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 Executive coach Janet Evans urges creatives to deal with their addiction to smart phones and to build in much more creative time.
My last blog discussed the conditions which favour the creative process and pointed out that the demands of the media industries can be inimical to it. How does the creative person make sure there is room for creativity in this very fast moving industry? Here are some hints and tips which my clients have found useful.
“We do not know where we get our ideas, but we know we do not get them from our laptops” John Cleese
“If you never stare out of a train window how are you going to write a novel?” Ben Elton
The use of electronic media is a particular issue. Ever more sophisticated hand-held devices in particular seem to exert an addictive hold over us. We need to be out there but we’re also hooked on the gratification of a communication showing that someone else is focusing on our work, that we are part of an online community of peers. But this constant babble in the forefront of the mind seems both to interfere with the unconscious processing necessary for creation and prevent ideas and visions from coming to the surface.
What is going on here? It has been suggested that the use of digital media swamps our “working memory”, a narrow channel through which our short and long term memories communicate. It therefore inhibits the “priming” of the mind necessary to start unconscious processing relevant to a specific problem, and the emergence of the conclusions into consciousness. In the long term, it may inhibit the laying down of new memories and links in the long-term memory, thus impoverishing the stock of unconscious “vocabulary” and associations on which the creative draws.
So my first tip is: try and deal with your addiction. Of course you need to be in contact with a large number of people but do you really have to be available all the time? Are you going after a series of small short buzzes at the cost of cluttering your mind and creating something really worthwhile? Discipline yourself to turn off the handheld for a certain number of hours each week and use the time to think or let your mind drift and start to make those connections between disparate elements which lead to new ideas.
Coleridge famously blamed his failure to finish his poem, Kubla Khan, on a “person from Porlock” who interrupted his train of thought. John Cleese says that to create, the creative must have “boundaries of space and time”. They need “a tortoise enclosure. So the mind can think it’s safe to come out.”
Redmond O’Hanlon (the explorer, travel writer, and broadcaster) says that is why he works at night:
“You are en route somewhere, on a journey, and in your imagination you experience it more intensely than when you were really there. If someone opens the door or asks a question at a moment like that it’s like being shot in the head”
So my second tip is: plan your time, and build in creative time. Creative people are often very bad at this. They take on too much and this is how they burn out. Allow time for feeding your creativity - by reading, thinking, watching other people’s work. This may feel like downtime, because you’re not producing anything tangible, but it’s the most valuable thing you can do. And programme in time for the process of creation. When are you at your most creative? – block that time out in the diary and guard it with your life. (I had a client who was most creative at night, and she organised her life so that she could stay up all night once a week).
My third tip relates to the nature of the creative process itself. You need to prime your mind with the problem. But after that, the creative process can’t be hurried. One of the main characteristics of creative people is that they are able to live in a state of mental suspension, to tolerate ambiguity while their unconscious processes make order out of chaos. Sometimes an idea is a slow burner, and this process can take years. Or a vision may coalesce gradually in stages.
So my third tip is: when you’re working on an idea, don’t worry away at it. Trust the process. There will be an uncomfortable period when everything seems to be banging around in your head and you can’t see your way through it. Focus on something else to let the unconscious processing take place without interference. Absorbing sensory activities are ideal. Sleep, go to the gym, have a massage, learn to meditate. Then, when something crystallises, capture it, and use it to prime your mind for the next stage.
The author: Janet Evans is an executive coach and consultant on strategic planning and leadership, with an MSC in Organisational Psychology and a Diploma in Coaching and Mentoring. She works mainly in the creative media industries and the public sector, having been a senior leader in Whitehall for many years. She runs her own consultancy, Adsum Consulting Limited, and can be contacted on janet@adsumconsulting.co.uk
Posted 10 January 2012 by Janet Evans
 Some of my most creative clients have come to me with worries about their creativity. These have ranged from a feeling that they simply don’t have the same spark anymore to serious concerns about burnout.
I’ve found it helpful to take a two stage approach – to reflect with them first on what the creative process involves and what creative people need; and then to think about what they can do to nurture their creativity.
In this blog, I want to look at the process itself, and next time I’ll set out some hints and tips that can help you to help yourself or the creative people you work with.
