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💥 Ignite your company culture with the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast!
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[00:00:00] Announcer: This is the Build A Vibrant Culture Podcast. Your source for the strategies, systems, and smarts you need to turn possibility into purpose. Every week we dive into dynamic conversations as our host, Nicole Greer, interviews leadership and business experts. They're here to shed light on practical solutions to the challenges of personal and professional development. Now, here's your host, a professional speaker, coach and consultant, Nicole Greer.
[00:00:31] Nicole: Welcome everybody to the Build A Vibrant Culture podcast. My name is Nicole Greer and they call me the Vibrant Coach. And I am here with another fabulous guest, Dr. Amy Climer. And let me tell you, me and Dr. Amy Climer been hanging out for many moons at the National Speakers Association and of course our beloved local chapter, the NSA Carolinas. And Amy has given birth --I'm sure it was like birth-- to her new book. Everybody take a look, look at the YouTube, everybody, _Deliberate Creative Teams_. This is her little baby and we're going to talk all about it today. And here is the subtitle, _How to Lead for Innovative Results_. And Hello, people need to lead for innovative results, or you're not going to stay in the marketplace very long. So let me tell you all about Dr. Amy Climer. She teaches teams and organizations how to increase their creativity so they can maximize innovation. She works with forward thinking organizations such as the Mayo Clinic, Stanford University, and the US Department of Homeland Security. Isn't that good to know Dr. Amy's on that? That deal? All right, I can sleep at night knowing she's part of that. Amy is the author of the best selling book. Let's say it one more time, everybody. _Deliberate Creative Teams, How to Lead for Innovative Results_. She's also the host of the Deliberate 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. Welcome to the show, Amy! I'm so glad you're here.
[00:02:02] Amy Climer: Thank you! It's so good to be here. Thanks for inviting me.
[00:02:06] Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. And so here's the thing, I can remember. When Amy and I first met, we were at some, I don't know, hotel ballroom with a white tablecloth.
[00:02:17] Amy Climer: That sounds right.
[00:02:19] Nicole: I think it was kind of like this conversation, should I join? And I'm like, absolutely. We need you. We need you. So just joined and we're all just happy NSA friends. That's right. That's right. So I'm curious, I want to know, like, how did Amy get this idea to follow the thread of creativity? What triggered that inside of you?
[00:02:41] Amy Climer: Man, there were so many, I think just like little pieces throughout my life, especially in my twenties and early thirties. I was that friend in high school that if you said, oh, I'm not creative, I was like, what? Yes you are. What're you talking about, you know, and. And I didn't really know anything about creativity then, but I knew that there was this potential that we all had. And anyway, fast forward, had a couple negative experiences in college and just didn't do anything artistic or creative for a long time until after college. And then I had an interesting experience in my, I guess it was around my mid twenties. I was in my first real job, you know, the job where you get benefits, feels like, okay, you're official now.
[00:03:25] Nicole: Right. They subtracted FICA from your numbers and you didn't know why.
[00:03:29] Amy Climer: Exactly. Like what are all these small deductions? But okay, we're going with it. Anyway so I'm in this job and I'm a part of this team and I, the team, it was maybe 10, 12 of us. We worked at a university and there was a lot of potential in this team. Everyone was, you know, youngish, twenties, thirties, lots of energy, smart. And I just was seeing this team like get stuck over and over. And one day in particular --and I wrote about this in the book-- one of my teammates, Maria, we're in the middle of a team meeting and she said, okay, y'all, I have an issue. Could we spend a few minutes? I'd love to just brainstorm and get some feedback from you. Get some ideas from you. And I'm like half listening, right? And I hear the word brainstorm. I'm like, oh, okay. Yes, I'm in.
[00:04:21] Nicole: Right. There's something in your soul, Amy, that's creativity.
[00:04:25] Amy Climer: I don't know what it is, right? So I get excited and she lays out the issue and then we start throwing ideas out and things are going really well. We have about three ideas, and the fourth idea, this other guy, Phil says, oh no, we can't do that. We did that in 1985 and it was a complete disaster. Okay, Nicole, your reaction was the exact reaction I had. I just bust out laughing. I thought he was joking and then he glared at me and I thought, oh my gosh. And all these things are rapid fire in my head. What, wait, what is he serious? 1985? Like back when cassette tapes were the cutting edge technology?
[00:05:05] Nicole: REO Speedwagon was at the top of the charts. I remember those days.
[00:05:08] Amy Climer: There you go. Right? Oh my gosh. So anyway, turns out he was actually serious, and I just left that meeting so frustrated because of course you know what happened next. Nobody said anything. Maria's like, okay, does anybody have any more ideas? And everyone's like, all, I ain't
[00:05:27] Nicole: Right. Like this cloud of negativity came over the creativity. Yeah.
[00:05:32] Amy Climer: And that -- I don't know why, 'cause I'd certainly been in those situations before. I mean, we've all had moments where somebody's shooting down ideas and it just stagnates everything. But something about that particular day, I just got this bug in me of like, why, why are some teams creative and some not. And then I spent the next 10 years just digging into it and eventually decided, okay, I'm going to go get a PhD in this so I can really understand it. And
[00:05:59] Nicole: Right, right.
[00:06:01] Amy Climer: So a little bit of a long answer, but that's kind of how I got into this stuff.
[00:06:06] Nicole: Well, when I said I think it's in your soul. I mean, I think it is a deep thing to believe that you are. I mean, it's a belief and belief is deep, right? Like, I believe I'm creative. I believe I'm creative. And there's this old saying that says there's nothing new under the sun. But there's the combination of the things and the combinations of the people. And that's where the magic is. And so please don't miss what Amy said about she saw potential. And so getting that potential out. I mean, I think that's what leaders are supposed to be doing. Getting the potential out of these employees, right?
