On Creativity and your Creative Self

Creativity and all types of creativity are God-given, divinely inspired at least I think so! Yet some of it can be quite destructive depending on where its motive and source is rooted in. Take for example a cartoonist who draws political cartoons can use his or her art form to convey thought-provoking humor that helps in uniting people, or their work can be used for furthering the divide between different factions.  I believe knowing the source while doing innovative work and knowing your heart while pursuing the motive behind it is crucially important for few reasons:

1) It may be the "work" that may define you

2) It may be "work" that will affect a generation or generations to come. Think of C.S. Lewis's work "The Chronicles of Narnia"  or Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings"  or for example the work of Scottish philosopher Adam Smith's "An inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations"  became the precursor to the entire discipline of Economics.

3) It may be "work" that will become a blessing or a curse that will shape the present and the future.

Creative people are faced with the dilemma often followed after their big "reveal" or their life achievement identifying success has been unveiled to the world. This dilemma turns to be the dread of being that one-shot wonder (known or unknown) that has killed scores of artists in the pits of despair, the quagmires of disappointments, and the wells of depression.  Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of "Eat, Pray, Love" recounts her fascinating discovery of developing some sort of psychological construct in protecting herself from the early self destruction that may be helpful for creatives. I found her 2009 TED talk fascinating as she narrates how her search led to ancient Greece & Rome where people believed that creativity in human beings didn't necessarily come from themselves. It came from divine attendant spirits whom they referred as "daemons." Socrates famously believed that he

had a daemon who gave him wisdom or Euhler the Swiss mathematician who revealed most of his ideas came from revelations from above.  Elizabeth Gilbert opines that this fact is quite a brilliant idea at it creates the distance or some sort of separation from the creator of the work and the work itself. This also helps in protecting the creator from the results of his or her work. If the creative work was brilliant you as an artist couldn't take credit for it because this creative genius spirit around you helped in realizing it or if the work bombed it's not entirely your fault either. The renaissance period changed all this as the focus solely now shifted on the artist/creator as the center of genius who produced the work; rational humanism reduced to reason that creativity came solely from the individual and there was no divine or some "spirit" led inspiration.  The mystery thus diffused in proclaiming human self and human achievement as the sole source for the creative output.  This has directed to some disastrous ends in creative lives. I believe it's not that rational or straightforward,  there is some mystery involved in each one of us.  Because this is the very idea I stated at the beginning of this post, we who decide to produce some creative work the source is somewhere, it does come from someone, and it is in this mysterious process involving some sort of partnership not entirely explainable - magical work gets produced.

Gilbert recounts beautifully the story of her meeting the American poet Ruth Stone who shared with her when she was a young woman working in the fields in rural Virginia she often would hear a poem barreling down the landscape like a thunderous train of air, shaking the earth under her feet. The only thing Ruth knew to do then was to "run like hell"  to get into her house chased by this poem to get to a piece of paper and pencil fast enough to write it down before it left.  The other times when she was not fast enough, it would barrel through her and continue across the landscape looking "for another poet."

Transcendence or original work be it in a dance, a musical composition, writing, or in any other art form does happen from time to time. Songwriter Gregory Douglas quotes "Creativity is this elusive spiritual connection that I am convinced every creative person is in constant pursuit of, whether they know it or not. As a singer/songwriter myself, I often describe my own creative process as a spiritual one because I am channeling something from somewhere unknown every time I write songs – as if I’m pulling information out of thin air. It feels like a collaboration with the universe in some ways. It doesn’t always deliver a promising outcome, but when it does, there is an undeniable source at hand that provides key ingredients outside of my realm of understanding".  I believe this is not just limited to artistic or what we label as "creative" fields but can be in business, a design process, ideas, or for any subject matter where human ingenuity and creativity are involved. That is when it is no longer just human, but a juxtaposition with the spiritual plane or one that falls in the unique intersection with the divine - or a mystery coming through some unknown portal brought down from the heavens to the earth that then becomes this creative output which turns to become a blessing to many.