“I don’t know where the ideas come from….I sit down and it’s almost as if I’m in a trance. The subconscious is producing these ideas based on impressions and its own activity.” Alexander McCall Smith on the process of writing novels
“Inspiration is the beginning of a poem and it is also its final goal. It is the first idea which drops into the poet’s mind and it is the final idea which he at last achieves in words.” Stephen Spender
Studies of the psychology of creativity tell us a lot about both the creative process and the creative personality. There is also a large number of first hand accounts of the act of creation, from pre-eminent creative people in both the arts and sciences (from Coleridge and Einstein to John Cleese and Sam Mendes). In these subjective accounts the creative person describes a process of focusing on the problem (“priming the mind”), then disengaging from it, often by sleeping or doing something completely unrelated (“incubating”), and then finding that the creative vision springs into their mind fully formed, as an outline which can be worked on and developed or as a new and better iteration of something they had previously been thinking about.
John Cleese describes working on a screenplay, losing his work, and very reluctantly having to start again and try to recreate what he had done, then finding the first version again, and being astonished by how much better the second version was. His mind had continued working on it while he was searching for the first version.
The creatives and the psychologists agree about the conditions necessary for the creation of something truly original. The creator must be steeped in the domain in which they are creating (whether science, music, poetry, or film-making), so as to have the necessary “vocabulary” in which to express their ideas.
They also need to be able to think in a certain way - to be able to see patterns and new relationships between widely diverse ideas not normally seen as linked. Metaphor and wit are key illustrations of this style which is a hallmark of the creative personality.
But the sources also emphasise the vital role of inspiration – a process of which creators are not consciously aware and are not in conscious control. Cognitive and neuro-scientists hypothesise that what is going on during this process is the fast processing of large numbers of links and associations in the brain, many of which may be stored at deep levels in the unconscious. Highly creative people seem to be able to store more ideas and information, see broader patterns, and bring them into consciousness more easily than others.
So, to create, creative people must inhabit their own internal worlds. They need time and space to take in new inputs and incubate and develop their creative ideas. This process is unconscious and cannot be forced or done to a timetable.
The creative person must prime their mind with the task and then disengage and wait for the unconscious processing to take place and the vision to pop into the front of the mind.
In contrast, the creative industries are extravert, fast moving and deadline-driven. Their culture emphasises hard work and unremitting activity, reinforcing the notion that everyone must be moving at top speed, 24/7 to achieve anything worthwhile. The combination of this environment with the passion and drive which the individual creatives apply to their work has generated a self-perpetuating culture of frenetic activity.
There are clearly serious tensions between such an environment and the needs of the creative person. So how can creative people working in this industry nurture their creativity? In my next blog, I will provide some hints and tips which my clients have found useful.
The author: Janet Evans is an executive coach and consultant on strategic planning and leadership, with an MSC in Organisational Psychology and a Diploma in Coaching and Mentoring. She works mainly in the creative media industries and the public sector, having been a senior leader in Whitehall for many years. She runs her own consultancy, Adsum Consulting Limited, and can be contacted on janet@adsumconsulting.co.uk
Posted 09 November 2011 by Janet Evans
 From my perspective as a business psychologist and coach working with people in the TV industry, the debate on bullying that takes places at the Edinburgh TV Festival this month is right on the button.
In a recent Televisual article ahead of the bullying debate, RDF Television md Jim Allen said the following in response to the question, “Is bullying the TV industry’s dirty secret?”: “TV will never rid itself of bullying but collectively and individually every broadcaster and production company could do more to make a stand, extol the right values, invest time and money in training the skills of people management and reduce levels of aggression, neurosis and hysteria. After all it’s only television and we might even discover that a more relaxed, supported, encouraged and dare I say it, carefree industry will create a sustained burst of creative flair. Happier staff and better shows – what a thought.”
I very much share Jim Allen’s optimism about change and the possibility of an industry which is both happier and more creative.
In the same piece, Hilary Rosen suggested that the TV industry is prone to bullying because it is full of perfectionist creatives.
The psychology of creativity tells us that this is likely to be true. Creative people have rich and intensely personal visions which they are obsessional about realising. That is why they can be inspirational. They don’t always communicate these visions effectively and they become very frustrated when things or people prevent them - as they see it - from achieving perfection. That is why they make unreasonable demands.
And some highly creative people may have additional challenges to deal with. Research has shown that creative people may be as much as four times more likely to suffer from mood disorders of varying levels of severity – in particular depression and bipolar syndrome - than non-creatives. These are linked to feelings of insecurity and make some creative people particularly vulnerable to criticism, which they take as a highly personal attack.
As a result, creative leaders may be concerned above all else to protect themselves from things which trigger their own insecurities. This may lead them to adopt an aggressive posture as a means of defence, and so have little energy left for understanding their staff. The extreme (and fortunately rare) case is the person with narcissistic personality disorder, where a grandiose sense of self-worth and entitlement cloak a deep sense of inadequacy, anxiety and fear – the classic bully profile. Put an aggressive, insecure creative leader, with a defensive insecure creative staff member, and you have the ingredients for a relationship which can seriously damage the victim.
