Series 6 /Episode 1: Conversation with Doug Rabow

I had a thought-provoking conversation with Doug Rabow. He sees flow as removing friction. How can we find ways to make organizations work better? How can we make the work easy and effortless, he says. Creativity is all about building flexible, adaptive systems that make it easy to work.

Series 6 /Episode 2: Conversation with Ryan Gibson

I had a comfortable conversation with Ryan Gibson about the links between art and business. Creativity has the connotation that it is only about the arts. Being a creator is bringing something new or different into the world and anyone can do that, he says. We also talked about purpose in creativity. Our goals may change, but our purpose remains the same. Creativity comes from how we use creativity and the choices we make to achieve our purpose. Ryan explains that he has taken on very different roles, but nis purpose has always been to serve.

Series 6 /Episode 3: Conversation with Gary McBain

I have known Gary McBain for a number of years as a performance management specialist. It was a joy to talk with him about creativity. He has experienced creativity in several types of organization, but his experiences with both police services and children's services stand out for me. Creativity, he says, happens at the coal face. It is where people have to find different ways of building trust with their clients or of getting themselves out of a tight spot in crisis situations.

Series 6 /Episode 4: Conversation with Michelle Formanczyk

I always enjoy my conversations with Michelle. Rediscovering her writing chops, she has such a facility to weave these word pictures. At the same time, she can get straight to the heart. In fact, she talks about using a check-in of the heart to get over creativity humps and to restore the flow of ideas. I was also delighted to hear that she uses avatars in the visioning process with her clients. Avatars, she says, enable people to reach beyond themselves to look at different possibilities.

Series 6 /Episode 5: Conversation with Jacqueline McCullough

I felt such a connection with Jacqueline McCullough. She is a coach for neurodivergent entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs who have a different way of navigating the world. As such, they have the natural potential to offer a unique value proposition. Jacqueline shared that one of her clients said something very revealing. "I can't have too much structure because I will rebel against it but if I have too little structure, I'll get nothing done." Her response is equally compelling, "It is important to the creative process to have some constraints, but they have to feel right for that person".

Series 6 /Episode 6: Conversation with Junaid Mirza

I was privileged to talk with Junaid Mirza about joy in the creative process. Osho, an Indian philosopher, asserts that when you feel joy in what you are doing, your actions are essentially creative. Jumaid felt some nostalgia in describing those moments of extreme happiness as a design engineer, those moments when he could see the physical products that he had helped to design. It is the same feeling he gets when he watches his small daughter play and explore her world. Playing with her enables him to reconnect with his 4-year-old self and to further explore his own creativity.

Series 6 /Episode 7: Conversation with Romina Mirzaei

I love talking to professionals at the beginning of their careers. I had the privilege to talk with Romina Mirzaei about creativity in her work as a project manager. She told me how she had used reverse brainstorming with her team to think of how to respond to potential constraints or unwanted outcomes. I asked her how she dealt with the team dynamics during idea generation. Her response was interesting. She said that the team continued until the original idea generator felt a little uncomfortable. It is about respect within the team, she says.

Series 6 /Episode 8: Conversation with Cindy Young

I asked Cindy Young about where to find creativity in knowledge management. This was her response. Knowledge management is about using the knowledge that you have in your organization and finding creative ways to communicate this knowledge. Making it fun to share knowledge can involve gamification techniques. When people are having fun, they are more likely to espouse the behaviours that you are looking for.

Series 6 /Episode 9: Conversation with Jaclyn Harder

I had a delightful conversation with Jaclyn Harder about creativity in the legal field and in the job search. "Creativity can be found in legal statutes between the commas and the parentheses and how you connect them. Filling the spaces in the existing law is how you build and transform new laws", she says. There is also a flow to applying the law in immigration services, and maintaining an easy flow requires creativity. This same creativity is required in a job search to connect your skills to what you think employers are looking for and to maintain a constant search for the right job.

Series 6 /Episode 10: Conversation with Stephanie Barnes

I had a fun conversation with Stephanie Barnes about radical knowledge management. Stephanie uses art-based approaches to help people and organizations reach their potential. Creativity happens in the white spaces, in the areas that can't easily be written down, she says.. Art (scribble drawing) enables people and organizations to open up different parts of their brain and find answers to their problems through diffuse thinking.

Series 6 /Episode 11: Conversation with Alex Rybolov

I had a conversation with Alex Rybolov that enabled both of us to look at creativity differently. "As a design engineer, creativity is everywhere in the process," he says. Creativity can be a part of big problems or little problems that require solving,given different types of constraints. It can be associated with hardware components or involve finding different ways of working with software professions. Creativity can also be needed in the design of a manufacturing process for a new machine component.

Series 6 /Episode 12: Conversation with Chris Bent

My conversation with Chris Bent, the creator of Piccles, put us both in a state of flow as we talked about the importance of emotions in creativity. We talked about how drawing can bring out perspectives and feelings that we wouldn't ordinarily tap into with the written word. We also talked about how digital nomads tend to be more creative as they are continually pushing boundaries and seeing new ways of doing things. In a practical sense, the nomadic lifestyle has less clutter, so people who travel are more focused on the moment and are freer to explore new and different ideas.

Series 6 /Episode 13: Conversation with Laurent Letestu

My conversation with Laurent Letestu taught me how much creativity is required for the Chief Financial Officer role. The ability to engage people in different ways through story-telling and scenario building sparks creative decision-making. Leadership as a creative act is an easy link to make. Did you know that mergers and acquisitions also require a great deal of creativity? Leadership and financial responsibility push us to be flexible and to adopt empathy, putting ourselves in someone else's shoes before making a collective decision.

Series 6 /Episode 14: Conversation with Matthew Bellringer

I had a thought-provoking conversation with Matthew Bellringer (They/Them) about neurodiversity and creativity. They challenge the accepted notion that you have to be uncomfortable to create. They say that people who are neurodivergent feel uncomfortable much of the time. For people who are outside the norm, creativity may be more about giving themselves permission to do things that make them feel more comfortable and creating an understanding that unfamiliar can be better. Matthew says, " In organizations with a narrow perspective, you are more likely to address problems in a consistent way. Opening up your perspective can encompass different ways of knowing and lead to more creative solutions.