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The Pursuit of Happiness - Un-clutter your brain for decision making

Niel Pasricha author of  NYT bestseller 'The Happiness Equation' proposes nine secrets of happiness in his favorite book. I disdain or at least am suspicious of step by step program or book titles that deal with life in purely quantitative process oriented levels. They usually start with seven steps and four disciplines etc., but this one is an excellent read because of its simplicity, and the amount of research Niel has put in.  The sub-title of his book surmises the equation as "want nothing + do anything = have everything" is an interesting, eye-catching adage with some truth embedded in it. Actually, I am "The Lord is my Shepherd, and I shall not be in want."   To "want nothing" and to be "not be in want"  are two different things. To want nothing is a misleading idea, a false positive, a half visible diorama.  The idea of not being in want is entirely operating from another place, a place of abundance. Discussion of this idea is for another day, and this is not the objective of this post. My interest in decision theories attracted me to framework Niel proposes in his book. It's about uncluttering your brain for
reminded of Psalm 23 which begins with

If you mapped your daily/weekly or monthly activities in a four by four quadrant with "time" on one axis and "importance" on the other, this would start making sense. The decision framework here is from "low to high" in the order of time taken for an activity and how significant it is for you.  It gives you a framework to unclutter your brain.

If you are paying bills or you have x number of monthly repeating activities which take a small chunk of time and are low in importance - then automate those decisions and free your brain.  From my perspective, the inference here is in our pursuit for control and heightening the uncertainty variables eventually steals your time and keeps your mind captive.

The author proposes the effectuate actions are those that are important, like having family dinners, family time, attending parent-teacher meetings; however these are not decisions where the brain needs to be deliberately engaged. The idea here is to get it done and enjoy "being."

Things like checking email, reading time blocks (for me), managing calendars, meetings may involve a lot of time and may not be critical, but the idea here is to regulate these as habits.  For me, it is making rules, making time blocks and aggressively sticking to them. I am not saying you should not be flexible but deviating from the time blocks should not be the norm.

The activities or decisions that fall under the "debate" quadrant is where the brain needs to suspend, take as much time as necessary or possible to make those decisions. These are highly important and time-consuming for you and those involved. Examples can be like buying a house, starting a new program, project, hiring the right person. A good indicator is cost and impact ratios involved if they are high your brain needs to be in this space. As Niel puts it: deep thinking, questioning and wondering.  From this, I take away what big ideas and decisions can I act or influence so that we move towards doing the "Right thing."

Thinking in this framework positively helps in not only narrowing your focus but freeing your brain from the clutter.

Thoughts,

Dr. Sam Kurien

How Dashboards can mislead

Read an interesting article from John Shapiro professor at Northwestern Kellog on how dashboards can mislead executives and I cannot agree more. To be honest, I love visualization of data and have pushed my data architects and report writers to give me snapshots of various measures but how often the rich data didn't mean anything as it did not align with organizational goals. Even more, what information is important to me is not necessarily relevant to other executives in the organization.  Data analytics visualized on dashboards typically describe existing measures on past phenomena, some better ones predict future events and past data and the best one prescribe a course of corrective or strategic actions.

Shapiro talks about three types of traps executives can fall for:

1. The Context Trap:  We equate empirical data to the objective. I have blatantly used the cliche "numbers don't lie." But this belief can be dangerous because we can track wrong measures or metrics and make wrong conclusions. An example in the article the author shares was when tracking sales leads or touchpoints without correlating data points that show actual and expected we are unable to make intelligent contextual decisions.

2. The Causality Trap: When data is displayed in groupings on a dashboard managers interpret it as causative when there may not be one. A sound knowledge of statistics is needed for critical thinkers who are managers and executives to not equate correlation to causality. Statistical tests calculate correlations between variables and there are tests like Granger causality or convergent cross mapping techniques that verify the hypothesis of causal relationships in correlational data.

3. The Importance Trap:  Dashboards are built on assumptions made by data or IT architects, or sometimes using deployed dashboard software that has pre-defined measures. This does not necessarily mean that the data views of the dashboard align with the goals and the business model of the companies. Hence context of people involved in frontlines, articulation, and alignment of business strategy are important inputs for defining the lead and lag measures.

Thoughts,

Sam Kurien

10 Things I learnt last week that I never knew

I am starting a practice. Hopefully, it will hold up to record every week 10 things in my readings and watchings that I never knew about. Kind of like "wow" it's good to know this or something like the lines of thinking that "it's a neat reason or is fascinating how this came together, and now I understand in my mental models how it all fits together." So here we go:

1. The first typewriter was first called the "The writing Harpsichord."

2. Cerebral spinal fluid in the brain is responsible for cleaning waste from brain cells. And there are no lymphatic vessels in the brain (who knew :)). The brain's ingenious system of cleaning - creator's design.