Many of these brilliant brains were never intended to manage or lead. Or could they, with the right nurturing or training?- asked Donna Taberer.
Yes! Creative bosses with insecurities can be excellent leaders precisely because they can tune in to the vulnerabilities of the people working for them and provide them with the nurturing they need. To do this they need a degree of self-understanding and insight into their own personalities and motivations and those of the people working for them. Then they are not at the mercy of their own destructive emotional impulses which they don’t understand.
And, it is surprisingly easy to equip people with these skills, especially when they are highly intelligent and insightful as creative people are. I have recently been coaching on a major Skillset-funded leadership programme for executives and senior producers from across the TV industry. The participants loved the “hard” business training and sessions by industry experts. But it was the training in “softer” emotional skills - leadership, understanding the impact of your own and others’ personalities, influencing, engaging your team - and the 1:1 developmental coaching, which they found revelatory, absorbed like sponges and then came back for more.
My fellow coaches and I were very struck by the relative lack of attention which some of this industry gives to the vital issue of how to deliver through people. Many of our clients have far less understanding of how to motivate and develop their teams than leaders of similar seniority in other sectors. This knowledge is not a “nice-to-have” - it relates directly to quality and the bottom line – and its lack is ironic given that the industry depends on nurturing individual creativity for its success.
Of course economic pressures and the fragmented structure of the industry make it difficult to invest in leadership skills. But I wonder if there is also a cultural bias against doing so – some bosses think that since they fought their way to the top without help, their employees should do so too. And the industry is not naturally a reflective one – constant activity 24/7 is the norm. But I agree with Jim Allen – how much more productive the industry would be if it invested just that little bit more in getting the best from its people. And I am optimistic about its ability to do so, if it is really prepared to focus on these issues and do something about them.
The author: Janet Evans is a business psychologist, executive coach and consultant on leadership and strategic planning, with an MSC in Organisational Psychology and a Diploma in Coaching and Mentoring. She works mainly in the creative media industries and the public sector, having been a senior leader in Whitehall for many years. She runs her own consultancy, Adsum Consulting Limited, and can be contacted on janet@adsumconsulting.co.uk
Posted 03 August 2011 by Janet Evans
 Why are creative people so sensitive about their work?
In her response to my last blog, film producer Rebecca Long said:
“I have found that in the creative industries we are all so passionate about what we do, and ideas and projects seem to be so much more personal and emotional than in most people’s work, and as a result you find that creative people can be very sensitive. If you then throw into the mix extreme pressures such as time and money and managing a lot of people, this makes for a boiling pot of difficulties…”
Rebecca speaks from experience. She is right to identify the passion which creative people feel about their work and the personal nature of that work as key elements in this mix.
But some highly creative people may have additional challenges to deal with. Modern studies and analysis of the letters and diaries of highly creative people throughout history have shown that creative people may be as much as four times more likely to suffer from mood disorders, of varying levels of severity, than non-creatives – including bipolar and unipolar depression.
Some well-known examples are Coleridge, Keats and Shelley, Berlioz, Mahler and Tchaikovsky, F Scott Fitzgerald, Virginia Wolf, Dylan Thomas and Sylvia Plath, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko…. the list goes on.
Why should there be this link between high levels of creativity and a particular psychological profile?
There are various hypotheses which seem to me to ring true. Depression is intimately linked to feelings of low self-worth, which may result from dysfunctional childhood relationships. So
• depressive people have experienced suffering and want to make sense of things through their work or change them.“They learn in suffering what they teach in song” (Shelley on poets);
• provided that the depression is not completely disabling, intense concentration and absorption in a complex task may permit an escape from depressive thoughts, and the act of creation, in producing a tangible product of intrinsic value, can help to dull those thoughts;
• depressives also have an acute fear of failure (because it will further damage their self-esteem), which can motivate them to strive harder, perhaps even to overwork in a manic phase. This means, however, that actual failure can completely paralyse them. They may therefore be very vulnerable and lacking in resilience;
• in the case of sufferers from bipolar depression, the increase in speed of thinking and the sheer volume of thought during the manic state may produce unique ideas and inspirations – so may be a catalyst for creativity.
The creative is in a double bind. Their work is meaningful and resonant with others because they have experienced powerful feelings and put so much of themselves into it.
But they are also posing publicly a self which is particularly vulnerable to criticism. And because of that vulnerability and lack of resilience, they may hear any criticism as a highly personal attack on their self worth, and may refuse to accept the points being made, fight back or even descend into creative paralysis.