[00:06:37] Amy Climer: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And I didn't see in this case the leader, the team leader doing that.
[00:06:44] Nicole: Or knowing how.
[00:06:45] Amy Climer: I think that's more what it was is lack of knowing how, I think there was a willingness they were an engaged leader, but just didn't really know what to do.
[00:06:54] Nicole: Yeah. And so good news, Amy's going to tell us. All right, so first, let's define creativity. I love this idea of let's foundationally build. So what is creativity in and of itself? How would you define it?
[00:07:07] Amy Climer: So the definition I use, and this is not mine, this comes from the creativity research, is "creativity is novelty that is valuable." And novelty meaning unique, different, new, original and valuable, however you want to define it. It could be financially valuable, it could be emotionally valuable, aesthetically valuable.
[00:07:29] Whatever it is, it just brings value in some way. And that's all creativity is. Creativity is novelty that is valuable.
[00:07:39] Nicole: And so why does creativity matter in our work? Why should leaders be listening to this and tuning in and going, I need to work on our creativity. Why would that matter?
[00:07:50] Amy Climer: I think, you know, you said this in the opening, it's so important for us to be able to respond to changes that are happening. And if we want to stay competitive in the marketplace, whatever your marketplace is, you need to be able to be creative, generate new ideas, implement those ideas, because other organizations are. And what I see in my work is that organizations that are not willing or not able to make those changes. They slowly wither away and become irrelevant. And it's not always fast. It's sometimes years in the making of just, "Okay, the numbers on our P&L statement just seem to be declining." And there's all sorts of ways you can say, oh, well, it's the marketplace it's the stock market. It's, you know, the economy, whatever.
[00:08:39] Nicole: I'm so tired of hearing it's the economy I could scream. It's been the economy since I started my business, for 24 years. It's not the economy every time, people.
[00:08:48] Amy Climer: Yeah, right. Once in a while for like a month, you might be to say that.
[00:08:52] Nicole: We could blame it on the elections if we wanted to, but that still doesn't do you any good. You need to, get be deliberate and get your creative team cooking. Right?
[00:09:00] Amy Climer: Exactly.
[00:09:01] Nicole: Yeah. That's so good. That's so good. Okay, so, it'll keep you in business.
[00:09:06] Amy Climer: Absolutely. Yeah. And you know, I think there've been moments that we've seen this happen. I mean, think of the pandemic, even though that was five years ago now. I certainly saw, and I even saw this within NSA, I'm sure you saw this, Nicole, where some people were like, ah. This is going to blow over. I'm just going to chill out. And I remember thinking, oh, they must be independently wealthy. They don't need to, and other people were like, oh, let's figure this online thing out, like right now. And it was just so fascinating to see how people responded. And that was within our association, but also just within businesses. Just looking at, I live in Asheville, North Carolina, and we have some really good restaurants.
[00:09:45] Nicole: Yeah, FYI write that down. You need to go to Asheville, North Carolina.
[00:09:48] Amy Climer: That's right. We have multiple James Beard winners. It's really actually cool, but some of them made changes quickly. They were able to be creative and come up with something new, and then others like, yeah, we don't do takeout. And well, a year later who's still in business.
[00:10:07] Nicole: That's exactly right.
[00:10:08] Amy Climer: Yeah.
[00:10:09] Nicole: Yeah. And when you're saying that, I'm just thinking of, I ended up working for Duke Energy during the pandemic. So talk about getting creative. They're like, do you want to be a technical trainer? And I was like, yes. You know, I was like, why not? You know? And then you find out that you have this brain that can do a lot of different things if you challenge it.
[00:10:29] Amy Climer: Oh, that's cool.
[00:10:30] Nicole: Right. So I taught SAP software all during the thing. But anyways, we were going to go to Raleigh on this thing and be all masked up and gloved up and do all these things to go talk to these people in person to get distributed computers or whatever. But we went to a place that was a restaurant in Raleigh and the gal was like James Beard Chef. I wish I could think of her name right now, but like she had done exactly what you said. She had put a tent out front and she figured out how to put stuff out on a table, and then she'd hold up a sign, said number 12, and then you pulled up, got your pack thing, and went on. I mean, she was genius, right?
[00:11:04] Yeah, so good. So good. All right, so should people feel a sense of urgency about innovating? I mean, the first chapter in your book says you need to innovate now. So why should we have this sense of urgency?
[00:11:17] Amy Climer: Yeah, I think, you don't need to freak out about it, but I do think you need to understand how innovation works, and that's the biggest problem that I see with my clients and just business owners that I talk to, is they get that it's important. But they don't really know how to do it. Or they say, they're like, oh yeah, yeah, innovation's important to us. But then I ask them, what are you doing to be innovative? And they actually can't answer that question. And I ask them, what's your process? What's the creative process you use? And they look at me like, I have two heads. I don't know what you mean. Um,
[00:11:49] Nicole: We in a room and spitball things on a flip chart. Yeah.
[00:11:51] Amy Climer: Yeah, and there's more to it than that. And so I think that if anything, there's an urgency to learn the process, learn how to be creative. That's what I see the real issue.
[00:12:04] Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. And so, leaders sit down, they put together their budget for the year, and then what strategies will make this budget happen? And I think the creativity strategy, being deliberate, is probably MIA. Okay. So, Amy, you work with people to incorporate this into their daily rounds, their yearly strategy. How do you incorporate that in?