3. Benjamin Rich's definition of 'white opia.' His TED talk is humorous and brings home the message racism can exist even without racists.

4. 10 nations have more that 15000 or more nuclear weapons. This stockpile has to be dismantled and converted to use nuclear power.  When Russians and American decided to cooperate and work together many of these weapons were decommissioned and powered bulbs in America.

5. Howe seemingly unwanted inventions done in fun or no particular purpose can become building blocks for significant future breakthroughs. Case example: Flute made from bones.

6. The first musical box was made by three brothers in Baghdad that led French inventor Jacques Vucanson to carry the same idea into weaving patterns of colors in a power loom using cylinders.

7. The French inventors inspired Charles Babbage to build the programmable punched cards.

8. Interesting scripts and apps in Kali Linux

9. How fake news is not only a major problem in news media and social media outlets it is precisely following the business models designed for them to search out sensationalized content, publish and capitalize on short-term returns.

10.  Eric Whitacre's projects virtual choir 1.0 and 2.0 is breathtakingly moving bringing people from cultures in one beautiful symphony. Worth listening to...it will move your soul!

HR functions during M&A

The last decade has seen substantial changes in the HR landscape. As a consultant, you get to see organizations trying to wrestle with the ideas of placing HR correctly for alignment reasons or sometimes plainly not knowing what to do with HR professionals. Some senior executives will attempt to keep it as a separate department or sometimes as a function of Operations or as a  function of Executive or even explode it to call it something like 'HR services.' Some  attempt with hybrid

Approaches where HR may be reduced as policy police agent where all its other primary functions are outsourced to internal departments who may or may not have the necessary time or expertise to do everything HR is supposed to do.  I am fascinated by all this as the most important resource of any organization is human resources, yet HR is almost viewed as a sidelined activity necessary to please the law and comply with regulations. Even in mature organizations development and training are segregated from HR as if they are non-relative functions. Even when HR offers developmental or training activities, it is considered one more thing for the employees to do so the checklist can be completed.  With globalization as bigger companies acquire smaller ones or strategically merging to keep control of their verticals or for obvious reasons to increase their market shares and gain strategic advantage in the marketplace has heightened complexities of HR functions and roles. 
There are tons of articles written on this subject, but I want to record five key things along with challenges HR professionals need to be aware of. All these ideas come from an article I read last year from a journal. This is my best attempt to recall and summarize in a succinct way.  HR practitioners at a high level during M& A from the acquiring company should be very involved in these activities. 

1. Creation of new policies to guide the new organization.
2. Retention of key employees.
3. Employee selection and downsizing.
4. Development of compensation strategies.
5. Creation of a comprehensive employee benefits program.

Some challenges HR practitioners will face during an M& A can be the following: 

1. Proactively avoiding legal issues that may be violated by federal or state anti-discrimination laws and the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN)
2. Participation in defense lawsuits that may be brought forward because of the M& A
3. Aligning HR function between two entities to achieve the strategic HR objectives of the acquiring company in a non-threatening manner.  This will include alignment of workforce strategies and business objectives. A company may also choose to learn and leave the culture and HR practices of the acquired company alone. 
4. Ethical dilemmas that may be involved in eliminating the HR function in the new structure or positions of co-workers within the HR function.
5. Attempting to maintain internal status quo and 
6. Communicating transparently and promptly to upper management, stakeholders, and people in both organizations especially the one being acquired.
7. In Communicating: knowing about appropriate levels of disclosures and level of confidentiality has to be stewarded and shepherded and can be challenging in itself. 
8. Dealing with realities of layoffs, redundant or superfluous employees in combined new entity
9. Devising new culture and managing cultural transitions. 

HR's involvement have defined roles or activities that need to happen before, after and post-merger & acquisition activity. 

Before the transaction HR needs to be involved in the following: 

• Reviewing of the legal documents
• Assessments of employees fit, culture, employment contracts, policies, legal exposures
• Evaluation of employee benefits and programs
• Awareness and settling of discrimination cases 
• Providing reports on suitability of acquisition

After the transaction HR needs to be involved in the following:

• Retention of key employees before competition snatches them or before they leave because of transitional confusion
• Creation of new policies or adoption/adaption of existing ones and embracing of the main things that acquired company employees need to know. 
• Employee selection assessments and downsizing of redundant workers, migrant worker legal paperwork assessment, 
• Development and communication of compensation strategies 
• Development of employee benefits programs. 

