Creativity Is a Climate Problem — Not a Talent Problem

Most organisations don’t have an idea problem.

They have a climate problem.

You’ve probably felt it.

Your best ideas don’t show up at your desk.
 
They show up walking.
Travelling.
Sitting somewhere unfamiliar.

Different place.
Different thinking.

That’s not an accident.

It’s conditions.

In this episode, I explore why creativity isn’t about trying harder…

…it’s about the environment you’re thinking inside.

And why the same person, in a different climate, produces completely different ideas.

If your best thinking only shows up when you leave the work environment…

what does that say about the work environment that's been designed?

You don’t need better ideas.
You need better conditions for the ideas you already have.

If this resonates, there’s a short video and article that go deeper into the five conditions that shape this.
https://www.cultivatedmanagement.com/creativity-is-a-climate-problem/

Creators and Guests

Host

Rob Lambert

I’m Rob Lambert. Founder of Cultivated, Creative Director of Creative Soul Projects, host of Here's an idea worth playing with, and co-host of Stationery Freaks podcast.

What is Here's an idea worth playing with?

A podcast from Cultivated about words, work and the ideas hiding underneath both.

Every week, Word@Work takes a single word that we often use in work, and follows it back to where it came from - its history, its original meaning, the way we've come to use it, and what that tells us about the popular business of being at work with each other.

Because words aren't just labels. They carry assumptions, histories and ways of seeing the world. Look closely at a word like "deadline", "career", "amateur", "cultivate" or "strategy" and you often find an entirely new way of thinking about work.

Alongside Word@Work, the podcast brings ideas from the Cultivated library to life in audio: essays, field observations, conversations and explorations of work, communication, learning, creativity, attention, making and the journey from an idea to something valuable in the world.

The episodes are deliberately short.
Curious rather than preachy.
More interested in following a good question than delivering a list of answers.

For people who care about how work actually happens - and who enjoy discovering that there is usually a much more interesting story behind the words we use every day.

Rob: 00:00

Most organizations don't lack good ideas. They lack the conditions where ideas can survive, and that is gonna be the topic of today's episode of here's an idea worth playing with. Now I hope that you are all doing safe and well. So I am off to Florida in a few weeks time where hopefully it's gonna be very hot, and that got me thinking about creativity, climates and conditions. So I've been putting the finishing touches to an upcoming idea to value talk in Orlando.

Rob: 00:36

And now I won't be going to Disneyland, but I might try and get myself on one of these alligator tours. I don't know whether you've seen these, heard of these. Anybody listening in Florida, do let me know whether this is worth it going out on one of those boats with a massive fan behind them searching for alligators. Sounds like a crazy idea, but it feels like I don't know. It feels like something I should do.

Rob: 00:58

Anyway, I have been doing the usual what to pack. I've got a nice little packing list. It's gonna be hot but I obviously still wanna look reasonably smart. We're staying at some sort of hotel that's got a pool and a little sort of bar area, so obviously might get a bit of sunshine in and a little bit sunbathing. And I'm debating this alligator tour thing and I'm a few weeks, unfortunately, a few weeks too late for the basketball season.

Rob: 01:24

Never mind. Would have loved to have gone and seen another NBA game, but not to worry. But alongside all of that, something else always happens on these trips, which is why I take notebooks, cameras, audio recording, lots and lots of charging devices. Because some of my best thinking doesn't happen here in the studio. It doesn't happen at my desk.

Rob: 01:47

It happens when I'm out and about, when I'm exploring, when I'm visiting, when I'm traveling, when I'm walking, when I'm sat in unfamiliar cafes or bars or restaurants or in this hopefully Orlando trip, sat in the hotel on a sun lounger by the pool waiting for the conference to begin. If you've listened to this podcast long enough, you'll know that I did a audio session from Zurich where I captured the church bells, came up with a podcast and a couple of videos. A few years back, I went to Oslo, which was one of the most creative weeks of my life. I wondered camera in hand. I recorded about four videos, took some beautiful pictures.

Rob: 02:28

Just wondered, just walked, just explored. Different places, same pattern. Ideas appear more easily, and with that is the energy to take those ideas and turn them into something valuable. Now it's easy to think that that's just about having more time and not being at work and finally getting the space to think, but I think it's a bit bigger than that. I think it's broader than that.

Rob: 02:53

It's about conditions, and these conditions create the climate for creativity to thrive. Now when we think about this in a work context, yeah, sure, we're not gonna be doing photo walks unless obviously, of course, that is our business, But ideas and the creative action and the enthusiasm and the energy and the unleashing of potential is exactly what we do at work all the time. We solve problems. We notice things. We spot patterns.

Rob: 03:22

We take ideas and turn them into something tangible. This is human potential expressed. That is why I call creativity the engine of success in an organization. But you see, work has this sort of gravity. It has meetings.

Rob: 03:40

It has expectations. We've often got targets. We're often quite shortsighted in work aiming just for the next quarter's targets. We've got familiar patterns. We've fallen into behavioral ruts.