[00:12:29] Amy Climer: So the work that I do is I usually come in and we start off with a training and then if, depending on the organization, might do some long term consulting with them, you know, whether it's, six months or a year or two years. But in that initial training, what I'm doing is teaching them this process, and I lay this out in the book and we can get into it if you want.
[00:12:48] Nicole: I want to.
[00:12:49] Amy Climer: All right, let's do it. So what I figured out, and I did this research oh gosh, probably finished it like 2016, so about 10 years ago. And I identified three elements that teams need if they want to be creative together. And this was answering that initial question I had from that botched brainstorm session. And I wanted to know why are some teams creative and some aren't? And so I figured out there's these three elements and we can get into them. And I have a visual for those of you who are watching on
[00:13:20] Nicole: Oh, so good!
[00:13:22] Amy Climer: So it's basically a simple Venn diagram. Let me pull this out. Looks like this. So Venn diagram, this is the Deliberate Creative Teams.
[00:13:30] Three things. You need clear sense of team purpose, strong team dynamics, and you need to know and use a creative process. Some of these maybe are fairly obvious, like we talk about purpose all the time. I feel like, you know, collectively in the
[00:13:47] Nicole: Right. Mission and all those.
[00:13:49] Amy Climer: Exactly, right? Now the difference is this is the team purpose. 'Cause I focus a lot on teams. There's kind of that organizational level, but then teams are really what make up the work of an organization. And a lot of times there's a very clear mission or vision or purpose, whatever the word they're using there for the organization, but then not for the team. And so it's important to identify that.
[00:14:13] Nicole: And so just to, just let me pop something in there real quick. So you mean there's the sales team, operations, marketing, finance, so those teams, right? So you, you really, every team needs to have their own team purpose. I absolutely love that.
[00:14:30] Amy Climer: Yeah. And it doesn't have to be this like beautifully crafted statement, but just something that team members know. Why are we getting together every week or every other week, or, and what are the things that are in our lane and not in our lane? And when you know your purpose, it helps you make better decisions. So team purpose of all of these, it's probably the simplest, maybe the most straightforward one.
[00:14:55] And then there's team dynamics, which the three that really come out maybe as most important for creativity is trust that we have at least a moderate level of trust with each other. And I trust that I can throw ideas out on the table and I'm not going to get smacked down like I did in that meeting where the guy was yelling at me.
[00:15:14] So trust, communication, obviously we need to be able to communicate well internal to the team as well as external. So if we're only doing one or the other, it's imbalanced, but we need to be able to do both. So trust, communication, and then a type of conflict called creative abrasion.
[00:15:32] Nicole: Ooh,
[00:15:33] Amy Climer: I love this term.
[00:15:34] Nicole: Me too!
[00:15:35] Amy Climer: Yeah. Yeah. It's a really cool term. It comes from this guy Jerry Hirshberg, who was put in charge of Nissan, of the US Nissan. When Nissan came to the United States in the eighties, there was this merging of like Japanese engineering with American ingenuity. And as you can imagine, there were a lot of culture clashes. Like they couldn't even agree on what appropriate attire was to wear to work. But what this guy, Jerry Hirshberg realized is, we need to be able to have disagreements about the work and that if we're too polite and we're not getting into it, then we end up making bad decisions. And that's called group think. We want to avoid that. But on the flip side, if we're always in disagreement, that's not helpful either. Or if we're in disagreement around our culture or our personalities or identities... also not helpful. We want low conflict around personality and identities, but we want some conflict around the work. Like, should we do this or not? That's a good thing to get into a debate about. And if a team has a high level of trust and they communicate well, that works fine. And there's not any ill will there with
[00:16:51] Nicole: Right. And it sounds like you gotta leave your ego out in the traffic, to get run over. Because that's the part where I think the trust kind of withers, it's like, well, I think Amy's out to get me. You know? And that's like your ego talking to you, saying, be careful, or whatever. And so you need that ego out and then it's no problem. I think this and Amy's like, no, Nicole. Think about it like this. She doesn't mean it personally. It's not a personal attack, which I think that guy was, sounded like he was personally trying to tell you ladies that the idea was stupid or something. We tried that before, you know? Okay. All right. So I love what you're saying about you gotta have communication, you gotta have trust. And then the third one, tell me the third one again.
[00:17:33] Amy Climer: Creative abrasion.
[00:17:35] Nicole: Okay, everybody write that down. Start your meeting: today, we're going to have creative abrasion. See what happens.
[00:17:42] Amy Climer: I know it's such a good term. So this, that all falls in this like team dynamic circle. The third circle of the Venn diagram is team creative process.
[00:17:50] Nicole: Hmm.
[00:17:51] Amy Climer: And this is the, what's the process that you're using to actually be more creative together? And this is where most teams are like, wait, what? Process? What does that mean? And so there's this process that I teach called Creative Problem Solving. And it is just that. It's how to solve problems creatively and look at them from a new angle, a new perspective, and. So that's a big thing that I get into in the training is we go through this Venn diagram, get into the process, and then sometimes if needed, then I'll work with them long term to really infuse this and implement this in an organization.
[00:18:28] Nicole: Yeah. Can you tell us a story of like a team you worked with? What's rolled through my brain a couple times, and I don't know if it's correct or not, but didn't you work with the city of Asheville?
[00:18:39] Amy Climer: I did.
[00:18:40] Nicole: That's what I remember. Yeah. And I bet you, you really helped them, and I don't know, were they fabulous because it was Asheville? I don't know. I mean, so I'm curious maybe there's a story you could tell us about how you took them through a problem.