Some of the post-acquisition activities go in parallel with after acquisition phases these can be summarized as:

• Managing the cultural fit, educating what are the non-negotiables and what can be left as it is 
• Leading HR technology change initiatives and absorbing existing employee data marts from existing HR systems 
• Scaling HR functions seamlessly across the new entity 
• Communicating and training of global issues, culture, process changes and eliminating inefficiencies. 

Thoughts, 

For Global Leaders - When Culture does not translate

Last year at Global leadership summit I heard Erin Myer professor at INSEAD, Paris talking about her book 'The Culture Map'. I recommend it highly as the read is rich in data points analyzed by professor Myer's research on implicit and explicit communication;  and how different cultures

communicate and understand the same things differently. For Global leaders understanding these nuances of high context and low context, cultures is an important skill to have when they are leading cross-cultural global teams.

In a summarized  HBR article 'When the culture doesn't translate'  Erin gives 5 approaches a global leader should be aware of when managing cross-culture communications. These are:

1. Identify the dimensions of difference
2. Give everyone a voice
3. Protect your most creative units
4. Train everyone in key norms.
5. Be heterogenous everywhere.

Communication breakdowns can be avoided as we plan for international cultures. Asian cultures like Thai's and Indians make decisions by consensus compared to their American counterparts. I have experienced this as well though being Asian my work life has primarily been in the west and it's easy for me to talk out loud, interject and speak up on an agenda that was just given an hour ago. The Thai's, on the other hand, would be flustered as they didn't get time to prepare or discuss in between themselves before the meeting. Some other examples she cites are when Google tried to impose its culture in the Google France office where negative criticism during appraisals is expected so a form that cited 10 good things you did well do not necessarily work; or a French company like L'Oreal in its own cultural context of communication ambiguity is expected within their creative teams but the same ensures for confusion to its American teams.

Erin suggests for global managers to be effective making sure the agenda is sent beforehand, assigning someone to recap the discussions and put it in writing and checking in every 10 minutes during an international call if everyone is on the same page are helpful things one can do to increase collaboration and understanding. A follow-up email summarizing the meeting, decisions made and timelines are very helpful for creating accountability horizontally and vertically.

Power distances, gender, and age gaps are variables that add noise in distant cultural communications for them to go haywire and create misconceptions which in turns lowers productivity and leaves project and program objectives incomplete. So training everyone to adopt some of the local norms and implementing non-negotiable organizational norms goes a long way in cross-cultural collaboration to become successful.

Thoughts,

Dr. Sam Kurien

9 Things

Recently read an article by Heidi Grant who listed 9 things successful people do differently. Though I will not elaborate all details of each of the points here, I will summarize and list for my benefit and comment on what I took away from this.  She suggests successful people do things differently when they define goals and they do this by being extremely specific.  For me, personally a goal that reads "study and read good books" is vague, however "read 50 books in 2017" is a very specific goal.

Secondly, successful people seize the moment to act on their defined specific goals. Grabbing opportunities through techniques like time blocking for me have been extremely helpful. This is easier said than done but disciplined application will turn this practice into delight; however awareness that time does slip away, or the urgent will always take precedence should keep you on guard in protecting your most valuable asset 'time'.  The "whirlwind" as the authors of 4DX would say will always compete for your wildly important goals. Thirdly, knowing "how far you have left to go" is important to people who do things differently. This effectively means measuring and tracking your progress. At a given time knowing where you are at and how far your end goal lies is a conscious exercise one must practice to keep your momentum moving forward.

The others in the list of 9 things she includes had grit, building one's willpower muscle, being a realistic optimist, focussing on getting better rather than being good, and knowing your limitations and not tempting fate.  Of the latter list what spoke to me most was of being the "realistic optimist" which means when you are setting goals, infuse a lot of positive energy, motivation, pep talk yourself that will help you sustain the needed focus and energy for the arduous journey ahead.  This means while setting goals intentionally being willing to narrow them down. Elizabeth Grace Sunders suggests coming to a congruence between your inner desires and your external pressures.  I found the three questions  she suggests helpful in thinking this through  when you set your  professional developmental goals for the year:

If I could accomplish just one major professional development goal in 2017 what would it be? Is my motivation to pursue that purpose intrinsic, something coming from within because it is personally satisfying and valuable, or is it extrinsic, something that I feel would please other people? When I think about working on this goal, do I get excited about the process as well as the outcome?

Thoughts,