September 1, 2025 • 46 mins
Creativity at work isn’t random—it’s designed. In this SuperCreativity Podcast episode, Dr. Amy Climer (author of Deliberate Creative Teams and creator of Climer Cards) joins James to break down her Purpose–Dynamics–Process model for team creativity. We dig into psychological safety and “creative abrasion,” reframing the right problem before ideating, meeting redesigns that unlock innovation, and practical tools like ethnographic interviews and image prompts. Plus: exnovation (what to stop doing) and how leaders can turn conflict into better ideas, faster.
Key takeaways
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Be deliberate to be creative: rituals + structure make innovation repeatable.
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The Deliberate Creative Team model = Purpose, Dynamics, Process—alignment matters.
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Clarify before you ideate or you’ll solve the wrong problem.
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Encourage task conflict (“creative abrasion”), avoid relationship conflict—psychological safety is the guardrail.
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Redesign meetings: less reporting, more collaborating through clear stages (clarify → ideate → develop → test).
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Make time by stopping things: exnovate outdated tasks and meetings.
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Practical tools: Creative Problem Solving, ethnographic interviews, and image-based prompts (Climer Cards).
Memorable quotes
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“Be deliberate to be creative.”
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“Creativity is novelty that is valuable.”
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“Teams think they have a process—until you ask them to describe it.”
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“If you didn’t spend time clarifying, you’d solve the wrong problem.”
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“Creative abrasion means disagreeing about the work—respectfully.”
Timestamps
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00:08 — Intro to Dr. Amy Climer and her work with innovative teams and organizations.
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01:16 — Amy’s path: from The Artist’s Way to a PhD and a consulting practice.
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03:23 — Creating the Deliberate Creative Team Scale: measuring behaviors, not just traits.
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04:36 — The model: Purpose, Dynamics, Process (and why all three matter).
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06:17 — Applying the model to an engineering team: purpose, process, and meeting design.
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10:53 — Clarifying the problem: how five minutes can change the brief.
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12:25 — Ethnographic interviews: talk to the people who actually have the problem.
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14:55 — Dynamics & “creative abrasion”: productive task conflict vs. harmful relationship conflict.
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18:05 — Safety, hierarchy, and speaking up (airline cockpit lesson).
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22:58 — The biggest blocker is “time”—and how exnovation frees it.
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29:47 — Letting go to innovate: pausing projects to serve emerging client needs.
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30:30 — A teacher’s influence and early psychological safety.
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33:59 — Leaders’ misconception: “I
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Dr.
Amy Climer teaches teams and organizations how to increase their creativity so they canmaximize innovation.
She works with forward thinking organizations such as the Mayo Clinic, StanfordUniversity, and the US Department of Homeland Security.
Amy is the author of the bestselling book, Deliberate Creative Teams, How to Lead forInnovative Results.
(00:32):
She is also the host of another fantastic website which you've got to check out called theDeliberate Creative Podcast.
where she shares practical advice and strategies to help leaders build innovative teams.
Amy has a PhD in leadership and change and is a certified speaking professional, CSP.
(00:53):
Please welcome to the Super Creativity Podcast, Dr.
Amy Climer
Thank you, it's so good to be here, James.
So I love, obviously, there's a huge amount of synergy with the work that you do and thelisteners for this show as well.
But I want to know, just take us right back to the start, what first drew you tocreativity research and was there a kind of personal moment that set you on this path?
(01:16):
been very curious about creativity, honestly, probably since high school.
I remember I was the friend who if one of my friends said, no, I'm not creative.
I can't draw.
And I would just be like, yes, you can.
It's just about practice.
And you just have to apply yourself.
And I would get all emphatic and try to build them up.
(01:39):
And I think I just intuitively had a sense that creativity was more than drawing, which ofcourse, as you know, is a misnomer.
get confused about.
um And then right after college, I stumbled upon the book The Artist's Way, which I'm sureyou're familiar with and many listeners are, a classic book that really helped me see
(02:00):
creativity in a new light.
And then later I started teaching workshops, helping other people understand howcreativity works.
And all the while professionally, I was building skills and facilitation and team buildingand team development.
And so eventually,
Probably not until my 30s, I got really serious about integrating these two things, thecreativity and the team development.
(02:23):
And then I really geeked out about it and decided to go get a PhD and study this deeply.
And I finished that about 10 years ago.
But now I have a consulting practice where I help teams and organizations understand howcreativity really works.
So let's imagine you're on that flight, you're traveling out to maybe facilitate aworkshop or give a keynote speech.
(02:45):
The person sitting next to you said, so what do you do?
How do you normally respond?
Because you are a multi-hyphenate type of person.
uh How do you describe what you do?
I usually say I teach teams and organizations how to be more creative and innovative.
And then they are like, really?
You can do that?
(03:05):
Which obviously, you know you can, but yes.
Now you went on this journey, obviously there's the strong academic side to what you do.
uh You developed the creative synergy scale based on surveys and real teams.
What question or problem were you setting out to solve in the process of kind of workingand finding the scale?
Yeah, so just to clarify, the scale is actually called the Deliberate Creative Team Scalenow.
(03:30):
But the purpose of that assessment is to measure teams behaviors around creativity.
And I think that there are some other measures out there that measures how creativesomeone might be, or there's other measures that are looking at kind of our personality in
(03:50):
relation to our creativity and our creative output.
But I really wanted to look at, what are we actually doing?
What are those behaviors?
And so the scale is actually where I also developed this model called the DeliberateCreative Team model.
And it measures these three areas that teams need if they're going to be creativetogether.
And we can get into those if you'd like, but I think what I love about this scale is it'slooking at the behaviors and what are people actually doing, which can be really
(04:20):
interesting and really eye-opening.
So take us there then, tell us about this.
You say that creativity comes when teams have purpose, dynamics, and process, and all thisaligns as well.
So is this a kind of Venn diagram?
Do these things overlap?
How do they all work together?
Yeah, absolutely.
Here, I'll throw up a visual for those of you who are watching this uh video of it, butvery basic Venn diagram with that.
(04:46):
These are the three elements that I discovered in the research that are critical for teamsto be creative together.
So there's the team purpose, team dynamics and team creative process.
And I know you've talked about these on your podcast before and it was actually throughdevelopment of the scale that these evolved.
then we're getting all into the statistics and how do you develop these things.
(05:08):
But ah what's interesting is, you know, I think that sometimes teams think they're doingcertain things really well.
Like they think they have a creative process, but when I ask them what it is, they have noidea and they can't actually describe it.
ah Or they describe something that just feels kind of convoluted and not very clear.
(05:31):
or they think they have a clear team purpose, but then when you ask them what their teampurpose is, they can't actually answer the question.
ah And so this scale helps them and this model helps them understand, yeah, here's what weneed to develop further.
So let's imagine a perfect scenario, which never really exists, but we have a company, wehave a team.
(05:51):
Let's choose an industry.
They're in engineering, mechanical engineering.
My wife's a mechanical engineer originally.
So let's choose that as a, they're in a mechanical engineering making really superadvanced kind of parts.
Break down those kind of three elements and how, what is the perfect situation for thatteam?
what do they mean to be doing in each of those areas, purpose, dynamics, purpose, andprocess, sorry, in order for those things to fully align.
(06:17):
Okay, I love this.
All right, and I actually love working with engineering teams.
Yeah, I've worked with a number of them.
Okay, so first off, I think the team needs to get clarity on what's their purpose, andthere's different layers to understanding purpose.
So first, there's the purpose of the entire organization or company.
(06:37):
That might be the mission statement or something along, mission, whatever.
But then, what's the purpose of this specific team?
both in the big picture, how does it fit into that organization, but then even morespecifically the purpose for this project.
Now the challenge with uh understanding purpose in relation to innovation is the purposehas to be, there has to be enough space within that purpose for you to actually innovate.
(07:07):
And so if the purpose is super narrow, then you're not gonna have that wiggle room to comeup with new ideas and go in different directions.
ah In fact, there's some interesting research ah that looked at that purpose sometimescomes later, that sometimes a team is working on their project, whatever they're trying to
(07:28):
do, and they don't really know the purpose of it.
And it would be for more like emergent innovation, probably not going to apply as much fora team like this, because often they might be working together like, we have this very
specific problem that we're looking at and we're trying to solve this problem.
So that's part of their purpose right there and getting clarity on that.
Okay, so team purpose.
(07:50):
Team dynamics are our ability to trust each other, to feel safe.
I know you've talked about psychological safety on the podcast before.
That's really important for teams to be more innovative together.
So trust, uh psychological safety, put those together.
Also our ability to engage in conflict.
And there's certain types of conflict that are
(08:12):
particularly useful and some that are not.
And then of course our ability to communicate with each other.
And this is the one that's overly obvious, but sometimes we gloss over it a bit too much.
ah But that trust conflict communication is all a part of the team dynamics.
And so then the third piece is that process.
And what's the process a team is using to actually innovate together?
(08:36):
So.
I think about what happens when the team sits down at a table together or jumps on a Zoomcall together.
What are their meetings like?
How do they start?
Are they just a report out where everybody's sharing updates?