So what can you do if you are leading or managing someone with this profile?
To get the best from insecure creatives, the leader needs to parent them, to try and tune in to their vulnerabilities, provide large amounts of support and encouragement, and show how much he or she values the contribution which each individual makes.
When the team members are secure in the belief that they are valued and appreciated, it will be much easier to persuade them to accept constructive criticism.
The same applies to “difficult” talent, whose big egos often conceal deep insecurities, and who try to get rid of their bad feelings about themselves by projecting them on others – eg by demanding that particular crew members be fired. The enormous ego of the narcissist is a protection for acute vulnerability.
And what if you recognise yourself from this description? If the problem is really severe, and prevents you from working effectively, then don’t be afraid to seek help from a qualified professional.
If it’s not that severe, but you’d like to increase your resilience in the face of setbacks or criticism, there are lots of techniques you can try, and I’ll talk about them more in a future blog.
The author: Janet Evans is a business psychologist, executive coach and consultant on leadership and strategic planning, with an MSC in Organisational Psychology and a Diploma in Coaching and Mentoring. She works mainly in the creative media industries and the public sector, having been a senior leader in Whitehall for many years. She runs her own consultancy, Adsum Consulting Limited, and can be contacted on janet@adsumconsulting.co.uk
Posted 15 June 2011 by Janet Evans
 How do I get the best from a creative team who’ve come together for the first time for this project and don’t know what my vision is, me, or each other? How can I communicate what I want and get them engaged in delivering it? How do I establish myself as leader?
I get asked these questions time and time again by producers and directors. Over the last two years I have been working as an executive coach with people in the creative media industries, most recently on CCTV, the Skillset-funded leadership programme for executives and senior producers from across the TV industry.
I suppose I must have had approaching 100 discussions with creative people in the last three years and it is very striking the degree to which those discussions have focused on a few significant themes. And it’s not surprising that ‘how to get the best from a creative team’ is one of those themes.
It is clearly very challenging to get a disparate group of people together and try to produce something engaging and original to a timescale which is too tight and a budget which is too small. But this is how these industries operate. So why does it go wrong and what is my prescription for making it work?
First, understand yourself. It is not empty stereotyping to suggest that there is a typical “creative personality”. Creative people are highly intuitive. They have ready access to their own unconscious processing and can see links and associations the rest of us can’t see. They can bring order out of chaos. They have rich and detailed internal visions of their projects and how they should be realised.
If creatives are to see their visions made real, they must be able to communicate them to other people, above all the production team, but they often fail to do this effectively.
Their vision is so clear to them that they think they have explained it when they’ve given the barest of outlines and that it has somehow been transferred to the minds of the hearers as if by telepathy. They even get bored while explaining it because it is so familiar to them.
So, it is crucial to communicate the vision fully. You can’t describe what you want too many times or with too much precision. Show examples of similar effects, reference other people’s work. You’ve been thinking about this for months if not years. It will take a while for the others to catch up, but if you invest in this up front, it will pay enormous dividends down the track. Not only will they know what you want but they’ll be able to feed ideas in and the final product will be better.
Secondly, understand your team. They also have a lot invested in this project – they are human beings and human beings are driven by emotion.
New teams go through four phases: “forming” (getting together in the first place); “storming”, while people struggle with each other for position and to get what they need emotionally from the project, “norming” (as they settle down into particular ways of behaving which are accepted by the team); and “performing”, ie getting on effectively with the job.
They will get to the “performing” stage more quickly and without major mishap if:
- you have succeeded in communicating your vision and they have been allowed to feed into it so that they feel ownership of it too
- they are clear about their roles and how they relate to each other
- you know them as individuals, are sensitive to what they want from the project, and they know you value their contribution. Creative people are very susceptible to feeling under-valued (but that’s a topic for another blog….)
These things seem obvious but they often get neglected. Projects start before they are in place and then things go wrong – relationships deteriorate, people have rows or leave, and time and money are wasted. Spend enough time at the beginning of the project on getting these things right. Talk to everyone individually and as a group. Mobilise their creativity. Get them engaged in a joint enterprise which matters as much to them as it does to you.
The author: Janet Evans is an executive coach and consultant on strategic planning and leadership, with an MSC in Organisational Psychology and a Diploma in Coaching and Mentoring. She works mainly in the creative media industries and the public sector, having been a senior leader in Whitehall for many years. She runs her own consultancy, Adsum Consulting Limited, and can be contacted on janet@adsumconsulting.co.uk
Posted 01 June 2011 by Janet Evans
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