[00:18:54] Amy Climer: Sure. Yeah. Yeah, I facilitated the City of Asheville retreat in 2024, February, 2024. And this is really random because Asheville, because it's the city council and there's all sorts of rules about transparency. The entire two day retreat was recorded and it was live streamed on YouTube and it's still there, which is very weird for a retreat. But that's what we did. And actually it, it was fine. It worked out well. Anyway, my job was, I'm focused on the, I think there were just nine council members, plus a few staff were there, so maybe 15 people total. And, I introduced this to them, this Venn diagram, and then we used the creative process to kind of walk through these strategies that they had identified in previous years and they were still working towards. And they ended up, I think, making an adjustment of adding a new strategy and changing one or something. And when I work with teams, it's experiential and it's like we're getting into it. And so we had these posters on the wall that I had pre-printed, that walked through all these questions for each of the different strategies to really get to what are some new ideas of how we want to approach this. And it was really great. Like the conversations that the council members had with each other were high quality, like they were really getting into some good conversations. It's a little bit weird, I think with the city council, and I'm guessing it's like this in most places because everyone's elected into their position. I think in the grand
[00:20:36] Nicole: Nobody chose these people based on synergy or personality or skillset. It's all just this elected thing. Oh my goodness.
[00:20:46] Amy Climer: Yeah. Like they and so because they're elected, they're also thinking about reelection. Which, because this was a live stream that kind of in some ways changed the dynamics a little bit. And there was moments where I'm like, wait, why are you saying that? And then I realized, oh, they're getting a sound bite for the paper. Okay.
[00:21:05] Nicole: Right, right, right. So it might not have been as pure a process as you wanted it.
[00:21:10] Amy Climer: Exactly. Exactly. But in the end, there was a lot of clarity and that was one of the things they were really going for, is they wanted more clarity. Especially the staff, because the council comes up with a big picture plan and then the staff's job is to implement the plan. So they got more clarity and had some new ideas, some new perspectives. I don't remember an exact idea that came from it, but you could go watch the YouTube video!
[00:21:33] Nicole: Yeah.
[00:21:35] Amy Climer: All 16 hours of it.
[00:21:37] Nicole: Okay. Very good. Two day. It was a two day retreat, by the way. All right. Yeah. Okay. Well, tell us then a story of maybe more of a corporate kind of thing where you got in there and you worked with the team. They had a problem, and then bang, they figured it out through your process.
[00:21:53] Amy Climer: So I recently worked with a global manufacturing company that makes all sorts of products, a lot of chemical engineering. They make bleaches, they make soaps, they make all the soaps that are used at McDonald's you know, behind the scenes like the dish soap and that kind of thing. It was a great company. I really enjoyed working with them. And they had two plants that I work with in Greensboro, North Carolina and Joliet, Illinois. And I worked at the Greensboro plant first and we did a full day training with about 50 of their staff. And the day before I said, I want to come in and tour the plant. For one, I just think manufacturing is so interesting.
[00:22:29] Nicole: Oh my gosh. Isn't it genius when you see how all of these things came together?
[00:22:35] Amy Climer: Yeah. And then I also knew it would help me do a better job if I understood this. So anyway, we're touring the plant and one of their challenges that they had, the reason they brought me in, is the plant as a whole is maybe at a 50% productivity level. Which means that of the potential productivity they could get, they're only at about 50%. So, I was like, okay, well I'm guessing a hundred percent's not realistic. What is realistic? And the person I was working with said, probably about 80% would be like, dang awesome. Because, you know, there's always going to be moments where the plant's down, like a line is down or
[00:23:15] Nicole: The soap machine is broken and we have the electrician coming to work on it.
[00:23:19] Amy Climer: Exactly right.
[00:23:20] Nicole: Right.
[00:23:22] Amy Climer: I said, okay, what if your plant got 10% more productive, went from 50 to 60%, what difference would that make for your company? And she's like, oh, we would make at least $10 million more a year.
[00:23:39] Nicole: Wow.
[00:23:39] Amy Climer: Oh. Okay. This is a huge deal. So anyway, we're touring around the plant and we get to this one machine and it's this massive machine, like bigger than my house. And she is telling me, she said, this machine is our biggest problem. It's 30 years old. No one else in the country has this machine anymore.
[00:24:01] Nicole: Right. We lost the manual.
[00:24:04] Amy Climer: Exactly right. The manual's, uh, long gone and she said, anytime it breaks, we have to get parts on eBay because they don't make parts for this machine anymore.
[00:24:14] And I'm thinking, oh my gosh. And of course, replacing this machine is like, a minimum of $10 million, probably more.
[00:24:20] Nicole: Right. But, we got all our eggs in this big machine basket.
[00:24:23] Amy Climer: Yeah. And so she's telling me about the parts issue and I looked at her, I said, oh, well it sounds like you all should get a 3D printer so you can make your own parts. And she looked at me like, oh my gosh, yes, that's a great idea. Uh, so I'm not sure if they implemented that or not, but we then went into the training and in my head I'm thinking, okay, $10 million a year if we can get this more productive. And they had a number of different challenges we were focused on that the group, the 50 people were divided into smaller groups. And by the end of the day. They probably had about 500 new ideas that they could implement and now Okay.
[00:25:07] Nicole: And the CEO and the CFO are in the corner going like this.
[00:25:12] Amy Climer: Exactly right and we counted up the ideas, I can't remember the exact number, but it was somewhere like four or 500
[00:25:18] Nicole: That's so exciting.
[00:25:20] Amy Climer: It was so cool. And a lot of those ideas might not have been that great or creative, but let's say 10% of those and so we have like 40 or 50 ideas that they didn't have before. These are like actionable implementable. These are going to save or make money. I mean, that's amazing to me that this group of 50 people could do that. And actually the idea part, like we were actually generating ideas that was about an hour of the whole day.