Because that's not gonna necessarily lead to innovation.
In fact, people are probably gonna get a little glassy eyed and zone out a bit.
(08:56):
ah But what is that collaboration?
And so there are many processes you can use, many strategies and techniques.
The process that I teach my clients
most often is called creative problem solving.
And it's a very basic process.
It's designed based on how we as humans naturally solve problems.
(09:17):
And I'm sure if you haven't talked about this process on your podcast, you've talked aboutother ones.
I've heard a couple of your episodes where you're going through like the ideation process.
ah But when we have a process, we can be clear about where are we?
What are we doing right now?
Like for instance, we start off, let's clarify what the problem is.
We need to really deeply understand that problem, which is a spot many teams skip over andthen generate some ideas and what are the best ideas to solve that particular problem.
(09:47):
And then I often say, you know, when we come up with an idea, it'll like fit on a post-itnote.
There's nothing to it.
It's just a sentence.
And so it needs to be developed further.
And then once that's developed, we can...
implement it, maybe test it out and see like, right, would this work?
Let's try it at a really small scale or, you know, for a mechanical engineering team,maybe like try, you know, let's develop this with a 3D printer first or cardboard or like
(10:13):
how basic can we get before we're spending millions of dollars to produce some somethingbig.
Anyway, that's a bit of yeah, go ahead.
it's interesting going through some of those, like on the purpose one, you have a team,sometimes people know each other well, sometimes they don't, they're coming together.
Do you ever find that initially people kind of think they're coming into that team meetingto ideate, work on, maybe it's gonna be problem, solving a problem, and find that the
(10:44):
purpose, when they leave the room after an hour,
they've actually decided that the purpose that they're about is not the purpose that theyinitially thought when they went into the room.
Yes.
And I think that's actually, you just spoke to the value of that conversation.
It's like, you think the problem is here, you know, the problem is X, but actually startdigging into it it's actually Y or Z or A or B or whatever.
(11:07):
It's something different.
If you didn't spend time clarifying, then you would have solved for the wrong problem.
And I see this happen all the times in Teams.
And there's some interesting research by this guy,
Roger Firestein, where he found that if you just spend five minutes clarifying, sometimesthat's enough.
(11:31):
So it doesn't have to be this long drawn out thing, although sometimes you do need morethan five minutes, but even five minutes makes a difference and can get better results.
It's interesting, I always try and start those kind of meetings with just asking a wholebunch of series of questions.
think MIT, they call it kind of question bursts.
use different, we've had a guest on, Gregason, Professor Gregson, that came on the showtalking about MIT question bursts.
(11:59):
And he said, often when you kind of get it at the start of the meeting and you're asking aseries of questions, before you get into thinking about, even thinking about solutions.
He said, you often find out the problem you thought was a problem isn't the main problemat all.
There's something that sits behind it that if you just didn't spend those first fewminutes just getting all those different stakeholders in the room on the same page as to
(12:20):
like, this is really why we're here.
He said, you end up wasting a lot of time.
It's, I totally agree with that.
Yeah.
It's like just let's dig into a little bit.
And sometimes one of the techniques that I use, I don't know if you've talked about onthis year show, but are you familiar with ethnographic interviews?
This technique?
Okay.
It's very simple.
(12:41):
And it's actually a, there's a whole research arm, research methodology calledethnographic interviews, but this is a very light version of it where basically you're
just going and talking to the people who have the problem you're trying to solve.
It doesn't mean you have to bring them all in the meeting.
mean, sometimes that's not appropriate or realistic, but it might be picking up the phoneor walking down the street or wherever people who have this problem are, go talk to them
(13:09):
and you're asking them questions for anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour, depending on thesituation.
But even asking them questions for 10 minutes, you might get...
a completely different perspective of what's actually going on and realize, oh, okay, nowwe understand it better from their perspective and that's gonna change how we idea.
(13:32):
You've just given a very academic fancy label to something I'm thinking I often do where,what's that thing is this expression in America is like a $10 word or there's something
like this is kind of that kind of thing.
It's like a 10 cent or a $10 word.
Anyway, I often think about it when clients come to me and maybe you find this the samewhen clients book you in for keynotes is the person that comes to you is maybe the HR
(13:58):
leader.
or the C-suite in the organization or a VP.
And I always ask that before we do the event, can I speak to two or three of your teammembers are gonna be at this event in advance?
And I'm always fascinated because sometimes I'm having to triangulate between, well, theCEO thinks this is the problem, the people on the grand floor who are dealing with
(14:20):
everything, they see this is the problem, HR sees it from this kind of different problem.
And until you kind of start by just putting all that.
out there you don't really find, which kind of brings me to that second point, thedynamics piece.
So I'm here in Scotland today and we have uh Edinburgh, which is the home of theEnlightenment period, and they had a phrase they used to have there which was called,
(14:40):
flighting.
So flighting is the ritual abuse of your opponent by means of verbal violence.
That's basically what it is.
So we would think of that as, know, sometimes if someone comes from outside and they see
two Scottish people or Italians can be a little bit like this as well, having a reallydeep discussion about something.
It looks like they're fighting, but they're not fighting.
(15:01):
They're actually just, they're really passionate.
Now, in that dynamics part, you talk about the requirements, things that you required toensure that you're gonna get the best from that team.
So can you talk about the dynamics piece?
Yeah, well, since you brought up this idea of flighting or fighting and what looks likefighting maybe, ah one of the pieces is around conflict.
(15:26):
And there's a type of conflict and I love this phrase called creative abrasion.
so, okay, let me back up first, but I wanna explain what creative abrasion is, but let meback up and say, so there's two main types of conflict.
There's that relationship conflict where,
I just don't like you.
(15:47):
And for whatever reason, it's like, here goes James again.
And I just like check out, right?
Like that is never helpful in a team.
Or I don't know if it's ever helpful in any context.
uh But relationship conflict is not helpful.
But then there's task conflict where we're going to disagree about the work or how weapproach it or the result, you know, all of that.
(16:10):
And in the 1980s, this guy, Jerry Hirschberg,
he was hired by Nissan.
And at that point, Nissan was trying to bring meld together the uh Japanese engineeringwith the American innovation, and they were building Nissan plants in the US to make new
(16:30):
cars.
So they hired Jerry Hirschberg to like lead this process.
And so he gets these teams together of the Japanese and Americans, and they're inTennessee in the United States.
there was so much conflict.
They couldn't even agree on what radio station to listen to in the office, which, you inthe 1980s, that's what you might argue about.
(16:51):
And eventually he kind of realized this is really good, and maybe not the radio stationdebate, but these different perspectives coming together were really important.
And there were times where the team was so polite with each other that they weren'tgetting anywhere.
And so he started to push them
(17:12):
And he called this creative abrasion that we need to disagree about the work and, you inthis case, how they design the cars.
And if what happens if the team, like in the team meeting, everyone's like, yeah, yeah,that looks fine.
Yeah, the headlight looks great.
And then out in the hallway, there's a conversation like, oh my gosh, I can't believewe're going to go with that headlight design.
(17:36):
It looks hideous.
That's not helping anybody.
And actually, what would be better is like, let's bring that conversation into the teammeetings, into the, you know, and you can have a time and a place for it.
It's not like you're always in debate, because that's also not helpful.
But being able to engage in that creative abrasion can be really valuable.
(17:57):
And I would say that's really hard without a level of psychological safety and a level oftrust.
It reminds me a little bit of there was a few years ago, there was a series of airlineincidents, crashes, uh one airline, Korean airlines, I think I seem to remember was the
airline.
And they played back the tapes, the black box tapes, and they would hear something alongthe lines of often the way that they had the pilots, that the pilot was very senior, much
(18:27):
older, and the co-pilot was usually much younger, much more junior.
That was kind of, they had quite a big dynamic there.
And you would hear things like the co-pilot, the junior saying to the pilot, ah Captain, Ican see that mountain is getting very close just now.
And in a few seconds we go by, Captain, yes, that mountain is definitely getting closer.
(18:54):
And so, and it was a cultural thing in terms of seniority and what they had to do whenthey went through it on the safety side, they actually sent all the pilots to the United
States.
do and train again, to teach them, I guess, assertiveness or, you know, just kind of knocksome of that stuff out.
Now, you know, actually, I quite like that there is something very nice about, you know,parts of Asia where there's a little bit more mellow with things.
(19:18):
But yeah, so I love this idea of this creative abrasion.
And I think I see this sometimes, I was in a kind of co-working innovation incubation.
district of a city.
I wouldn't say what the city was.
And it had looked like it had been designed by an architecture firm.
(19:39):
And it was perfect.
It was beautiful.
had all the things, know, tick, tick, tick.
had in terms of the kind of spaces and that kind of design there.
And I just turned to the person I was walking around with it and I said, something, thisis not right.
It lacks the kind of, that kind of brazen you're talking about of a Berlin or, you know,
(20:01):
parts of London or parts, if you go to San Francisco, know, Tenderloin or bits, you know,it's a little, there's something that you need a little bit of that rubbing up against
each other, I guess.
Yeah, oh my gosh, I love both these examples.
