Creativity makes me a poor student because I lack the focus to prepare for examination test questions. It obstructs my ability to efficiently structure my CD collection; or to pre-plan a pro forma workflow in a proposal of service for a client, or even prepare a speech as simple as this one. It is an obstacle that prevents my being entertained, or informed, or understanding anything written longer than a couple of pages. In fact, reading anything puts me to sleep at any time when I read.

SPIRAL 1

But you would be surprised how tough my greatest flaw is. I could easily go off on a tangent telling you just how tough it was. I could make you cry. I could make you laugh. I could tell secrets. But tonight I want to focus on creativity’s flipside.

SPIRAL 2

There are many jobs that require the castration of creativity:
Bookkeeping,
Pharmacology,
Wealth management,
Scientific research,
Factory worker,
Bus driver,
Librarian,
Reporter,

Just to name a few.

The career I choose 22 years ago was not one of those jobs. Public relations is a function in business that should be dynamic and fluid. As an executive management function, relationship management should conduct messages to-and-fro between a corporation and it many publics, and, sometimes plays a communication role between the many publics that serve the corporation. Relationship building was the most creative job I could find when I was looking for work that would reward my looking out the window so much.

Creativity has let my eyes see the light for clients who are in the dark about their challenges, and sometimes their opportunities. But creativity has kept my thinking in the dark when it comes to quickly forming structures. To imagine how I survive in structured business environment you need to see it like two puzzle pieces that fit together. One piece is my client’s challenge. The other piece is my imagination and creativity. I would not make a very good employee. But I make one hell of a consultant. And because the nature of communications is changeable, my creativity was always engaged in this interlock.
 
That’s a very academic way to explain the results. I am not sure I can explain the process, how I differ as a businessman. I dress like a businessman. I conduct my business like a businessman. I sound like a businessman. But, when I am working for a client in business, I do not work like a businessman.

Does everyone in the audience tonight know about the movie “A Beautiful Mind”? Has everyone seen it? It is the story of a man, John Nash, who won the 1994 Nobel Prize in Economics for "his pioneering analysis of equilibria in the theory of non-cooperative games."


You may be aware of the fact that he was Schizophrenic and that Russell Crowe played him in the film. What I want to make you aware of is how the film - in moving pictures - described how he solved problems because it is the best description I have seen to reveal to you the way the answers for my clients come to me.
 
I do not explain what happens to me for clients this way. And I usually do have more information from research to support my explanations. But this is how my inspiration works.

In the film, John Nash is asked to work for the Pentagon as a code breaker: a cipher. He is taken to a large backlit display of numbers. He stares at it for quite some time. As he stands staring at this backlight board, patterns illuminate themselves: pyramids, stars, triangles, number sequences, all light up in his mind. He starts to make sense of these patterns that only present themselves to him, until he suddenly realises the code he is breaking is communicating longitude and latitude co-ordinates. He tells his client his observation and it makes sense to them. It solves their challenge.

I would propose a plan of action in a formal proposal to a client. But I experience the same mystical problem solving as the film describes when I look at a client’s problem and I understand the underlying scientific documentation I have on hand. I explain to clients in concrete terms what really happens to me intangibly.
 
How can this be successful? It is not taught in any business school. In fact, because of my weakness, I could not complete a higher education degree. I tried twice. But there is some very good advice how to be successful in such a situation, and it comes from President Abraham Lincoln.

The best way
to destroy an enemy
is
to make him a friend.