[00:25:45] Nicole: Isn't that something?
[00:25:46] Amy Climer: And then of course they learn the process so they can repeat that on their own and Yeah.
[00:25:51] Nicole: Yeah. And so I, I said just a minute ago, that is so exciting and we're excited. If you're listening to us, you're like, yep, you girls are excited. But here's the thing. It's like that is a vibrant culture. 'Cause here's the thing. There's a dude or a dudette who works at this place, who is so sick of this machine.
[00:26:08] Amy Climer: Yeah.
[00:26:09] Nicole: And so sick of the same thing coming back around. It's like Groundhog Day for that person. And then boom, we finally get in a room. We bring all of our genius together and out come these ideas. I mean, it's going to take that 20 year worker or two year worker, but take that person and just energize them like there's no tomorrow. Now there's hope, joy, excitement, and that's what a vibrant culture is. So, I mean, creativity and vibrant culture go together like peanut butter and jelly. So exciting. Yes. So good.
[00:26:40] Announcer: Are you ready to build your vibrant culture? Bring Nicole Greer to speak to your leadership team, conference or organization to help them with their strategies, systems, and smarts to increase clarity, accountability, energy, and results. Your organization will get LIT from within. Email her at nicole@vibrantculture.com and be sure to check out Nicole's TEDx talk at vibrantculture.com.
[00:27:09] Nicole: Okay, so you took 'em through the process. So we've got this big machine. So what is the process for going through the creative thing? Now listen, you gotta go out and get your copy. Right here, right? _Deliberate Creative Teams: How to Lead for Innovative Results_. All right, so we gotta get your copy so you get all the deets, but at a high level, what is the process?
[00:27:27] Amy Climer: Yeah. Okay. I have another little visual. Yeah. So, for those of you not virtually, this is basically a four stage circular process. It's called creative problem solving. I did not invent this. This came out initially, the late forties? It's been refined in research since then. What's so fascinating is there's loads of research studies that say if you follow this process, you'll be more creative. So this isn't just me, little lonely consultant saying it's a good idea. There's, you know,
[00:28:00] Nicole: We're telling you!
[00:28:01] Amy Climer: Of Yeah, exactly. So that to me is really exciting. I feel like it's really important that my work is research based, because it just gives it some, validity and, yeah. All right, so here's the four stage process. Now this is based on how we as humans naturally solve problems. So, as I walk through this, you might realize you've done this process a lot. But there's a little challenge that we each have, which I'll talk about in a minute.
[00:28:28] All right? Stage one, clarify. What is the problem? What's going on? You know, if we were to take this same issue with this big machine. Really clarifying what's the problem with the machine? And it's not just that it's 30 years old, there's more depth to it. And so this might be where you go around and you interview the people using the machine. Maybe you find somebody who is part of building it and you talk to them and you really want to dig into the problem. This is a place I see a lot of organizations just skim past. All right, so clarifying the problem.
[00:29:03] From there, you'll come up with some sort of question that helps you move forward to the next stage, which is ideate. So then you generate ideas for that particular challenge or that question. For instance, with this machine, your question could be something like, how might we keep this machine but prevent it from breaking as much? Or how might we replace this machine? So those are two really
[00:29:29] Nicole: It's kind of like the thesis question when you wrote your paper. Right? So, I'll just tell y'all a quick story. So when I got I don't have a PhD, I just have a master's degree, but I had to write this thing called a cornerstone --I think that's what it was called-- project. And Dr. Pamela Ey, and if you see me on YouTube, Dr. Pamela Ey, and so I would bring my thesis question to her for my paper and she would say, try again. And I'd say, oh, okay.
[00:29:57] Amy Climer: And it? No more feedback?
[00:29:59] Nicole: Right. Well, I mean, a little bit, but it was a little, I, I, you know, she was a different gal. But anyway, so I would go away. I would come back, I would go away, come back. Finally, like the sixth time, she's like, that's a good one. Do that. I said, okay, so, but here is the thing, if you don't have a clear question, you'll be all over the place. And that's what she was trying to teach me. And so I got myself narrowed enough that at least I could drill down one hole, instead of drilling 70 holes an inch deep, I went down a mile on one question. Yeah.
[00:30:31] Amy Climer: I love it. That's a great example. And that's it. It's like you want to make sure, I think, two things. One, the question is actually asking what the problem is. 'Cause sometimes you don't clarify and then you're solving for the wrong problem. And then you also want to make sure, like you said, that it's specific enough. All right.
[00:30:48] Nicole: Focus, focus people.
[00:30:50] Amy Climer: Yeah, clarify. The next one is ideate. So generating ideas to address that particular question. And most teams do what I did with that team early in my career where, Maria has the idea and Phil shoots it down or Maria has the problem. Phil shoots it down. And the problem is we were brainstorming, we were doing a classic brainstorming approach.
[00:31:12] Nicole: Mm-hmm.
[00:31:13] Amy Climer: There's all this research that shows brainstorming might not be the best method.
[00:31:19] Nicole: Don't miss that.
[00:31:20] Amy Climer: Yeah. And, but it's what we all do. 'Cause it's what we all know. And this technique came out in 1948, this little book called _Your Creative Power_ that was written by Alex Osborn. He was one of the, you know, the 'Ad Men'?
[00:31:32] Nicole: Wasn't he advertising? Yeah!