Yeah, I do remember reading about the airline pilots and Yeah, I do feel like yeah We needto like bump up against each other and if we're too polite whether it's because of
(20:24):
hierarchy or you know culture or whatever it is That can also be a problem now I'm notsuggesting that everyone needs to be rude to each other because that's obviously the other
end of the spectrum but Your example about you know the city
It totally fits.
actually live in a place, I live in Asheville, North Carolina, which is more on that kindof grungier end, you know, like the San Francisco, the Berlin.
(20:51):
I mean, we're a small city, only a hundred thousand people or so, but we're known forbeing a artistic, creative place.
And I love that about living here is that, you know, there's sections of town that have alot of graffiti and murals and...
You know, somebody just like gets an idea and they just go do it.
(21:14):
I mean, to a degree, right?
And I feel like it's almost like a little bit different than going through this formalprocess.
But sometimes there needs to be space there for just these ideas to evolve.
Like, yeah, let's try that.
That sounds interesting.
Let's see what happens.
And maybe it's good, maybe it's not.
(21:36):
But you figure that out in the process.
Yeah, I think you often see in places with um high immigration coming in from otherplaces.
mean, obviously America has benefited very much from that over the centuries.
I was just recently uh in Vienna speaking at an engine, kind of manufacturing conference.
And you look at the history of that place and they had these two great golden ages inVienna.
(21:59):
And they both came at the same time where they had massive, actually immigration coming infrom different places.
One was because one empire was collapsing and then all these people were kind of comingin.
And there was tension within that.
There was that kind of abrasiveness because you had people with very differentperspectives, they different food, they liked different things.
But from that, it kind of created this combustion of ideas.
(22:20):
And actually America benefited from that because many of those people that ended up movingto, in 1930s and 20s and 30s and 40s, they ended up moving to United States and all those
things that we think of as...
American today like a shopping malls, know, they all came from, or kitchens like fittedkitchens, they were all Viennese ideas or modern advertising, scientific based
advertising, these were all Viennese ideas that came from that as well.
(22:41):
So you've got this team, you know, they're starting to get aligned, but when you'reworking with different organizations, what are the most common blocks that you see in
their people or the way that things are, these teams are kind of formed in different ways,are holding them from back from
really unleashing their creative potential.
(23:02):
Okay, so.
I think one of the big blocks, well, when I ask clients, say, what are your big blocks?
What are your barriers to creativity?
One of the things they always say is time.
And I get it, right?
We live in this world right now that's just really busy and fast paced and people havethis really high expectations and they think if I order something online, I should be able
(23:27):
to get it in two hours or at most two days.
So I believe that is true on some level that we do struggle with fitting all the things inin a given day.
But I also try to push back a little bit and say, well, are there things that you're doingthat you don't need to be doing anymore?
Or are there processes in your business that could be changed because they're outdated or,I was talking to one client and turned out there was a...
(24:00):
One of the employees produced a particular report every month.
This was just something that they had been doing.
They were told to do, know, years ago, they'd been producing this report every month.
It took them several hours to do.
No one was looking at it.
And so in the middle of the meeting, they said, wait, so can I stop creating this report?
(24:20):
And everyone was like, yeah, don't do that anymore.
And so, and this just had, this conversation just happened to come up.
It wasn't like we went around and all, like, what reports are you producing that you don'tneed to produce?
But I feel like there are things like that that every organization does, every individualdoes that, ah fact, in my book, I call it uh antiquated bureaucratic remnants, that we all
(24:47):
have these things that have just stayed in the company that no longer need to be done.
So I think that's one thing is...
uh
time, but then more specifically is maybe really doing an analysis of how you're spendingyour time.
uh I think another thing which kind of is similar, but taking a look at the processesyou're using and how that affects team dynamics, how that affects your innovation.
(25:14):
So an example, I'm leading a retreat later this month for a client for their leadershipteam and they were telling me that one of the challenges they've had is just some respect.
between people in the organization where, for instance, the marketing team will puttogether a document and send it out to a handful of people, say, hey, can I get your input
(25:37):
on this?
I just want to make sure this aligns with the work you're doing.
And the response back often is really snarky.
Like, wait, you need me to look at this?
Don't you know how to do your own job?
And it's like, whoa, whoa, okay, hold on a second.
But when...
when they were describing this to me, I thought, I wonder how that process, thatcommunication process from one employee to the next could be changed and might that change
(26:07):
the communication and the conversation?
And so like, what's the question that's being asked?
Is this being sent via email?
Is this being sent with enough time?
Is it like, hey, can you read this four page article?
I need your response by tomorrow.
Yeah, that's gonna probably create a little.
frustration.
(26:27):
But it, I don't know, does that make sense where it's just like, if you change theprocess, we might change the conversation.
I remind you as you're saying it, something like that Amazon, the Amazon memo, where, Imean, often we get emails from people asking us to review, to look at things, to review
things, not with any, it's either they want us to be included in that loop, or sometimesit's because they want to be able to show off, and they feel really proud about what
(26:58):
they've created, and it's a way of just getting some validation for what they've created.
I'm talking to you marketers here, if any of you are listening to marketing.
But I always liked what Amazon did, they would, start of the meeting, they would be comingin to discuss something as a team.
They would just spend those first few minutes, everyone was given the document, maybe it'sa four-page document or six-page document, to read with the thing or the thing that the
(27:26):
problem or the something that the marketing team would...
know, created to think about how to solve this problem or the numbers or the report,whatever the thing was.
So everyone was literally on the same page.
And then they discussed it at the same time.
And I think that's actually, I think that's quite a respectful way of using people's timebecause we're all busy, you we're always getting bombarded with things.
(27:48):
But just to say, and I'm constantly amazed getting on conference calls sometimes wherethere's 15 people on the call.
And I have to ask the question, you know,
why is there 15 people on this call?
And sometimes it's because of presenteeism, which is not good as well.
But I really like what you said about the time piece.
(28:08):
And it reminds me, think we had either we had a guest on the show talking about this, or Ifilmed a podcast episode, solo podcast episode about it, was everyone talks about
innovation, but no one really wants to talk about exnovation, removing things.
And actually that's often the most difficult thing to do because we...
(28:28):
We're, yeah, we've always done this, so we've always done it this way.
And so what you're talking about is kind of ex-novation there.
It's like, why do we need, why are we still doing this report?
This is no longer serving us.
Yeah, 100%.
I totally agree with you.
Like, what do we need to let go of?
And yeah, I just had a personal experience with that a few years ago.
Well, I have a podcast called The Deliberate Creative.
(28:49):
And when COVID hit, my work, it kind of happened organically, but I started shifting.
for a couple of years, I was just teaching people how to be more engaging and interactiveon Zoom because that's like, kept asking me how to do this.
So I kind of shifted a little bit and what happened is my podcast, like I just didn't havethe time and energy for it.
(29:11):
So it was kind of almost accidentally put on hiatus.
But it actually served me really well and it served my clients really well because I nowhad the energy to do this other work that they were very specifically asking me to do.
And I was able to create some online courses and whatnot.
the podcast is coming back now, but I'm...
(29:34):
And there was a period where I'll admit I was sort of beating myself up about that.
Like, oh gosh, I haven't recorded a podcast episode in so long.
And then I realized, wait a minute, this actually was perfect.
I needed to let go of that in order to innovate in this new way.
create that space.
And I've certainly done it before with projects we've had, which have been like a weeklything that goes out.
(29:55):
It could be a newsletter or type of show we've done.
And actually one day I've just said, you know what, let's just stop it and see if anyonewrites in and complains and said, I really miss.
And if we don't get enough of those, then we're not going to restart it anyway.
So you've gone this really interesting journey, the academic side, the writing, obviouslythe workshop, working with your clients and the keynotes as well.
(30:17):
Who has personally influenced you the most when it comes to creativity?
So a teacher or a particular client you worked with or a mentor?
Mmm, so many people Okay, I'm gonna go back to when I was quite young I had a teacher whoI was fortunate to have three different years in fifth sixth and eighth grade and Her name
(30:45):
was mrs.
Shar Mrs.
Elliott Shar and actually speaking of immigrants.
She was an immigrant to the US from Cuba amazing human and I
I just, she was someone who really encouraged all of us to be creative in a way that wasaligned with who we were.
uh Which meaning, know, she was very good at helping you kind of identify your strengthsand what you liked and what you were good at and encouraging those.
(31:16):
And I think that gave me some self-confidence because this field...
It's not that not a lot of people who have decided I'm gonna dedicate my life to teachingpeople how to be creative I mean a little bit more now in the last maybe few years, but
You know and and I didn't even know think about this as a possibility until I was at least30 But I look back and that was quite profound of just watching how she Supported us how
(31:46):
she facilitated the whole class and created
really a very psychologically safe space before I knew anything about that, before thatwas even really being talked about.
uh And I feel really
power of teachers.
I just posted something on LinkedIn the other day about a game I sometimes play onflights, which is, I see how long I can go in the flight, or if I can get through the
(32:12):
entire flight, without the person I'm sitting next to knowing anything about me, and meknowing as much as possible about them.
uh it's questions, basically, I'm just using my brain to ask questions, listening, tryingto develop my listening skills.