Rob: 03:53

Our attention is, in some respects, already scheduled and spoken for. But when we go to a different place, that grip loosens and our thinking changes. Which is why I've come to think about creativity differently. Not as a talent problem, but as a climate problem. Because the same person in a different environment produces different thinking.

Rob: 04:21

And a lot of my work is often working with leaders and managers who want more innovation, they want more problem solving, they want more energy and enthusiasm brought forth by the people in their organization. They want this creativity expressed, unleashed, brought to bear on the problems that the organization has, but they're often unwilling to change the environment. And when I look at those environments where thinking improves, where clarity of ideas is good, where people are solving problems, where you get energy, potential, enthusiasm, possibility. There's a few things that are always present. There's always something that feels meaningful, a painted picture as I call it, a future that's worth leaning into, something that generates care.

Rob: 05:15

Because care is the fuel for creativity. I mean, when was the last time we improved something or we generated ideas around something that we don't care about? So we've got to have that meaning, that sort of future that we can sense, we can feel is bigger than the work itself. It's something worth leaning into and we can we can see our place in that future. It's emotional, compelling, exciting, interesting.

Rob: 05:45

That generates meaning. The second condition is space to think. This is what travel does so well. It takes you out of what we call the closed mode thinking, this tasks, actions, agendas, meetings, and it pops us into an open mode, a sense of wonder, a sense of ponder, possibility, a sense of noticing. We have space to think.

Rob: 06:12

Our brain isn't occupied with what's the next task, what's the next meeting, where am I gonna find time to write up the notes from the last meeting, you know, the the kind of thing that keeps people busy all day in work. We often don't have that when we travel, when we journey, when we go somewhere because we have space to think. We're entering an open mode. We've got that time to let our brain switch off. We've got that time to think and ponder and that space in which to do it.

Rob: 06:42

And the third condition is attention. Because we're traveling, we're often going somewhere new or, you know, we're having to go through the airport, get on the plane, we're having to get taxis, we're seeing a new city for the first time, you know, maybe we're going for a walk after a long flight to just sort of adjust to the climate, to the environment, to the place, we pay attention differently. We see things differently. We may be on guard a little bit more because it's unusual to us. We may be wandering with a camera to take some snaps or some photos.

Rob: 07:12

We might be trying to find a cafe to have a beer or a coffee or whatever, but our attention shifts. We start to notice things. We likely pay more attention to what's actually happening. And the fourth condition that we need is safety. We need a safe place to explore our creativity because when we create something, even at work, there is a chance that it might not work.

Rob: 07:38

And if we work in an environment where it's not safe to express yourself, to share your ideas, to put forward your opinion, then creativity is is gonna be nowhere to be found. And when I travel, it's safe to explore. There's nobody passing judgment. I don't have to run this idea past a committee or a steer co or some sort of governance layer that we often have in work. It feels safe to explore the ideas.

Rob: 08:05

And then the fifth condition is shape. There is no economic value in an idea. The idea needs forming, needs shaping into something tangible, into something real. We need some mechanism, some way of taking these ideas and flowing them through to something valuable. For many ideas, the value will just learning.

Rob: 08:27

It's an experiment. We're trying something different. There's no expectation of a sort of financial return to the idea. It is a short, sharp, fast experiment with the value, the goal of learning. And when we learn more, we might take that idea and turn it into something super tangible, something with financial value, but that isn't necessarily the initial goal.

Rob: 08:52

It's an experiment. We're trying something. It might not work. But we need some mechanism to take those really good ideas and flow them through to some sort of value. So as I head to Florida in a few weeks, I'm not just thinking about the talk.

Rob: 09:10

I'm thinking about the conditions, the walks, the gaps, the space, the attention, the noticing, the moments in between the activities that I do have planned because that's where the thinking tends to happen. That's where the creative urge and the insights and the observations and those seeds of ideas form. When I talk about creativity being a climate problem, it raises a fundamentally useful question. If our best ideas only show up when we leave the work environment, what does that say about the work environment that we've designed? And I've been exploring this idea a lot.

Rob: 09:55

I did a keynote at the beginning of the year for a school trust. So big keynote, quite a few 100 people there. And what was interesting was they didn't just discuss these ideas, these sort of conditions and the climate idea. They actually printed posters with these five things on. Meaning, space, attention, safety, shape.

Rob: 10:18

They printed them, and they put them around the classrooms in every school. I think it was about 12 schools. Every classroom as a reminder for the teachers and the students about the conditions and the climate that they need for learning to emerge. That climate that allows people to try, that allows people to risk being wrong, that allows people to bring their human potential. That was a wonderful moment when they sent they sent me the pictures and and taught me through why they'd done it.

Rob: 10:53

And it's a good reminder that these aren't theoretical ideas. These are genuine work, life, creative system conditions that create the climate for creativity to thrive. I've been exploring this a lot further with a cultivated note video, which you can find over on cultivatedmanagement.com. And then for studio members, there is also an audio walkthrough with six different tactics, real genuine tactics that you can use in order to try and foster and nurture this climate, this environment, these conditions. And with that, let me know if you think that alligator tour is a good idea, and I will speak to you in the next episode of here's an idea worth playing with.

Rob: 11:40

And with that, you take care of yourselves. Bye bye.