[00:31:33] Amy Climer: Yes, yes. Oh my gosh. I'm so impressed you knew that. Yeah. The firm BBDO, which still exists. He was the O in BBDO. So Alex Osborn comes up with brainstorming and the book basically goes viral, as we would say today. And we are still using this technique-- but there's a lot of other techniques. So when I do these trainings, we don't do any brainstorming. We actually use some different ideation techniques which generate lots of ideas.
[00:32:01] All right, so you get a lot of ideas. Let's say you're like that group that I was working with, you have 500 ideas that's a lot. Maybe you only have 50, it doesn't matter. But try to get past five. Keep pushing yourself to see what else you can come up with. And then you take the best ideas, there's an evaluation process. You take those best ideas and then you develop them further. 'Cause I like to say that when an idea first comes out of our mouth, it fits on a post-it note and it is just not developed enough. So we have to spend some time looking at what if we did this, what might it look like? What would be good about it? What wouldn't? And then from there you end up implementing. That's the fourth stage. So clarify, ideate, develop, implement. And with implement, I really encourage clients, how small can you start? Right? Like maybe it's going to cost a million dollars
[00:32:53] Nicole: This pilot thing? Yeah. Smaller than a Pilot, Yeah.
[00:32:56] Amy Climer: Pilot, prototype, whatever you want to call it. But start small and just do a little testing and see if it'll work. And then, I mean, it's a cycle, so you go through this over and over again.
[00:33:07] Nicole: Mm-hmm.
[00:33:08] Amy Climer: So this is the creative problem solving cycle, which sits inside this yellow circle here in the Deliberate Creative Teams model. The team creative process.
[00:33:17] Nicole: Don't you love a model, people, it helps you learn.
[00:33:19] Amy Climer: I do love models.
[00:33:21] Nicole: I do too. I love all your models. All right. And so the thing that I'm picking up from that last model is that the bottom triangle or square turned on its edge is where you say develop. And I think that, in my experience or what's hitting me, I don't know if it's true, but what feels right is that like we don't even play with develop. We ideate. We decide like maybe some people change out the word develop for decide, like that won't work or that will definitely work. I love the develop part. And then, and then we'll go over here and we'll get her rolling, but I think that people confuse develop with decide.
[00:34:00] Amy Climer: I think you're right. And then what I think happens is, well, sometimes we shoot down an idea too soon, you know, 'cause it only is a sentence or two. It fits on a post-it note. So spend a little time talking about it, and there's a technique in the book that is a great tool for a 15 minute conversation you could have to start developing an idea. And it's a way to decide, especially those ideas that you think aren't going to work it, it has some questions that helps you, kind of flesh it out a little more to be like, okay, yeah this actually might work. Or you realize, oh, I thought this was a good idea, but this is going to be a mess. And one thing that's really cool that I've seen is. Often there's a split, right? Some people love an idea, some people hate it. And by going through that developed stage, it can sometimes turn the resistors into advocates, and that's kind of exciting.
[00:34:59] Nicole: Yeah, well, I've got so many questions about how this meshes with change management. For example, tonight I'm going to be teaching change management for UNC Charlotte. And I need to change my whole PowerPoint deck and promote Amy's book, which I'm going to do to all these professionals that'll be in this professional studies organizational class or whatever. But people have resistance to change just like they have to creativity. What, in your mind is the connection between doing change management and being deliberate with creativity? How do you put those together? Or do you?
[00:35:29] Amy Climer: I mean, yeah. Oh, absolutely I do. I think you're right. There is a very tight connection and hopefully most change management is somewhat creative. You know, you're leading towards a more creative result and certainly being creative requires change. And I think that is, in part, the hard part about it. It does require us to make some changes in our lives and I actually don't believe that people are resistant to change. I think
[00:35:58] Nicole: Listen up, people.
[00:36:00] Amy Climer: I think most of us have made changes in our life on purpose, like with excitement. You know, we've gotten married, we've moved, we've changed jobs, we went on a vacation to a place we've never been to you know, these are all
[00:36:12] Nicole: The paint color in the dining room, seven times, all these things.
[00:36:17] Amy Climer: Oh, I love it. Um, I think what it is is when we're told we have to change and we have no opportunity to be part of it, that's when we get resistant. Oh, hold on. Don't tell me what to do. I'm going to dig in. And so, I think that really all stages of these. When you bring in the team, you bring in the organization of the entire process, you are going to get more buy-in.
[00:36:40] And maybe not everyone's a hundred percent, but you know what if everyone's 80%? That's amazing.
[00:36:45] Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. So, so maybe frame that in your little leadership brain that creativity and change management, they're like kissing cousins. You need, maybe the ADKAR training, Prosci training on the change. But then you also need to have Amy Climer come in and help you do that and kind of meld this together. And I agree with you. I think it's this thing where we're all adults at work. You're changing this. You're not telling me why, and I didn't have any say in it, but it affects my job that I do 40 hours plus a week. That's a big deal to me. All right. I love that.
[00:37:17] Okay, so the next thing I wanted to ask you about was you say in the book that you have to clear a path for creativity. And I really love how you said that because you have to tell your team like-- I have a mentor, Amy, her name's Anne, and she says, Nicole, it's really good you have all these intentions, but you gotta give your intentions attention. And I'm like, yes, ma'am. And so we could intend, we could buy the book, we could read it, we could look at the models, but then you have to give that intention to be creative attention. So that's what I think you're talking about in chapter eight, how to clear the path. So how does a leader git 'er going?