And um
with them or you're just, okay.
(32:32):
mean, I was on a flight the other day that I wouldn't say which country I was going to,but, and it was actually across the aisle, sending across the aisle for me, there was a
lady and we had a conversation back and forth probably for 10 hours on this flight.
And I know by the end of that flight, she knew really nothing about me.
uh But I knew loads about her, I knew her company, I knew some of the problems thatcompany was going for.
(32:55):
And one of my tricks for doing that is when they ask you what is your profession,
If I want to stop the conversation there, or I don't want them to be interested, I'llusually say something like, oh, I work in internal audit.
That's a really good one to use.
Because no one wants to, oh, that's the way.
But the opposite of that, if you want to get someone to engage in a conversation with youon a flight or somewhere, tell them you're a teacher.
(33:20):
Because every single person has a teacher that made an impact upon their life in some way.
know, in grade school, wherever it was, at university, college.
People will be glowing often about the teachers that they've had, the good teachersthey've had in life.
There's maybe only been one.
So I love that story.
So yeah, all power to the teachers, all the power to the teachers here as well.
(33:42):
That word creativity is a little bit of a loaded term, especially when we're talking froma business and a commercial standpoint as well.
What is the biggest misunderstanding that you think trips up leaders and teams when itcomes to this idea of creativity?
and its relationship to the work that they do.
Hmm.
(34:04):
You know, I've had a couple of CEOs say to me, well, I don't want my team to be creative.
I just want them to be innovative.
And I kind of look at them funny like, wait, what?
What do you mean?
Because to me, I use those words interchangeably all the time.
ah But they think of creativity, you know, when the people that have made this commentthink about creativity as being this like fluffy
(34:30):
It's about making art or it's about doing things that are frivolous and don't have anylong-term impact and are just a waste of time.
And that's not at all how I see creativity.
The definition I use is that creativity is novelty that is valuable.
And you could define valuable however you wanted, financially increases efficiency,aesthetically valuable, whatever it is.
(34:56):
uh And when I dig in and talk about that,
they get it, they definitely get it.
uh But I think that, yeah, there can be lot of misnomers around what creativity is, wherethey think that creativity is about drawing.
And it's like, okay, well, drawing is a skill, creativity is a skill.
There maybe is a little bit of overlap, but it doesn't have to be, right?
(35:18):
uh Yeah, so I do think there's a lot of, that's one misnomer.
I think another myth that I see a lot around creativity is people.
not even a myth, I think it's just a misconception is they think it will just happen.
And they don't realize that in order to be creative, you have to be intentional.
(35:38):
In fact, I have this phrase I say all the time, which is be deliberate to be creative.
It will not happen by accident.
when, know, if you look at probably any innovation you can think of, there was someintention around it.
It didn't just happen.
(35:58):
And yeah, anyway, we perpetuate some stories that, yeah.
I'm wondering, I I see that as well in terms of different parts of the world where, you ifyou ask them to raise their hand, if they consider themselves to be creative, usually if
I'm in South Korea or Japan or China, for example, India, it'd be a lower score.
Whereas if I'm speaking in Europe or definitely in America, it'll be a higher percentagewho will consider themselves to be creative.
(36:23):
But I've noticed something more recently, which kind of goes across cultures andcontinents.
which is the demographic piece.
And I don't know, cause you're very close to, cause you're working with students all theday as well as working with companies as well.
Are you noticing a difference in terms of that younger demographic, now the Gen Z,definitely the millennials, feeling more comfortable about using this phrase word
(36:49):
creativity as it relates specifically to business and understanding that link betweencreativity and innovation?
I think so.
And I don't work with Gen Z a whole lot.
But one thing I've noticed, because I've been asking that same question of raise your handif you think you're creative, I've been asking that for about probably 20 years.
(37:09):
And I've noticed a change over time.
And I'm mostly just working in the US.
But 20 years ago, I'd ask that question and not even half the room would raise their hand.
And now it depends on the audience, of course, and the group.
many more people raise their hand.
And I think the reason that's happening is because of the national conversation aroundcreativity and innovation has changed.
(37:35):
And I think in part because of podcasts like yours.
And we're talking about it in a different way.
There's so many more books out about it.
And there was this pivotal moment in our history.
I don't know if you know this story, but in 1950, the president of the AmericanPsychological Association at
their annual meeting, he stood up and he, as part of his speech, his rally cry for thepsychologist, he said, we need to study creativity.
(38:07):
And so what happened is from 1950 on, there's this like exponential increase of uhresearch and understanding around creativity.
And there's always a lag from when research is done to when
the world actually hears about it, and sometimes it's even a 20-year lag.
(38:28):
But I think we're more in tuned now with what creativity really means than we were 20years ago.
And I think Gen Z is really benefiting from that, for sure.
I remember Edward de Bono writing in a book once, he got really annoyed because there wasa big, I think it was in the US, one of the big creative, creativity, universities taught
(38:55):
creative thinking as a skill.
And they put this panel together of the world's top thinkers in creativity, and he didn'tget invited to it.
And the reason he didn't get invited to it was because he was seen as being too commercialwith his work.
He wasn't almost academic, even though he taught Oxford actually, but he was not seen interms of, he was using it with big oil and gas companies, and they were seeing, no, no,
(39:17):
that's just, that's too commercial as well.
So for those, I'm now going talk to those commercial corporate, as listening just now,those leaders that listening today, if they could implement just one principle from your
book, or one idea from that book, what would it be?
(39:37):
I think if you could implement one thing, would be look at the process and really take adeep dive.
are your meetings like?
If you were just even more narrow, look at your team meetings.
Are your team meetings really a place where you're fostering innovation?
And because there's incredible potential there, you got, you know, say 10 people on ateam, super smart brains in the room.
(40:03):
And if you were just spending the meeting doing these like very boring report outs wherepeople are half listening, I think you're just missing some amazing brain power.
So yeah, taking a look at, and I have some ideas in the book, but taking a look at how toreally adjust your team meetings would be awesome.
So quick fire question just to finish up here.
Is there a quote that you live by?
(40:25):
Is it one quote that inspires you or guides your life and your work?
You know, I think it would be what I said a few minutes ago.
In fact, I even have this on a sticker.
I'll hold this up.
Be deliberate to be creative.
And this is, you know, when people buy the book from me, I send them a sticker as well.
this is, if you want to be creative, if you want to be innovative, you have to beintentional about it.
(40:51):
And I think when you are, really amazing things can happen.
And do you have an online resource or a tool or an app that you find very useful in yourown creative work?
um Yeah, there's a number of tools that I use.
There's a couple that I've created that I use personally.
(41:11):
um So I have this deck of cards that I created called Climber Cards.
There's actually two versions of it, but basically these are cards that are designed toreally look at that, that help with the creative process, particularly ideation, but they
also really help with the team dynamics.
And what they are is they're very basic, very simple.
(41:32):
uh They're like the size of a deck of playing cards, about 50 images.
And they're all these images that I, drawings or paintings that I did.
And so there's things like a light bulb and a bag of groceries and a spool of thread.
There's a giraffe, you all these different images and you lay these down on the table.
(41:53):
And then let's say you're starting a meeting and you really want to look at uh
say it's about your budget.
You're going to have a whole meeting about your budget.
So you lay these cards down on the table and then you ask everybody to pick a card thatrepresents
What's your hope for our budget for the next year?
(42:13):
like, basically the point here is any question you can think of, any topic you wanna talkabout, you can frame it so that they answer with a card.
So for instance, ah they, you you ask that question, select a card that represents onehope you have for our budget for the next year, and somebody might pick the giraffe, and
(42:35):
they might talk about how they really want.
the team to stretch and think about how they can be innovative with the budget or morecreative.
I mean, I don't mean creative accounting, like turning a three into an eight, but howmight we be more creative and how we bring in our, raise money or bring in more income.
And what happens is when you use these cards to ask the question, it shifts the answersand people get more specific, they get more focused, they say things that they wouldn't
(43:06):
have said.
if you just ask the question without the images.
And it's kind of remarkable.
It's actually really cool.
I love that idea, creative cards.
we had a guest on recently, he was talking about emotional granularity.
Where often when we respond to something, how are feeling?
How are you doing today?
Fine, okay.
(43:26):
And we're sitting in a very narrow emotional range.
And she said, if you expand your language, expand the way of thinking about things, itjust expands your life as well.
So what you're kind of doing there with those tools is you're developing people's creativerange.
as well in terms of the ability to express ideas, express emotions, express feelings aswell.
So I love that.
(43:47):
we'll put links to that so people can get their copy of the pack of cards as well.
If you could only recommend one book to our listeners, not one of your own because we'regoing to have the link to your new book, but if it was one book by another author, what
book would it be and why?
boy, there's so many.
um I feel like I've got to turn around and look at my bookshelf around here.
(44:11):
Oh my oh gosh, this is such a hard question.
I feel like when I think about the books that really influenced me, if you're interestedin personal creativity, I think the artist's way is just a great classic.
uh
I will say it can be for some a little woo woo, you know, it can be, but if you can lookpast that, there's some really good stuff in there.
