1+1: Unlocking childlike creativity + A NASA engineer gets creative

Here’s one leadership idea and one resource I’ve found beneficial this week:

1 idea: Unlocking childlike creativity 

This spring, I spent my Saturdays with perhaps the most innovative people I’ve ever met: a group of four-year-old tee-ball players. During my first game as a coach, I witnessed things I never imagined happening on a baseball diamond.

Having played a fair bit of baseball and softball in my life, it never occurred to me to chase my own ball after a hit, for instance. I’ve never seen four players form a dogpile and fight for a ball, either. And I certainly never imagined holding on to a runner so that my teammate could catch up and tag him with the ball.

These budding young athletes were so creative because they were unburdened by self-consciousness or the norms of the game. They played the game in whatever way made sense to them in the moment (despite their coach’s admonitions otherwise!) The result was a chaotic but entertaining game.

As anyone with kids will know, this childlike creativity is the norm, not the exception. Back in 1968, George Land and Beth Jarman developed a creativity test for NASA to use in selecting creative engineers and scientists. In the test, subjects were asked to think up many different ways of using common objects—what’s known as divergent thinking. Only two percent of adults scored in the genius range on this test, but 98% of five-year-olds did. However, when the researchers retested those same kids at age 10 and 15, the number of “geniuses” dropped to 30% and 12%, respectively. In other words, these children who could previously think outside the box had learned how to stay neatly inside it.

If you don’t think of yourself as creative, this is great news for you. If you’ve ever been a child—and I believe that applies to all of us—you were once creative. In other words, you don’t have to learn to be creative; you just need to unlock your innate (but forgotten) creative ability. That looks like doing the things your younger self would do:

• Worry less about making mistakes

• Generate multiple options before landing on a “best” one

• Play. Do something for the innate enjoyment of the thing, not for what it produces. Treat creativity as an end, not a means to an end

• Let go of self-consciousness and care less what others think of you

• Question your and others’ assumptions. Ask “Why?”

In short, bring some fun and whimsy back into your life. Act like the kind of adult that you would have enjoyed as a kid. Not only will this bring more joy into your life, but you’ll become a more creative and innovative leader as well.

***

• What’s keeping you from becoming more creative?

• What would becoming more creative do for you?

• What creative endeavor would you try if you knew you couldn’t fail?

1 resource: A NASA engineer gets creative

During COVID, most of us read more, cooked more, and gained some weight. Not Mark Rober. The former NASA engineer got really into bird-watching, which prompted him to make perhaps the most elaborate squirrel obstacle course ever devised. This is creativity at the next level.

PS: Now that’s creative parenting…