[00:37:54] Amy Climer: I'm, I'm so glad you brought that up. One of the things that just breaks my heart and I sometimes see with clients is, we're in this ideation session, or maybe at this point, we're kind of evaluating the ideas and someone says, you know what? This is a great idea, but we can't do this. It's going to be so much work and I don't have the capacity to do it. And I think that one of the biggest mistakes leaders make is they don't stop doing things. And so there's certain things in your organization that you've probably been doing forever, 5, 10, 20 years, that maybe you don't need to do anymore. Or maybe you can change how you do them and maybe there's a way to streamline them. And especially now with AI, maybe there's a way to make this more productive so you free up time for some other things. And I think that's one piece, you know, stopping certain things, whether it's an initiative or a product or project or whatever it is, so that you can make space for something else.
[00:38:56] And the other thing that's kind of in alignment with that is thinking about meetings. I had a phone call, it's been a while ago now, but I had a phone call with someone who worked for the US Department of Education. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon and we were talking about doing some work together and she made this comment and she said, Amy, this is my 15th meeting today.
[00:39:19] Nicole: It's insanity. It's insanity out there.
[00:39:22] Amy Climer: Fifteen?
[00:39:24] Nicole: Forget it.
[00:39:24] Amy Climer: I don't know about you Nicole, but I use this tool called Loom a lot with my assistant.
[00:39:29] Nicole: Oh my gosh. Loom. Everybody write that down.
[00:39:32] Amy Climer: Do you use this?
[00:39:34] Nicole: Yes. Yes. And there's another one called BombBomb. There's a whole bunch of them.
[00:39:38] Amy Climer: Yeah, and it's this very, very simple video tool where I can record a video and send it out and I don't have to upload anything.
[00:39:45] Nicole: You don't have to write anything down or use punctuation.
[00:39:48] Amy Climer: Yeah. By using a tool like that, I can have fewer meetings and I can often get the information to the person quicker. And so I think just taking a look. What can you let go of, what can you change so that not everyone's at every meeting? And are there some products or projects that you can sunset because that will then free up more time for your team members to be creative. 'Cause it does take time.
[00:40:14] Nicole: Oh, absolutely. And I just had a gentleman on the podcast and he was all about innovation as well, and he just talked about the old Google story of 20% time, just how Google told people, was it 10% time or 20% time? You probably know.
[00:40:30] Amy Climer: Well, actually, it's funny you say this. I was just at a conference last week. It was the Southern Oregon University Creativity Conference and--
[00:40:37] Nicole: What?
[00:40:39] Amy Climer: Yeah, it's this very unique conference. I sort of joke it's the most uncreative creativity conference because mostly what's happening is all these researchers come together and they're just sharing their research. And so they care a lot about creativity and they might be doing creativity, but there's not creativity within their presentations, which is sort of funny. But the content of what they're talking about is really high quality. And went to one session that was bringing up, it brought up the Google, I think it was 20% time.
[00:41:09] Nicole: I think it's 20%. Yeah.
[00:41:11] Amy Climer: And it was like, where is this now? Like I don't think they're still doing that. Or if they are, they're certainly not talking about it. And it may be just kind of like woven in, maybe not as explicit as it used to be.
[00:41:23] Nicole: Oh but explicit's good, I think.
[00:41:26] Amy Climer: I agree. I agree. So I'm not sure if they're still doing it as much. I think it's a great idea though. I don't know that it always works. I think it's something you'd have to really protect for it to work well.
[00:41:38] Nicole: Mm-hmm. Yeah. When I first, when he was talking about it, he was like, well, that's how they came up with Google Earth and the Google Mail and the Google Docs, and the Google everything. And I was like, wow what would happen to your company? But I love what Amy said about what do you need to stop doing?
[00:41:52] Amy Climer: Yeah.
[00:41:53] Nicole: Because a lot of organizations do hold on to process and procedure and products, like you said, things that we're spending time on and it's gotta go. We haven't even looked closely at it in five years or whatever the thing is. And we could put Amy to work inside of our organization. That's what we need to do. Okay. All right. So. Here's my last question. How does an individual's creativity affect the team creativity? That question, I think is really rich because it's good to say, oh, we're all going to get training, but we're all like, is George coming to the training? Is he going to be part of this because George is a problem. Don't invite him, please. You know, or whatever. There's always like a curmudgeon rolling around who's a smee of something and we can't get rid of him. So what's the truth about that? An individual's creativity that affects the team creativity.
[00:42:44] Amy Climer: I love this. I actually, I really like the curmudgeons.
[00:42:50] Nicole: Yeah. They're kind of uniquely genius.
[00:42:53] Amy Climer: Yeah, I, in fact, this manufacturing company that I worked with recently there was a curmudgeon there and he's in his sixties, he's been working at the company since he was 20 something, so he is 40 years in and gray hair, he is got this like big mustache and, you just look at him and you know, oh boy, man is this guy, you know, is what's going to happen, right?
[00:43:16] I can't tell you Nicole, how many times that person, whoever it is-- 'cause it seems like every organization has one. They come up to me afterwards and they say, okay, I had really low expectations. This was excellent. And they're in. And I think the thing about the curmudgeon is, and in fact if we go back to that story at the beginning with Phil, where, he is like, oh no, we did that in 1985. We can't do it.
[00:43:42] Nicole: Right.
[00:43:43] Amy Climer: I later learned that Phil and I think anyone who makes that comment, Phil meant well. He was so worried that we were going to implement this idea that he was afraid it wouldn't work.
[00:43:56] Nicole: Yeah, don't make a mistake, ladies.
[00:43:58] Amy Climer: Exactly! Right? He didn't want a mistake to be made and waste time and energy and money and all this. So he meant really well. And I think that's one of the best things that teams can do is understand that even the person shooting down ideas has positive intentions. So, okay, that doesn't really answer the question, but that's just an aside. I think it's important to say.