(44:41):
And it's been around for, I think about 30 years.
So it's a classic.
eighties, yeah, I Julia Cameron just, and um I'm always, I think it's a particularly goodbook for people who are a little bit into their life, into their career.
And they just, they feel like they need a restart.
(45:03):
They need to reconnect with something deeper in themselves.
And I think what she talks about in the book in terms of her background and challengesthat she went through, I remember like the artist date.
you know, I remember one of the ones, which I thought was really lovely, just taking thattime just to make a date for yourself, to go and do something just to kind of feed that
creativity.
Wonderful book.
So we'll definitely put a link to Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way.
(45:24):
And what is the best way for people to connect with you and to learn more about uh yourbook and your work?
You can find me online at my website is climberconsulting.com and climber is spelledC-L-I-M-E-R.
And on my webpage, you can reach out to me via email.
(45:44):
You'll find links to the book.
You'll find links to the climber cards that I mentioned.
And I'm also on LinkedIn.
So you can find me there, Amy Climer.
Well, Amy, Dr.
Amy Climer thank you so much for being a guest on the Super Creativity Podcast.
Thank you so much for having me, James.
I appreciate it.
Dr.
Amy Climer teaches teams and organizations how to increase their creativity so they canmaximize innovation.
She works with forward thinking organizations such as the Mayo Clinic, StanfordUniversity, and the US Department of Homeland Security.
Amy is the author of the bestselling book, Deliberate Creative Teams, How to Lead forInnovative Results.
(00:32):
She is also the host of another fantastic website which you've got to check out called theDeliberate Creative Podcast.
where she shares practical advice and strategies to help leaders build innovative teams.
Amy has a PhD in leadership and change and is a certified speaking professional, CSP.
(00:53):
Please welcome to the Super Creativity Podcast, Dr.
Amy Climer
Thank you, it's so good to be here, James.
So I love, obviously, there's a huge amount of synergy with the work that you do and thelisteners for this show as well.
But I want to know, just take us right back to the start, what first drew you tocreativity research and was there a kind of personal moment that set you on this path?
(01:16):
been very curious about creativity, honestly, probably since high school.
I remember I was the friend who if one of my friends said, no, I'm not creative.
I can't draw.
And I would just be like, yes, you can.
It's just about practice.
And you just have to apply yourself.
And I would get all emphatic and try to build them up.
(01:39):
And I think I just intuitively had a sense that creativity was more than drawing, which ofcourse, as you know, is a misnomer.
get confused about.
um And then right after college, I stumbled upon the book The Artist's Way, which I'm sureyou're familiar with and many listeners are, a classic book that really helped me see
(02:00):
creativity in a new light.
And then later I started teaching workshops, helping other people understand howcreativity works.
And all the while professionally, I was building skills and facilitation and team buildingand team development.
And so eventually,
Probably not until my 30s, I got really serious about integrating these two things, thecreativity and the team development.
(02:23):
And then I really geeked out about it and decided to go get a PhD and study this deeply.
And I finished that about 10 years ago.
But now I have a consulting practice where I help teams and organizations understand howcreativity really works.
So let's imagine you're on that flight, you're traveling out to maybe facilitate aworkshop or give a keynote speech.
(02:45):
The person sitting next to you said, so what do you do?
How do you normally respond?
Because you are a multi-hyphenate type of person.
uh How do you describe what you do?
I usually say I teach teams and organizations how to be more creative and innovative.
And then they are like, really?
You can do that?
(03:05):
Which obviously, you know you can, but yes.
Now you went on this journey, obviously there's the strong academic side to what you do.
uh You developed the creative synergy scale based on surveys and real teams.
What question or problem were you setting out to solve in the process of kind of workingand finding the scale?
Yeah, so just to clarify, the scale is actually called the Deliberate Creative Team Scalenow.
(03:30):
But the purpose of that assessment is to measure teams behaviors around creativity.
And I think that there are some other measures out there that measures how creativesomeone might be, or there's other measures that are looking at kind of our personality in
(03:50):
relation to our creativity and our creative output.
But I really wanted to look at, what are we actually doing?
What are those behaviors?
And so the scale is actually where I also developed this model called the DeliberateCreative Team model.
And it measures these three areas that teams need if they're going to be creativetogether.
And we can get into those if you'd like, but I think what I love about this scale is it'slooking at the behaviors and what are people actually doing, which can be really
(04:20):
interesting and really eye-opening.
So take us there then, tell us about this.
You say that creativity comes when teams have purpose, dynamics, and process, and all thisaligns as well.
So is this a kind of Venn diagram?
Do these things overlap?
How do they all work together?
Yeah, absolutely.
Here, I'll throw up a visual for those of you who are watching this uh video of it, butvery basic Venn diagram with that.
(04:46):
These are the three elements that I discovered in the research that are critical for teamsto be creative together.
So there's the team purpose, team dynamics and team creative process.
And I know you've talked about these on your podcast before and it was actually throughdevelopment of the scale that these evolved.
then we're getting all into the statistics and how do you develop these things.
(05:08):
But ah what's interesting is, you know, I think that sometimes teams think they're doingcertain things really well.
Like they think they have a creative process, but when I ask them what it is, they have noidea and they can't actually describe it.
ah Or they describe something that just feels kind of convoluted and not very clear.
(05:31):
or they think they have a clear team purpose, but then when you ask them what their teampurpose is, they can't actually answer the question.
ah And so this scale helps them and this model helps them understand, yeah, here's what weneed to develop further.
So let's imagine a perfect scenario, which never really exists, but we have a company, wehave a team.
(05:51):
Let's choose an industry.
They're in engineering, mechanical engineering.
My wife's a mechanical engineer originally.
So let's choose that as a, they're in a mechanical engineering making really superadvanced kind of parts.
Break down those kind of three elements and how, what is the perfect situation for thatteam?
what do they mean to be doing in each of those areas, purpose, dynamics, purpose, andprocess, sorry, in order for those things to fully align.
(06:17):
Okay, I love this.
All right, and I actually love working with engineering teams.
Yeah, I've worked with a number of them.
Okay, so first off, I think the team needs to get clarity on what's their purpose, andthere's different layers to understanding purpose.
So first, there's the purpose of the entire organization or company.
(06:37):
That might be the mission statement or something along, mission, whatever.
But then, what's the purpose of this specific team?
both in the big picture, how does it fit into that organization, but then even morespecifically the purpose for this project.
Now the challenge with uh understanding purpose in relation to innovation is the purposehas to be, there has to be enough space within that purpose for you to actually innovate.
(07:07):
And so if the purpose is super narrow, then you're not gonna have that wiggle room to comeup with new ideas and go in different directions.
ah In fact, there's some interesting research ah that looked at that purpose sometimescomes later, that sometimes a team is working on their project, whatever they're trying to
(07:28):
do, and they don't really know the purpose of it.
And it would be for more like emergent innovation, probably not going to apply as much fora team like this, because often they might be working together like, we have this very
specific problem that we're looking at and we're trying to solve this problem.
So that's part of their purpose right there and getting clarity on that.
Okay, so team purpose.
(07:50):
Team dynamics are our ability to trust each other, to feel safe.
I know you've talked about psychological safety on the podcast before.
That's really important for teams to be more innovative together.
So trust, uh psychological safety, put those together.
Also our ability to engage in conflict.
And there's certain types of conflict that are
(08:12):
particularly useful and some that are not.
And then of course our ability to communicate with each other.
And this is the one that's overly obvious, but sometimes we gloss over it a bit too much.
ah But that trust conflict communication is all a part of the team dynamics.
And so then the third piece is that process.
And what's the process a team is using to actually innovate together?
(08:36):
So.
I think about what happens when the team sits down at a table together or jumps on a Zoomcall together.
What are their meetings like?
How do they start?
Are they just a report out where everybody's sharing updates?
Because that's not gonna necessarily lead to innovation.
In fact, people are probably gonna get a little glassy eyed and zone out a bit.
(08:56):
ah But what is that collaboration?
And so there are many processes you can use, many strategies and techniques.
The process that I teach my clients
most often is called creative problem solving.
And it's a very basic process.
It's designed based on how we as humans naturally solve problems.
(09:17):
And I'm sure if you haven't talked about this process on your podcast, you've talked aboutother ones.
I've heard a couple of your episodes where you're going through like the ideation process.
ah But when we have a process, we can be clear about where are we?
What are we doing right now?
Like for instance, we start off, let's clarify what the problem is.
We need to really deeply understand that problem, which is a spot many teams skip over andthen generate some ideas and what are the best ideas to solve that particular problem.
(09:47):
And then I often say, you know, when we come up with an idea, it'll like fit on a post-itnote.
There's nothing to it.
It's just a sentence.
And so it needs to be developed further.
And then once that's developed, we can...
implement it, maybe test it out and see like, right, would this work?
Let's try it at a really small scale or, you know, for a mechanical engineering team,maybe like try, you know, let's develop this with a 3D printer first or cardboard or like
(10:13):
how basic can we get before we're spending millions of dollars to produce some somethingbig.
Anyway, that's a bit of yeah, go ahead.
it's interesting going through some of those, like on the purpose one, you have a team,sometimes people know each other well, sometimes they don't, they're coming together.
Do you ever find that initially people kind of think they're coming into that team meetingto ideate, work on, maybe it's gonna be problem, solving a problem, and find that the
(10:44):
purpose, when they leave the room after an hour,
they've actually decided that the purpose that they're about is not the purpose that theyinitially thought when they went into the room.
Yes.
And I think that's actually, you just spoke to the value of that conversation.
It's like, you think the problem is here, you know, the problem is X, but actually startdigging into it it's actually Y or Z or A or B or whatever.
(11:07):
It's something different.
If you didn't spend time clarifying, then you would have solved for the wrong problem.
And I see this happen all the times in Teams.
And there's some interesting research by this guy,
Roger Firestein, where he found that if you just spend five minutes clarifying, sometimesthat's enough.
(11:31):
So it doesn't have to be this long drawn out thing, although sometimes you do need morethan five minutes, but even five minutes makes a difference and can get better results.
It's interesting, I always try and start those kind of meetings with just asking a wholebunch of series of questions.
think MIT, they call it kind of question bursts.
use different, we've had a guest on, Gregason, Professor Gregson, that came on the showtalking about MIT question bursts.
(11:59):
And he said, often when you kind of get it at the start of the meeting and you're asking aseries of questions, before you get into thinking about, even thinking about solutions.
He said, you often find out the problem you thought was a problem isn't the main problemat all.
There's something that sits behind it that if you just didn't spend those first fewminutes just getting all those different stakeholders in the room on the same page as to
(12:20):
like, this is really why we're here.
He said, you end up wasting a lot of time.
It's, I totally agree with that.
Yeah.
It's like just let's dig into a little bit.
And sometimes one of the techniques that I use, I don't know if you've talked about onthis year show, but are you familiar with ethnographic interviews?
This technique?
Okay.
It's very simple.
(12:41):
And it's actually a, there's a whole research arm, research methodology calledethnographic interviews, but this is a very light version of it where basically you're
just going and talking to the people who have the problem you're trying to solve.
It doesn't mean you have to bring them all in the meeting.
mean, sometimes that's not appropriate or realistic, but it might be picking up the phoneor walking down the street or wherever people who have this problem are, go talk to them
(13:09):
and you're asking them questions for anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour, depending on thesituation.
But even asking them questions for 10 minutes, you might get...
a completely different perspective of what's actually going on and realize, oh, okay, nowwe understand it better from their perspective and that's gonna change how we idea.
(13:32):
You've just given a very academic fancy label to something I'm thinking I often do where,what's that thing is this expression in America is like a $10 word or there's something
like this is kind of that kind of thing.
It's like a 10 cent or a $10 word.
Anyway, I often think about it when clients come to me and maybe you find this the samewhen clients book you in for keynotes is the person that comes to you is maybe the HR
(13:58):
leader.
or the C-suite in the organization or a VP.
And I always ask that before we do the event, can I speak to two or three of your teammembers are gonna be at this event in advance?
And I'm always fascinated because sometimes I'm having to triangulate between, well, theCEO thinks this is the problem, the people on the grand floor who are dealing with
(14:20):
everything, they see this is the problem, HR sees it from this kind of different problem.
And until you kind of start by just putting all that.
out there you don't really find, which kind of brings me to that second point, thedynamics piece.
So I'm here in Scotland today and we have uh Edinburgh, which is the home of theEnlightenment period, and they had a phrase they used to have there which was called,
(14:40):
flighting.
So flighting is the ritual abuse of your opponent by means of verbal violence.
That's basically what it is.
So we would think of that as, know, sometimes if someone comes from outside and they see
two Scottish people or Italians can be a little bit like this as well, having a reallydeep discussion about something.
It looks like they're fighting, but they're not fighting.
(15:01):
They're actually just, they're really passionate.
Now, in that dynamics part, you talk about the requirements, things that you required toensure that you're gonna get the best from that team.
So can you talk about the dynamics piece?
Yeah, well, since you brought up this idea of flighting or fighting and what looks likefighting maybe, ah one of the pieces is around conflict.
(15:26):
And there's a type of conflict and I love this phrase called creative abrasion.
so, okay, let me back up first, but I wanna explain what creative abrasion is, but let meback up and say, so there's two main types of conflict.
There's that relationship conflict where,
I just don't like you.
(15:47):
And for whatever reason, it's like, here goes James again.
And I just like check out, right?
Like that is never helpful in a team.
Or I don't know if it's ever helpful in any context.
uh But relationship conflict is not helpful.
But then there's task conflict where we're going to disagree about the work or how weapproach it or the result, you know, all of that.
(16:10):
And in the 1980s, this guy, Jerry Hirschberg,
he was hired by Nissan.
And at that point, Nissan was trying to bring meld together the uh Japanese engineeringwith the American innovation, and they were building Nissan plants in the US to make new
(16:30):
cars.
So they hired Jerry Hirschberg to like lead this process.
And so he gets these teams together of the Japanese and Americans, and they're inTennessee in the United States.
there was so much conflict.
They couldn't even agree on what radio station to listen to in the office, which, you inthe 1980s, that's what you might argue about.
(16:51):
And eventually he kind of realized this is really good, and maybe not the radio stationdebate, but these different perspectives coming together were really important.
And there were times where the team was so polite with each other that they weren'tgetting anywhere.
And so he started to push them
(17:12):
And he called this creative abrasion that we need to disagree about the work and, you inthis case, how they design the cars.
And if what happens if the team, like in the team meeting, everyone's like, yeah, yeah,that looks fine.
Yeah, the headlight looks great.
And then out in the hallway, there's a conversation like, oh my gosh, I can't believewe're going to go with that headlight design.
(17:36):
It looks hideous.
That's not helping anybody.
And actually, what would be better is like, let's bring that conversation into the teammeetings, into the, you know, and you can have a time and a place for it.
It's not like you're always in debate, because that's also not helpful.
But being able to engage in that creative abrasion can be really valuable.
(17:57):
And I would say that's really hard without a level of psychological safety and a level oftrust.
It reminds me a little bit of there was a few years ago, there was a series of airlineincidents, crashes, uh one airline, Korean airlines, I think I seem to remember was the
airline.
And they played back the tapes, the black box tapes, and they would hear something alongthe lines of often the way that they had the pilots, that the pilot was very senior, much
(18:27):
older, and the co-pilot was usually much younger, much more junior.
That was kind of, they had quite a big dynamic there.
And you would hear things like the co-pilot, the junior saying to the pilot, ah Captain, Ican see that mountain is getting very close just now.
And in a few seconds we go by, Captain, yes, that mountain is definitely getting closer.
(18:54):
And so, and it was a cultural thing in terms of seniority and what they had to do whenthey went through it on the safety side, they actually sent all the pilots to the United
States.
do and train again, to teach them, I guess, assertiveness or, you know, just kind of knocksome of that stuff out.
Now, you know, actually, I quite like that there is something very nice about, you know,parts of Asia where there's a little bit more mellow with things.
(19:18):
But yeah, so I love this idea of this creative abrasion.
And I think I see this sometimes, I was in a kind of co-working innovation incubation.
district of a city.
I wouldn't say what the city was.
And it had looked like it had been designed by an architecture firm.
(19:39):
And it was perfect.
It was beautiful.
had all the things, know, tick, tick, tick.
had in terms of the kind of spaces and that kind of design there.
And I just turned to the person I was walking around with it and I said, something, thisis not right.
It lacks the kind of, that kind of brazen you're talking about of a Berlin or, you know,
(20:01):
parts of London or parts, if you go to San Francisco, know, Tenderloin or bits, you know,it's a little, there's something that you need a little bit of that rubbing up against
each other, I guess.
Yeah, oh my gosh, I love both these examples.
Yeah, I do remember reading about the airline pilots and Yeah, I do feel like yeah We needto like bump up against each other and if we're too polite whether it's because of
(20:24):
hierarchy or you know culture or whatever it is That can also be a problem now I'm notsuggesting that everyone needs to be rude to each other because that's obviously the other
end of the spectrum but Your example about you know the city
It totally fits.
actually live in a place, I live in Asheville, North Carolina, which is more on that kindof grungier end, you know, like the San Francisco, the Berlin.
(20:51):
I mean, we're a small city, only a hundred thousand people or so, but we're known forbeing a artistic, creative place.
And I love that about living here is that, you know, there's sections of town that have alot of graffiti and murals and...
You know, somebody just like gets an idea and they just go do it.
(21:14):
I mean, to a degree, right?
And I feel like it's almost like a little bit different than going through this formalprocess.
But sometimes there needs to be space there for just these ideas to evolve.
Like, yeah, let's try that.
That sounds interesting.
Let's see what happens.
And maybe it's good, maybe it's not.
(21:36):
But you figure that out in the process.
Yeah, I think you often see in places with um high immigration coming in from otherplaces.
mean, obviously America has benefited very much from that over the centuries.