[00:44:21] Nicole: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:44:22] Amy Climer: But I think that individual creativity is helpful. What's interesting is that when you go through the creative problem solving process and you're understanding the elements of Deliberate Creative Teams, individual creativity isn't as important. If you have this whole process and the team is following it together, I think what happens is the individual creativity goes up, as the collective creativity goes up. And most of us, most professionals who work in corporations or nonprofits or wherever, we don't have enough opportunity to stretch that creative muscle. And I believe deep in my soul-- and again, this is backed by research-- that we have incredible potential as humans to be creative. So if people feel they're not creative, well, first of all they are. But I also think they have this ability to become more creative just by following this process. And I think if my team back early in my career was using this process, Phil would've known we're going to generate ideas and then we're going to evaluate the ideas. And he would've known there was space to evaluate the ideas. So he could just chill, he could relax, he could be present. And when the time came to evaluate the ideas, he would have the place to do it.
[00:45:47] But never in my life have I worked on a team where there was a conversation about how we were going to be creative together. And usually, there's not even a conversation about how to brainstorm. We just go in, assuming everyone knows how to do it. When, if we just said, okay, we're going to generate ideas for five minutes, and then we're going to spend 10 minutes evaluating the ideas. Well, Phil could have relaxed and he would be like, all right, I'm all in. And I think that the curmudgeons, they get this bad rap because they mean well, but they don't know there's a space for them. And so they jump in, they get scared in a way.
[00:46:23] Nicole: Right, and then we're like, he's a pessimist, and we start labeling, and then we're off on a whole 'nother adventure, not called deliberate creativity. Oh my goodness. Well, it has been so good to have you on the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast because, don't miss what she just said. She said, this person gets more creative and the other person kind of comes along for the ride. The team rises and it lights up, it becomes vibrant. There's all this juice moving around. Oh, so good. All right, everybody, please go out and buy this. _Deliberate Creative Teams. How to Lead for Innovative Results._ That's what you need. Work the process and get your three circles together, your team purpose, get all that going. I think this will change people for the good. And you probably need Amy to come in and get you off on the right foot. Yeah, she's a pro. She knows she's talking about.
[00:47:16] Amy Climer: Well, thank you Nicole. I really enjoy our conversation. I love your questions, so they're spot on.
[00:47:22] Nicole: Okay, well, well, oh. People are going, does she have one final quote, one nugget to leave us with? Do you have a nugget? You could just drop this nugget in here. Here's what I'm saying.
[00:47:33] Amy Climer: All right, here's the final nugget. This has become my mantra in life, especially when it comes to creativity and it's this: be deliberate to be creative. It will not happen by accident. Your team won't magically become creative unless you do the work. So be deliberate to be creative.
[00:47:52] Nicole: So good. All right. Here's what you do. You call Amy. It's on her website. It's Climer Consulting. Do I have my story right?
[00:48:00] Amy Climer: Yep. Climerconsulting.com and Climer is spelled C-L-I-M-E-R. No B.
[00:48:08] Nicole: Very good. And she's on the LinkedIn. Put Amy Climer in there. She's on the Instagram. It's her name and she's on Facebook at Climer Consulting. And also she's hanging on on the X. Okay. But we're not sure why they call it X. I don't know how
[00:48:22] Amy Climer: I mean the account's there, I don't really do much with it, but you know. If that's the best way to reach out, that's fine.
[00:48:30] Nicole: That's right, 'cause she does get an email that says somebody said something. Okay, good. And then of course her book is available on Amazon and you want to get the book. And last thing, tell us, can you give us a minute on Climer cards? Another resource you have? Okay. This was your first major creative tool you put together and it dovetails. Okay.
[00:48:50] Amy Climer: Absolutely. So I created this deck of cards, they're called Climer cards, and I created this back in 2012. Actually, they were funded on a Kickstarter campaign, which is a really cool experience. And so they're the size and shape of a typical deck of playing cards. And I'm going to show you these, but also explain them. So on one side, there are all of these images of just different pictures. They're all watercolor paintings I did. So there's an iron and a earthworm and a eyeball and a cloud, and elephant and there's all sorts of different drawings. And the way they work is you spread them out on the table and you ask the team a question.
[00:49:32] And so you might say, maybe you want to get started talking about your team purpose, and so you spread out the cards and you say, pick a card that represents what you think our team purpose is. And then everybody picks a card. It doesn't matter which card they picked, they pick a card and then they go around and share and say, well, I picked the birds on the wire because, whatever the reason is of how this image is a metaphor for team purpose, and it doesn't matter what card they picked. What really is helpful is the conversation that comes from it.
[00:50:03] Nicole: That's right.
[00:50:04] Amy Climer: Any question you could think of, you just start it with, select a card that represents, and then
[00:50:10] Nicole: And you'll be shocked what people say because they are innately creative.
[00:50:16] Amy Climer: Yeah, and what's interesting is it helps people focus, it helps them get more specific, and they do go deeper than if you ask the same question without the deck of cards. So
[00:50:28] Nicole: Yeah,
[00:50:29] Amy Climer: Yeah, they're really cool.
[00:50:30] Nicole: And FYI, we're visual, we're kinesthetic, we're audio, we're all three. So Dr. Pamela Ey exposed to us that whole thing was debunked about how you have a preference. You use all three. Is that what you understand too, Dr. Amy Climer? Yeah. Yeah. See these doctors, they're important to have in your life. All right, well, it's been another amazing episode. Please call Amy and get yourself going. Get innovative, stay in business. That's good advice, and be an awesome leader. Your people will thank you. Thanks Amy.
[00:51:00] Amy Climer: Thank you, Nicole.
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