I was just recently uh in Vienna speaking at an engine, kind of manufacturing conference.
And you look at the history of that place and they had these two great golden ages inVienna.
(21:59):
And they both came at the same time where they had massive, actually immigration coming infrom different places.
One was because one empire was collapsing and then all these people were kind of comingin.
And there was tension within that.
There was that kind of abrasiveness because you had people with very differentperspectives, they different food, they liked different things.
But from that, it kind of created this combustion of ideas.
(22:20):
And actually America benefited from that because many of those people that ended up movingto, in 1930s and 20s and 30s and 40s, they ended up moving to United States and all those
things that we think of as...
American today like a shopping malls, know, they all came from, or kitchens like fittedkitchens, they were all Viennese ideas or modern advertising, scientific based
advertising, these were all Viennese ideas that came from that as well.
(22:41):
So you've got this team, you know, they're starting to get aligned, but when you'reworking with different organizations, what are the most common blocks that you see in
their people or the way that things are, these teams are kind of formed in different ways,are holding them from back from
really unleashing their creative potential.
(23:02):
Okay, so.
I think one of the big blocks, well, when I ask clients, say, what are your big blocks?
What are your barriers to creativity?
One of the things they always say is time.
And I get it, right?
We live in this world right now that's just really busy and fast paced and people havethis really high expectations and they think if I order something online, I should be able
(23:27):
to get it in two hours or at most two days.
So I believe that is true on some level that we do struggle with fitting all the things inin a given day.
But I also try to push back a little bit and say, well, are there things that you're doingthat you don't need to be doing anymore?
Or are there processes in your business that could be changed because they're outdated or,I was talking to one client and turned out there was a...
(24:00):
One of the employees produced a particular report every month.
This was just something that they had been doing.
They were told to do, know, years ago, they'd been producing this report every month.
It took them several hours to do.
No one was looking at it.
And so in the middle of the meeting, they said, wait, so can I stop creating this report?
(24:20):
And everyone was like, yeah, don't do that anymore.
And so, and this just had, this conversation just happened to come up.
It wasn't like we went around and all, like, what reports are you producing that you don'tneed to produce?
But I feel like there are things like that that every organization does, every individualdoes that, ah fact, in my book, I call it uh antiquated bureaucratic remnants, that we all
(24:47):
have these things that have just stayed in the company that no longer need to be done.
So I think that's one thing is...
uh
time, but then more specifically is maybe really doing an analysis of how you're spendingyour time.
uh I think another thing which kind of is similar, but taking a look at the processesyou're using and how that affects team dynamics, how that affects your innovation.
(25:14):
So an example, I'm leading a retreat later this month for a client for their leadershipteam and they were telling me that one of the challenges they've had is just some respect.
between people in the organization where, for instance, the marketing team will puttogether a document and send it out to a handful of people, say, hey, can I get your input
(25:37):
on this?
I just want to make sure this aligns with the work you're doing.
And the response back often is really snarky.
Like, wait, you need me to look at this?
Don't you know how to do your own job?
And it's like, whoa, whoa, okay, hold on a second.
But when...
when they were describing this to me, I thought, I wonder how that process, thatcommunication process from one employee to the next could be changed and might that change
(26:07):
the communication and the conversation?
And so like, what's the question that's being asked?
Is this being sent via email?
Is this being sent with enough time?
Is it like, hey, can you read this four page article?
I need your response by tomorrow.
Yeah, that's gonna probably create a little.
frustration.
(26:27):
But it, I don't know, does that make sense where it's just like, if you change theprocess, we might change the conversation.
I remind you as you're saying it, something like that Amazon, the Amazon memo, where, Imean, often we get emails from people asking us to review, to look at things, to review
things, not with any, it's either they want us to be included in that loop, or sometimesit's because they want to be able to show off, and they feel really proud about what
(26:58):
they've created, and it's a way of just getting some validation for what they've created.
I'm talking to you marketers here, if any of you are listening to marketing.
But I always liked what Amazon did, they would, start of the meeting, they would be comingin to discuss something as a team.
They would just spend those first few minutes, everyone was given the document, maybe it'sa four-page document or six-page document, to read with the thing or the thing that the
(27:26):
problem or the something that the marketing team would...
know, created to think about how to solve this problem or the numbers or the report,whatever the thing was.
So everyone was literally on the same page.
And then they discussed it at the same time.
And I think that's actually, I think that's quite a respectful way of using people's timebecause we're all busy, you we're always getting bombarded with things.
(27:48):
But just to say, and I'm constantly amazed getting on conference calls sometimes wherethere's 15 people on the call.
And I have to ask the question, you know,
why is there 15 people on this call?
And sometimes it's because of presenteeism, which is not good as well.
But I really like what you said about the time piece.
(28:08):
And it reminds me, think we had either we had a guest on the show talking about this, or Ifilmed a podcast episode, solo podcast episode about it, was everyone talks about
innovation, but no one really wants to talk about exnovation, removing things.
And actually that's often the most difficult thing to do because we...
(28:28):
We're, yeah, we've always done this, so we've always done it this way.
And so what you're talking about is kind of ex-novation there.
It's like, why do we need, why are we still doing this report?
This is no longer serving us.
Yeah, 100%.
I totally agree with you.
Like, what do we need to let go of?
And yeah, I just had a personal experience with that a few years ago.
Well, I have a podcast called The Deliberate Creative.
(28:49):
And when COVID hit, my work, it kind of happened organically, but I started shifting.
for a couple of years, I was just teaching people how to be more engaging and interactiveon Zoom because that's like, kept asking me how to do this.
So I kind of shifted a little bit and what happened is my podcast, like I just didn't havethe time and energy for it.
(29:11):
So it was kind of almost accidentally put on hiatus.
But it actually served me really well and it served my clients really well because I nowhad the energy to do this other work that they were very specifically asking me to do.
And I was able to create some online courses and whatnot.
the podcast is coming back now, but I'm...
(29:34):
And there was a period where I'll admit I was sort of beating myself up about that.
Like, oh gosh, I haven't recorded a podcast episode in so long.
And then I realized, wait a minute, this actually was perfect.
I needed to let go of that in order to innovate in this new way.
create that space.
And I've certainly done it before with projects we've had, which have been like a weeklything that goes out.
(29:55):
It could be a newsletter or type of show we've done.
And actually one day I've just said, you know what, let's just stop it and see if anyonewrites in and complains and said, I really miss.
And if we don't get enough of those, then we're not going to restart it anyway.
So you've gone this really interesting journey, the academic side, the writing, obviouslythe workshop, working with your clients and the keynotes as well.
(30:17):
Who has personally influenced you the most when it comes to creativity?
So a teacher or a particular client you worked with or a mentor?
Mmm, so many people Okay, I'm gonna go back to when I was quite young I had a teacher whoI was fortunate to have three different years in fifth sixth and eighth grade and Her name
(30:45):
was mrs.
Shar Mrs.
Elliott Shar and actually speaking of immigrants.
She was an immigrant to the US from Cuba amazing human and I
I just, she was someone who really encouraged all of us to be creative in a way that wasaligned with who we were.
uh Which meaning, know, she was very good at helping you kind of identify your strengthsand what you liked and what you were good at and encouraging those.
(31:16):
And I think that gave me some self-confidence because this field...
It's not that not a lot of people who have decided I'm gonna dedicate my life to teachingpeople how to be creative I mean a little bit more now in the last maybe few years, but
You know and and I didn't even know think about this as a possibility until I was at least30 But I look back and that was quite profound of just watching how she Supported us how
(31:46):
she facilitated the whole class and created
really a very psychologically safe space before I knew anything about that, before thatwas even really being talked about.
uh And I feel really
power of teachers.
I just posted something on LinkedIn the other day about a game I sometimes play onflights, which is, I see how long I can go in the flight, or if I can get through the
(32:12):
entire flight, without the person I'm sitting next to knowing anything about me, and meknowing as much as possible about them.
uh it's questions, basically, I'm just using my brain to ask questions, listening, tryingto develop my listening skills.
And um
with them or you're just, okay.
(32:32):
mean, I was on a flight the other day that I wouldn't say which country I was going to,but, and it was actually across the aisle, sending across the aisle for me, there was a
lady and we had a conversation back and forth probably for 10 hours on this flight.
And I know by the end of that flight, she knew really nothing about me.
uh But I knew loads about her, I knew her company, I knew some of the problems thatcompany was going for.
(32:55):
And one of my tricks for doing that is when they ask you what is your profession,
If I want to stop the conversation there, or I don't want them to be interested, I'llusually say something like, oh, I work in internal audit.
That's a really good one to use.
Because no one wants to, oh, that's the way.
But the opposite of that, if you want to get someone to engage in a conversation with youon a flight or somewhere, tell them you're a teacher.
(33:20):
Because every single person has a teacher that made an impact upon their life in some way.
know, in grade school, wherever it was, at university, college.
People will be glowing often about the teachers that they've had, the good teachersthey've had in life.
There's maybe only been one.
So I love that story.
So yeah, all power to the teachers, all the power to the teachers here as well.
(33:42):
That word creativity is a little bit of a loaded term, especially when we're talking froma business and a commercial standpoint as well.
What is the biggest misunderstanding that you think trips up leaders and teams when itcomes to this idea of creativity?
and its relationship to the work that they do.
Hmm.
(34:04):
You know, I've had a couple of CEOs say to me, well, I don't want my team to be creative.
I just want them to be innovative.
And I kind of look at them funny like, wait, what?
What do you mean?
Because to me, I use those words interchangeably all the time.
ah But they think of creativity, you know, when the people that have made this commentthink about creativity as being this like fluffy
(34:30):
It's about making art or it's about doing things that are frivolous and don't have anylong-term impact and are just a waste of time.
And that's not at all how I see creativity.
The definition I use is that creativity is novelty that is valuable.
And you could define valuable however you wanted, financially increases efficiency,aesthetically valuable, whatever it is.
(34:56):
uh And when I dig in and talk about that,
they get it, they definitely get it.
uh But I think that, yeah, there can be lot of misnomers around what creativity is, wherethey think that creativity is about drawing.
And it's like, okay, well, drawing is a skill, creativity is a skill.
There maybe is a little bit of overlap, but it doesn't have to be, right?
(35:18):
uh Yeah, so I do think there's a lot of, that's one misnomer.
I think another myth that I see a lot around creativity is people.
not even a myth, I think it's just a misconception is they think it will just happen.
And they don't realize that in order to be creative, you have to be intentional.
(35:38):
In fact, I have this phrase I say all the time, which is be deliberate to be creative.
It will not happen by accident.
when, know, if you look at probably any innovation you can think of, there was someintention around it.
It didn't just happen.
(35:58):
And yeah, anyway, we perpetuate some stories that, yeah.
I'm wondering, I I see that as well in terms of different parts of the world where, you ifyou ask them to raise their hand, if they consider themselves to be creative, usually if
I'm in South Korea or Japan or China, for example, India, it'd be a lower score.
Whereas if I'm speaking in Europe or definitely in America, it'll be a higher percentagewho will consider themselves to be creative.
(36:23):
But I've noticed something more recently, which kind of goes across cultures andcontinents.
which is the demographic piece.
And I don't know, cause you're very close to, cause you're working with students all theday as well as working with companies as well.
Are you noticing a difference in terms of that younger demographic, now the Gen Z,definitely the millennials, feeling more comfortable about using this phrase word
(36:49):
creativity as it relates specifically to business and understanding that link betweencreativity and innovation?
I think so.
And I don't work with Gen Z a whole lot.
But one thing I've noticed, because I've been asking that same question of raise your handif you think you're creative, I've been asking that for about probably 20 years.
(37:09):
And I've noticed a change over time.
And I'm mostly just working in the US.
But 20 years ago, I'd ask that question and not even half the room would raise their hand.
And now it depends on the audience, of course, and the group.
many more people raise their hand.
And I think the reason that's happening is because of the national conversation aroundcreativity and innovation has changed.
(37:35):
And I think in part because of podcasts like yours.
And we're talking about it in a different way.
There's so many more books out about it.
And there was this pivotal moment in our history.
I don't know if you know this story, but in 1950, the president of the AmericanPsychological Association at
their annual meeting, he stood up and he, as part of his speech, his rally cry for thepsychologist, he said, we need to study creativity.
(38:07):
And so what happened is from 1950 on, there's this like exponential increase of uhresearch and understanding around creativity.
And there's always a lag from when research is done to when
the world actually hears about it, and sometimes it's even a 20-year lag.
(38:28):
But I think we're more in tuned now with what creativity really means than we were 20years ago.
And I think Gen Z is really benefiting from that, for sure.
I remember Edward de Bono writing in a book once, he got really annoyed because there wasa big, I think it was in the US, one of the big creative, creativity, universities taught
(38:55):
creative thinking as a skill.
And they put this panel together of the world's top thinkers in creativity, and he didn'tget invited to it.
And the reason he didn't get invited to it was because he was seen as being too commercialwith his work.
He wasn't almost academic, even though he taught Oxford actually, but he was not seen interms of, he was using it with big oil and gas companies, and they were seeing, no, no,
(39:17):
that's just, that's too commercial as well.
So for those, I'm now going talk to those commercial corporate, as listening just now,those leaders that listening today, if they could implement just one principle from your
book, or one idea from that book, what would it be?
(39:37):
I think if you could implement one thing, would be look at the process and really take adeep dive.
are your meetings like?
If you were just even more narrow, look at your team meetings.
Are your team meetings really a place where you're fostering innovation?
And because there's incredible potential there, you got, you know, say 10 people on ateam, super smart brains in the room.
(40:03):
And if you were just spending the meeting doing these like very boring report outs wherepeople are half listening, I think you're just missing some amazing brain power.
So yeah, taking a look at, and I have some ideas in the book, but taking a look at how toreally adjust your team meetings would be awesome.
So quick fire question just to finish up here.
Is there a quote that you live by?
(40:25):
Is it one quote that inspires you or guides your life and your work?
You know, I think it would be what I said a few minutes ago.
In fact, I even have this on a sticker.
I'll hold this up.
Be deliberate to be creative.
And this is, you know, when people buy the book from me, I send them a sticker as well.
this is, if you want to be creative, if you want to be innovative, you have to beintentional about it.
(40:51):
And I think when you are, really amazing things can happen.
And do you have an online resource or a tool or an app that you find very useful in yourown creative work?
um Yeah, there's a number of tools that I use.
There's a couple that I've created that I use personally.
(41:11):
um So I have this deck of cards that I created called Climber Cards.
There's actually two versions of it, but basically these are cards that are designed toreally look at that, that help with the creative process, particularly ideation, but they
also really help with the team dynamics.
And what they are is they're very basic, very simple.
(41:32):
uh They're like the size of a deck of playing cards, about 50 images.
And they're all these images that I, drawings or paintings that I did.
And so there's things like a light bulb and a bag of groceries and a spool of thread.
There's a giraffe, you all these different images and you lay these down on the table.
(41:53):
And then let's say you're starting a meeting and you really want to look at uh
say it's about your budget.
You're going to have a whole meeting about your budget.
So you lay these cards down on the table and then you ask everybody to pick a card thatrepresents
What's your hope for our budget for the next year?
(42:13):
like, basically the point here is any question you can think of, any topic you wanna talkabout, you can frame it so that they answer with a card.
So for instance, ah they, you you ask that question, select a card that represents onehope you have for our budget for the next year, and somebody might pick the giraffe, and
(42:35):
they might talk about how they really want.
the team to stretch and think about how they can be innovative with the budget or morecreative.
I mean, I don't mean creative accounting, like turning a three into an eight, but howmight we be more creative and how we bring in our, raise money or bring in more income.
And what happens is when you use these cards to ask the question, it shifts the answersand people get more specific, they get more focused, they say things that they wouldn't
(43:06):
have said.
if you just ask the question without the images.
And it's kind of remarkable.
It's actually really cool.
I love that idea, creative cards.
we had a guest on recently, he was talking about emotional granularity.
Where often when we respond to something, how are feeling?
How are you doing today?
Fine, okay.
(43:26):
And we're sitting in a very narrow emotional range.
And she said, if you expand your language, expand the way of thinking about things, itjust expands your life as well.
So what you're kind of doing there with those tools is you're developing people's creativerange.
as well in terms of the ability to express ideas, express emotions, express feelings aswell.
So I love that.
(43:47):
we'll put links to that so people can get their copy of the pack of cards as well.
If you could only recommend one book to our listeners, not one of your own because we'regoing to have the link to your new book, but if it was one book by another author, what
book would it be and why?
boy, there's so many.
um I feel like I've got to turn around and look at my bookshelf around here.
(44:11):
Oh my oh gosh, this is such a hard question.
I feel like when I think about the books that really influenced me, if you're interestedin personal creativity, I think the artist's way is just a great classic.
uh
I will say it can be for some a little woo woo, you know, it can be, but if you can lookpast that, there's some really good stuff in there.
(44:41):
And it's been around for, I think about 30 years.
So it's a classic.
eighties, yeah, I Julia Cameron just, and um I'm always, I think it's a particularly goodbook for people who are a little bit into their life, into their career.
And they just, they feel like they need a restart.
(45:03):
They need to reconnect with something deeper in themselves.
And I think what she talks about in the book in terms of her background and challengesthat she went through, I remember like the artist date.
you know, I remember one of the ones, which I thought was really lovely, just taking thattime just to make a date for yourself, to go and do something just to kind of feed that
creativity.
Wonderful book.
So we'll definitely put a link to Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way.
(45:24):
And what is the best way for people to connect with you and to learn more about uh yourbook and your work?
You can find me online at my website is climberconsulting.com and climber is spelledC-L-I-M-E-R.
And on my webpage, you can reach out to me via email.
(45:44):
You'll find links to the book.
You'll find links to the climber cards that I mentioned.
And I'm also on LinkedIn.
So you can find me there, Amy Climer.
Well, Amy, Dr.
Amy Climer thank you so much for being a guest on the Super Creativity Podcast.
Thank you so much for having me, James.
I appreciate it.
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